Bathroom exhaust fan question.

[Ingeborgdot]

Let's see if I can explain this properly. We have had a downstairs bathroom for over 25 years. We just recently had to remove our shower, which led to the tile being removed etc. Any way we are now doing a complete remodel. We have never had a problem with mold or mildew on the ceilings and we have never had an exhaust fan either. I would like to put one in but can't find any way of doing it. Let me try to explain why starting from the far side of the room and working my way across.
Beings this is the basement, in this room there are ducts. The heating duct takes up the first two options for placing any exhaust fan ducting. The next set of joists are taken up by the ducts for the furnace to the outside air. The next joists have a 5" duct for our tankless water heater vent. This is probably our only option for our fan ducting so it would have to be a narrow fan that would take up only 8" and is also a low profile. It would also have to attach on the lower two inches of the joist because there is the pipe there. I will send an attachment if I can to show you what I mean. The next joist would work but our bathtub drain is right in the way of the outlet to outside. The final one would work but it would have to go in the shower because the return vent takes up the space where it could go. I just may not be able to get one in unless someone knows where to find a small one some place. If it does not have a big CFM then it would be worthless anyway so I hope someone knows what I can do.

 

[Jadnashua]

You may want to consider a fan that exhausts through the sidewall. Trying to exhaust hot moist air down then out is tough, and you don't have a good path for it anyways.

Check out www.johnbridge.com for help and guidance on tiling things...very helpful site.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Ingeborgdot]

It would be a straight shot, not down at all.

 

[Jadnashua]

Guess I should read more carefully...if you're looking for a brand recommendation, consider Panasonic.

 

[Ingeborgdot]

Brand is not as important as size to fit in the area by the pipe you see.

 

[Iminaquagmire]

As I understand it, the issue is the space in the joist bay for the fan itself. What you can do in that case is get a remote blower. Its a fan inside a box that has an inlet and an outlet and can be mounted virtually anywhere. Then all you have to do is put the vent in and then duct form that to the blower, then from the blower to daylight. Here are some pictures from when I installed one for my smoking room to help illustrate the concept.

 

[Ingeborgdot]

Wow. It looks like you have a lot of room. If you see the picture I am limited to this joist only. I know what you are saying but going the one direction is a no because of pipes and vents and going the other way only the one. I have heard just recently about one from fantech that has a box that is 5.5" wide which would fit and the blower or exhaust is put some where else. I also saw an outside mount but don't know enough about them to know if it would work or not.
I like your setup but there is no way it would work for me

 

[Ingeborgdot]

I went with a fantech PBW110. It is much better and is actually shower rated. It is also very quiet and it fits in my space.

 

[Chris75]

I love all the violations in the pictures....

 

[Ingeborgdot]

What violations?

 

[Furd]

Chris is referring to the pictures posted by iminaquagmire.

The type NM cable run across the ceiling/floor joists and the wire nuts outside of the fan connection box are the most obvious. Also the violation of the clear space above the circuit breaker panels.

Although now that I look a bit closer the notching of the joists for the drain in ingeborgdot's second picture looks REALLY ugly to me.

 

[Chris75]

Chris is referring to the pictures posted by iminaquagmire.

The type NM cable run across the ceiling/floor joists and the wire nuts outside of the fan connection box are the most obvious. Also the violation of the clear space above the circuit breaker panels.

Although now that I look a bit closer the notching of the joists for the drain in ingeborgdot's second picture looks REALLY ugly to me.

Yep... nice huh??

 

[Ingeborgdot]

You can't see it but it is only a small notch and it has been reinforced. That's the way the plumbers did it.

 

[Iminaquagmire]

Yes, there are violations in the pictures posted above and I'm in the process of fixing them now actually. As far as I'm aware the NM cable is fine since 1)its exposed and 2)even if it wasn't the basement is only set up to be a drop ceiling. The worst of it is being rerun though. If it was ever going to be drywalled, I would not have surface mounted the romex for the fan. As for the exposed wirenuts, that was only temporary until I could get a new box for the fan. If any of you saw what the previous owner did you would cry.

Just last night I found a hidden junction in a closet ceiling where he tapped into the closet light feed but made all of his connections outside the box without nuts and then pigtailed the power power back into the box for the light. From the underside it looks kosher but up top its a nightmare.

 

[SuperDaddy]

My first house had 14/2 romex hanging from the house gutter to the gutter of a detached garage 10 feet away (to feed power to the garage).

Unbelievable.

But, hey, I got a great deal on the house (no inspection, of course). I moved in and gutted the place anyway. I thought that would be the one and only time I would ever have to do it.

Well, 6 years later another "great deal" came along......