22
First off, you misunderstand the intention of the extractor fan. It is not to remove hot air. It is to remove moisture from the air, and that's done to help protect against mold and mildew buildup. This is particularly important in bathrooms where the door is usually left shut.
(It still helps with open door bathrooms too but in those cases the ...
20
Calculating Cubic Feet
The first step in determining what size exhaust fan is needed, is to calculate the volume of the room. To do this, you'll simply multiply the length of the room times the width of the room time the height of the room.
Length = 10 ft.
Width = 8 ft.
Height = 8 ft.
10 ft. * 8 ft. * 8 ft. = 640 ft.3
Calculate Equivalent ...
19
TL;DR:
It is explicitly not to code to exhaust into the attic or to use foil pipe
It's a bad idea anyway because it puts smoke, grease and warm humid air into your attic which can cause mold growth
2015 International Residential Code, Chapter 15:
M1501.1 Outdoor discharge.
The air removed by every mechanical exhaust system shall be discharged to ...
18
Any electrical socket in a bathroom must have GFCI protection. You're damp, you touch something with a ground fault, feel a slight tickle and wake up wearing a halo and wings. Of all places to hack together power supplies, a bathroom is absolutely the worst place to do this. Mystical theories about the heater protecting the strip from dampness don't remove ...
16
I don't know your location, but in the USA, it is strictly forbidden to run any electrical wiring through heating vents or any air handling plenum. The reason for this is that you now have a combustible material in the plenum, that can spread a fire between rooms and into wall cavities. As previously mentioned, any AC electrical outlets in a bathroom MUST ...
14
They sell inline lint traps, that can be installed along the exhaust vent.
This should catch most; if not all of the excess lint, and give you a convenient easy way to clean the lint. The lint should be cleaned often (along with the dryers internal lint trap), to increase dryer efficiency and decrease the chance of fire.
Keep in mind, these are ...
14
Vented air from the dryer is full of moisture since it contains water from the clothing being dried. Do not vent it into your crawlspace or basement since you will definitely have moisture problems. After you vent it outside, run the dryer and put your hand over the vent and you will see what I mean.
12
You're mixing grease with lint, which is only going to make a mess and clog up in no time. You could also create a situation where dryer exhaust goes back into your house instead of outside, causing excessive humidity and a mold/mildew risk. The workaround for that would be to install dampers, but those would likely get jammed with the grease/lint ...
11
Add both a secondary lint trap and a dryer duct booster fan. Fantech and Tjernlund are a couple brands to help you start your search.
Also, replacing any easily accessible flexible duct with rigid ducts can help prevent lint from building up.
Finally, check that the exhaust louver/vent cap outside isn't filled with lint too. Sometimes contractors use ...
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
Before you do anything, you must figure out where it goes. It really has to vent outside. If it vents into the attic, you are going to have serious issues, including the potential of mold and rot as the hot, moist air is vented into an unconditioned space. It is (usually) against building codes to vent into the attic for this reason.
If it is venting ...
10
Dryer vent air is full of water vapor and dust. I wouldn't want to blow it into my house.
I do not know how much heat (BTU's) a dryer outputs during a run but it seems like it would be a small amount, and of course most people don't run their dryer very often - maybe a handful of times a week.
10
That pipe looks like an air intake.
All "direct vent" style appliances (high efficiency on-demand water heater, gas fireplace, etc.) have an isolated air intake and it is common to have it suck in air from outside the building so as not to force air infiltration through doors, windows, etc.
Indeed, that is ugly. Our fireplace and tankless water heater ...
10
I don't know where you live, but something to consider is that you're dumping warm, moist air into a potentially cold zone. So some of that air can/will condense in there in winter. Since attics tend to be filled with untreated wood, that means you're creating all the necessary conditions for mold to grow. That can potentially negatively affect your home air ...
8
Whether you tape it or otherwise block it, the effect will be the same and it will not cause any damage to your system; it would be no different than if there was a standard register there that was closed.
The only thing I'll note is that duct tape will eventually dry up and fall off. Ideally you would use foil HVAC tape
(source: homedepot.ca)
Unlike ...
8
No. It has to be rigid metal pipe in the wall. Plastic pipe is a fire hazard.
Note that you cannot use screws to attach together metal pipe for dryer vents; lint can collect on it and become a fire hazard.
8
You can install a reducer, but you'll cut your flow volume by an equal proportion:
28.3in2 - 7.1in2 = 21.2in2 (an area reduction of 75% when going from 6" to 3" duct)
This will negate a significant amount of your fan upgrade, will make it work harder, and may shorten the motor's life due to reduced cooling.
You might ask yourself whether you really need ...
7
Yes, that's considered safe. The operating temperature of a dryer vent is not a problem for direct wood contact. Keep the vent clear and you'll have no fire.
Ensure all joints are foil taped, so lint does not escape from the pipe. Should lint escape the pipe, it can build up in the wall.
Use a "long sweep" elbow to make the vent easier to clean out. ...
7
Buy a 5" holesaw (and a drill sturdy enough to drive it). Cut a 5" hole in a big chunk of plywood. Screw/nail/clamp the plywood in the place where you want the hole. Drill away.
If you're having a hard time with the drill binding and trying to twist your wrist off, run it in reverse. It's much slower, but you won't have the same problem.
Couple more tips: ...
7
Sorry I don't have enough points to comment yet so have to put this reply in the answer.
I had a vent coming out under the cabinets in the kitchen of my house for 20 years with NO PROBLEM (i.e. at the floor level where the kick-plate is). This wasn't even ductwork under the cabinet, but rather the vent exhausted into the frame under the cabinets, which ...
7
Nonsense... there's no way the output from the AC will damage a modern cabinet. The carcass of the cabinet is undoubtedly plywood or MDF which is plenty dimensionally stable. If you're still worried, add louvers and point the exhaust away from the cabinets, but I wouldn't give it a second thought.
7
Your duct experiment and past experience indicates that the existing venting is limiting the performance of the dryer. You can't vent into the garage (see below) and being in Florida I assume you are on a slab so there won't be some alternate route into a basement or crawl space.
Your best solution may be a condensing (ductless) dryer.
This snippet of ...
6
IANAP (I Am Not A Plumber) but I have recently replaced my old cast iron stack.
The relevant part of the International Plumbing Code looks like section 904. Specifically the following sections may apply to you.
904.1 Roof extension. All open vent pipes that extend through a roof shall be terminated at least [NUMBER] inches (mm) above the roof,
except ...
6
The "best" approach is to take the shortest straight path to get the exhaust air out of your house. Generally that's via a roof vent. Check out this answer for a little more info.
Your plan A, two bends and out the gable end is fine as an alternative. 10 feet is not a very long way for a bathroom exhaust vent. If possible, use a rigid vent to avoid ...
6
Yes.
I was building a new home in Baytown Texas (completed in 2006) and searched far and wide for thermostat controlled dampers - was told by many HVAC companies that "they" remove them weekly - this isn't true.
I found one installer in Houston that would do the system the way I suggested - he listened and so did I. We compromised on 2 units with 3 ...
6
I don't think there is ever a "maximum" you can have on a horizontal run. Of course everything needs to have the required slope and you may not have enough vertical space to get it. The required slope depends on the size of the pipe.
IPC table 704.1 shows that a pipe with an ID of 2.5" or less needs 1/4" per foot. While a pipe that is 3" to 6" only needs ...
6
I have the same setup, and this appears to be the industry standard for high efficiency gas furnaces.
What I have done is take a piece of plastic screen, and hose clamped it over the end due to a couple of 5 year old hooligans that run around my back yard and find such outlets very attractive for the experimental dropping of pebbles and other small items.
...
6
They make Dryer Vent Cleaning Kits for this very purpose:
As to why there is water in there - hopefully it's just condensation.
6
I would completely disagree with your builder. Since it is a new garage, I do see merit in the "build it in" approach. There are two important considerations:
how many CFM do you need and what kind of noise level is tolerable? Are you using anything flammable? Water based paints should not be a problem but solvent based paints require special attention. ...
6
I doubt it. They might help in the spring when they are open, but definitely not in the fall/winter when they are closed.
Vent it outside to avoid any issues.
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