36
PLEASE seek professional assistance immediately.
There are two main issues with exhaust that can make you feel ill like this: Carbon Dioxide and Carbon Monoxide. Both are harmful, if not fatal, if the percentage present in the air you breath is too high. You DESPERATELY need to install a carbon monoxide detector, and contact your local housing authority. ...
35
Bathroom vent fans must be vented to the out of doors. Venting this fan into the attic is simply asking for problems. The excessive moisture will cause condensation on the roof members, insulation and eventually cause mold. It is never OK to vent directly into an attic even if the attic itself is vented.
So, the simple correct answer is NO. Your friends ...
20
You have two big issues here.
First is that you have a serious risk of venting sewer gasses into your home. This is why drain vents open above the roof line or use one-way air admittance valves. This is likely to be unpleasant and possibly unhealthy.
Second is that a drain vent is typically too small and too moist to properly vent a bathroom fan. Your fan ...
19
See this question. The long and short of it is that a vent fan, whether for a bathroom, a range hood or a clothes dryer, is normally removing very humid air from the room. If that air is not exhausted beyond the waterproof "skin" of your house (up through the roof beyond the shingles, or out the side of the house beyond the siding or brick), then you are not ...
17
Since yours vents into your attic space I would never use it either. Probably the biggest use of a bathroom vent fan is to help keep mold down in bathrooms, especially in humid areas. Lots of lawsuits against housing tracks have happened in humid areas where builders just put the cheapest fan in and a couple years later the residents find mold. Most ...
10
If your bathroom doesn't have a window and no fan then that all that moist air is going to create a perfect environment for mold and other unpleasant things.
Also, excessive humidity will probably make it's way into your walls and I you have a wooden house then it will start to rot.
That's why it's a bad idea for a vent to exhaust to the attic. It's just ...
10
What you show in the picture is known as a One-way Breather Vent (there are also two-way). Its intended purpose is to provide pressure equalization throughout the roof system and also provides ventilation for the insulation system.
In some buildings that do not have a vapor barrier (even some that do), pressure changes inside the building can be forced ...
10
Although not an answer different from the others but I'd like to point out, and considering its importance in this case, it probably can be tolerated in an answer of its own rather than buried somewhere among comments: on your way home today, not tomorrow or next week but today, pass a reliable hardware store in your neighborhood and buy a CO detector and ...
9
The National Electrical Code (NEC) does not require bathroom exhaust fans to be GFCI protected, however, there is this bit in Article 110.
110.3 Examination, Identification, Installation, and Use of Equipment.
(B) Installation and Use. Listed or labeled equipment shall be installed and used in accordance with any instructions included in the
listing ...
9
As others have said you don't want to let humid air into your attic space. You will not only get mold as others have mentioned, but the moisture will reduce the effectiveness of the insulation in your attic.
While I understand not wanting to have a vent on your roof, I would recommend either getting a low unobtrusive roof vent on the back slope of the roof ...
9
Many apartment owners wire the fan and light to a single switch. The reason I have done it is to limit moisture build up. Not all renters are responsible enough to turn on the fan while using the shower. Failing to do so can cause moisture to build up and allow mold to form.
8
There more restricted the airflow is, the more noise there will be. All contributing factors to noise:
Diameter of duct (larger is better)
Overall length (shorter is better)
Number of turns/bends (fewer is better)
Radius of turns (larger is better)
Size reducers used (no reducers is better)
Type of duct (smooth, rigid is better than flexible)
Type of ...
7
That must be one powerful fan to require a dedicated 20 amp line. WOW. The silver wire you see is probably a tinned copper wire. (solder on the end of a stranded copper wire). To connect a 12 and 14 AWG set of wires together, you should use a yellow wirenut. If in fact the tinned conductor is smaller than a 14 AWG, you could use an orange wirenut. If you ...
7
Seek medical attention immediately, and have the doctors provide a report on your health and diagnosis. Find out from them how dangerous it is to continue to expose yourself and your family to those fumes.
After that, you have a few options, you might try one or more of them in parallel depending on the report itself:
Provide copies of them to your ...
7
The only good solution here is to run independent duct lines to the exterior, as should've been done initially. It's a violation of codes for good reason, as you've seen. Both ducts should be rigid or semi-rigid pipe, as appropriate.
Backflow preventers aren't the answer, because if multiple fans are running, and one is stronger, the other could be ...
6
The three pairs of wires correspond to the three functions. You should be able to find labels or a note in the manual explaining which is which, but for now I'll assume:
black/white: main light
red/white: fan
blue/white: night light
The green wire is a ground wire.
How you wire this up depends on what you have available. A 3-way switch will not help you ...
6
Moisture removal.
"Every bathroom requires an openable window that provides at least 1.5 square ft of air flow area when open – 2006 IRC [303.3] OR mechanical type ventilation: 50 CFM intermittent or 20 CFM continuous operation – 2006 IRC [303.3X]"
See this related thread for other comments: How do I refinish a bathroom ceiling after it got moldy and ...
6
If you accidentally broke the tab between the black (common) screws on the swtich, simply use two short pigtails off the supply line like this...
If you have two separate cables (one to the fan, and one to the light), then you'd wire it up like this...
And again if you've clipped the tab between the terminals, it will look like this...
Here is what the ...
6
I'm confused/surprised by the existence of the void, but if you've got the space, then go for it.
The only bit of mathematics to be concerned with is matching the cross section of the various sections of pipe.
6
No, at least not under the international residential code (IRC):
M1501.1 Outdoor Discharge
The air removed by every mechanical exhaust system shall be discharged to
the outdoors in accordance with Section M1506.3. Air shall not be
exhausted into an attic, soffit, ridge vent or crawl space.
And more specifically:
M1507.2 Recirculation of Air
...
5
Sometimes with stranded wire, they will tin the ends with solder. I would guess this is the case here since you're right that aluminum is not usually used. I think the only reason they do this is to keep the ends from fraying and keep it neat.
You can check for sure by stripping new ends.
I have never seen stranded aluminum, or anything less than 12awg ...
5
This is a very common problem. The person above who mentioned a condensation trap is right on the money. No matter how powerful a fan, how well insulated the duct, you are blowing warm, MOIST, air into cold air which makes that moisture in the air condense into water droplets.
A condensation trap, which can be as simple as a bit of a loop in the flexible ...
5
Sealing the vapor barrier
You'll want to seal the vapor barrier to the fan housing using an acoustic sealant like OSI® SC-170™, or similar product (you might have to do this from above). Just make sure the sealant is approved for use with vapor barrier, some sealants won't adhere well to the vapor barrier.
If there is enough plastic to lap up the side of ...
5
You could use a spray foam insulation like Great Stuff. It sticks to just about everything and expands to fill voids.
5
If you have access to the attic; and presumably the top of the bathroom fan, you may be able to follow the duct.
If you don't have access to the top side of the fan, you could remove the cover and take a peek inside. You should be able to get a glimpse of the outlet, which should allow you to determine if there's ducting attached.
In my house, the ...
5
No, this is not a code requirement for laundry rooms in dwelling units (at least in the 2012 IBC).
In fact, most dryers are essentially acting as exhaust fans when they run because they take air from the room and exhaust it outside.
5
(I'm an American living in Austria.)
My first thought was something related to the heating system too (although we're not heating yet in Vienna).
I would still call the Rauchfangkehrer (chimney sweeps). There should be a flyer in the entry area of your building for the one responsible for your area. In Vienna, the flyer is usually yellow with a stylized ...
5
The accumulated dust is going to have minimal affect its performance as a fan. But feel free to vacuum/brush it if that makes you happier. Lacking a description of the noise, it probably needs bearing lubrication.
In many apartments, the bathroom exhaust fan is most of the ventilation you get. Not running it may lead to mold problems due to excess moisture ...
5
The answer to your question depends on many exact details of your existing circumstances. Are you building anew, or are you modifying an existing construction? If modifying, do you have access to run new cables? Is power supplied at the fan location or must you draw power from one of the bathrooms?
The following diagram assumes power supplied at the fan ...
4
DO NOT VENT TO THE ATTIC. I speak from experience. While trying to sell my (town) house I discovered a mold problem in the attic. We had a bathroom venting to a duct that was just stapled to a roof joist. I knew this was there and monitored it over the course of the 5 years I occupied it. Of course, it was never a problem until we went to sell it, then ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
