Could anyone advise which installation is the best venting the duct work for a bathroom fan/light thru the ceiling or out thru the soffit. We need to install this on the weekend, so your comments would be greatly appreciated
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When you say through the ceiling, do you mean through the roof? The soffit is often a poor choice, though it's done often.
yes, I mean thru the roof. Why is it a poor choice when it is recommended by the DYI's so that moisture does not drip back down onto the unit, also it eliminates having a roof vent on your roof, instead you have a cover on your soffit which can be painted the same colour as the soffit.
One problem with it is that people too often use sidewall vents for the soffit, and the vents don't close right. You need to use a purpose-made soffit vent.
Corporation: n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. --Ambrose Bierce
Another problem with sofit vents is that they there are often soffit inlet vents for the attic right next to the fan discharge.So the moisture moves right into the attic..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
You take care of condensation by insulating the duct, then it oesn't condense until it's outside the house.Rebuilding my home in Cypress, CAAlso a CRX fanatic!
I don't feel it's healthy to keep your faults bottled up inside me.
I have a hip roof and had a choice of placing the vent on the roof, a north side where the snow doesn't melt much in the winter, and through the side wall about 6 inches under the soffit which is where I placed the vent. The vent is one that points downward and has a flapper that closes. Does this sound okay?
after checkingwith a few builders in the area, we were recommended to not vent from the roof due to the buildup of snow on that side of the roof . We were advised to vent it out the soffit with insulated duct flex pipe and have a vent cover that has a special flapper in it so that the air does not go up into the soffits but is directed down and out.
So I think this is what we are going to do.
There's plenty done that way, should be fine. It's the dodos who run a flex hose to the soffit and leave it laying there who should be banished from the industry.
The most important thing if the exhaust pipe has to be routed through unconditioned space is to be sure that is is ridgid pipe, and that it is pitched towards the outside so that any condensation can drain out (and not back towards the fan).
IMHO, the best exhaust paths (in order of preference) are
thru the roof
thru a gable end
thru a soffit
In all cases, you want the duct run to be as straight and as short as possible.
My problem with soffit venting is that you're pushing lots of warm, moist, air directly onto the eaves and that can eventually cause moisture damage to the roof.
Gable end vents are somewhar better if the space between the vent and the roof will allow the exhaust to dissipate before it condenses on the roof overhang.