MiamiCanes
New Member
Can anybody recommend any exhaust fans that are powerful (100+cfm), narrow enough to fit inside a standard wall (~4" if you count the cavity and cut-through drywall on one side), relatively quiet (within the limits of physics, of course), and most importantly -- designed so that it's more or less physically impossible for it to blow hot, steamy air into the wall cavity should the duct itself ever become blocked?
The last requirement seems important to me right now, because part of my bathroom's rampant mold problem (I'm gutting it to the studs & concrete) is due to the fact that at some point over the past 20 years, the exhaust duct became blocked... and worse, the cheap fan installed by the builder had gaps in the body & basically blew that hot, steamy air into the wall cavity itself. I know, because the drywall around the fan actually has more mold than the drywall behind the *shower*.
Home Depot & Lowes obviously have fans, but it looks like all of their good ones are intended for ceiling mount (too thick for the wall), and I really don't want to go to all this trouble only to settle for a fan that's as low-quality as the piece of junk the original builder put there... as I've discovered, it's next to impossible to actually replace and upgrade a fan down the line without tearing apart the wall, so this is my one chance in 20 years to doit right.
I'm sure that somewhere in Japan or Europe, there HAS to be a company selling fans with thick plastic bodies (won't rust, can be molded airtight) and powerful, deeply-scooped blowers with linear induction motors whose only real noise comes from the hurricane-force winds being sucked through it... but I haven't found any yet & could definitely use some suggestions for where to look
As for why I can't go in the ceiling or make the wall thicker... the ceiling is a suspended concrete slab with 3/4" furring strip and drywall; the wall is next to the toilet, and already closer than I'd really like for it to be (my knee usually touches the wall during use). A dropped ceiling wouldn't really be practical, because the height in there is ALREADY reduced to ~7'6" by the floor (another suspended slab, formed 6" thicker in the bathroom to give the builder room to embed the pipes... and make it cost-prohibitive to even THINK about moving any of them).
The last requirement seems important to me right now, because part of my bathroom's rampant mold problem (I'm gutting it to the studs & concrete) is due to the fact that at some point over the past 20 years, the exhaust duct became blocked... and worse, the cheap fan installed by the builder had gaps in the body & basically blew that hot, steamy air into the wall cavity itself. I know, because the drywall around the fan actually has more mold than the drywall behind the *shower*.
Home Depot & Lowes obviously have fans, but it looks like all of their good ones are intended for ceiling mount (too thick for the wall), and I really don't want to go to all this trouble only to settle for a fan that's as low-quality as the piece of junk the original builder put there... as I've discovered, it's next to impossible to actually replace and upgrade a fan down the line without tearing apart the wall, so this is my one chance in 20 years to doit right.
I'm sure that somewhere in Japan or Europe, there HAS to be a company selling fans with thick plastic bodies (won't rust, can be molded airtight) and powerful, deeply-scooped blowers with linear induction motors whose only real noise comes from the hurricane-force winds being sucked through it... but I haven't found any yet & could definitely use some suggestions for where to look
As for why I can't go in the ceiling or make the wall thicker... the ceiling is a suspended concrete slab with 3/4" furring strip and drywall; the wall is next to the toilet, and already closer than I'd really like for it to be (my knee usually touches the wall during use). A dropped ceiling wouldn't really be practical, because the height in there is ALREADY reduced to ~7'6" by the floor (another suspended slab, formed 6" thicker in the bathroom to give the builder room to embed the pipes... and make it cost-prohibitive to even THINK about moving any of them).
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