I know it’s wrong, but the internet won’t tell me what I want to hear! Internet, you’re full of so many wonderful things, why can’t you just humor me?
It’s wrong to vent a bathroom vent into an attic.
There.
I can say that the bathroom fan in our house vented directly into the attic for an indeterminate amount of time, but probably at least 15 years. Nothing bad happened.
But that doesn’t make it right.
Sure, go for it, vent into the attic. Then you can have your very own attic sized mold garden. You can go up every few months and see what new colors are growing. It’s like a science experiment. Fun for the whole family.
Or, not. Your choice.
<crawls into corner, wimpers>
If you live someplace that is dry enough (like say Arizona) then it is actually OK to vent the bathroom fan into the attic. In someplace more humid like Louisiana though, not so much (unless of course you are into the aforementioned science experiments).
Once you get the vent into the attic, it shouldn’t be terribly difficult to run the pipe to the eaves or a side wall.
in many situations it is a bad idea.
if your attic gets cold in a winter climate the moisture will freeze in the attic and not leave it, then when the weather warms you will have lots of liquid water in your attic which will cause rot and mold.
if you are in the hot dry desert it might be done without harm.
Isn’t that what those accordian pipes are for?
(It’s the internet, so no one can see that my bathroom fan goes into the attic. Of course, that’s the least of this house’s problems.)
I just replaced the fan to finish up a remodel. It’s been venting into the attic for the last 30 years (not my doing, obviously). I’m not looking forward to cutting a hole in the roof in December is all.
Wait until spring. Thirty years vs Thirty years + 4 months isn’t really a difference. But just make sure you do it.
Alternatively, hire someone. It shouldn’t be more than a few hundred bucks.
another winter won’t likely matter.
you want to plan and do the job right. you want to get rid of all the moisture and little heat (if you are in a heating climate).
making as few holes through the roof as possible is good. venting through a gable wall is good though you want it to be mostly downhill and might need rigid pipe.
The right thing to do is to vent it outside, which is what I’ve done for (counts…) four bathroom renovations. However, those were all full baths and had a shower/tub.
When I renovated my powder room last year, I vented it into the attic. It might not be right, but I can justify it.
- There’s no humid air in the bathroom because there is no shower in there.
- The real purpose of this particular vent fan is to mask bathroom sounds (we purposely got a noisy one), since it’s on the other side of one of the kitchen walls.
- The house is fairly dry.
- Probably 95% of the time the powder room is used, it’s for a quick pee and hand wash; I’m the only one in our family who uses it for more serious business, during which I turn on the fan (it’s on a separate switch from the light).
- There’s probably more likelihood that the attic will be affected by the humid summer air than what little house air I send in there.
- Cutting into the ceiling/roof or sidewall was going to be a huge pain in the ass because of the location of the fan and slope of the roof.
I’ll report back in 30 years if it causes a mold problem by then.
Since you’ll be cutting into the roof when you do move the bathroom vent, you might want to consider adding some additional attic vents at the same time. More venting is recommended now than was 30 years ago.
they do get called fart fans for that application.
When we sold a house 25 years ago, the inspector noted on his report that the bathrooms were vented into the attic, and we had to change the venting for the buyer. When my daughter bought a house two years ago, her inspector noted that the bathrooms vented into the attic, and they had to fix it. You may as well vent it correctly now.
It would fill my heart with joy to see an update come through in 30 years.
I am not sure it holds in all areas, but code here is that you only need fans if there are no openable windows. If you have an openable window, you can eliminate the fan.
You’re on! (provided I’m not so feebleminded then that I can’t type, or think, or… what was I going to do again? [wanders off, sniffing the wallpaper])
Even if a fan isn’t required by code, it’s still pretty desirable at times of year when you don’t want to let the outside air in. If I’m taking a shower and it’s 20 degrees outside, I want the humidity being vented to the outside by a fan, not via an open window.