bathroom exhaust

[tom]

Can I vent an upper bath into an attic crawl space(insulated)? The attic runs the length of the house with ridge vent plus two 12×12 louvered vents in each peak. Also, the bath measures 10×10 ft. with a ceiling sloping from seven feet to five feet. What is the minimum size fan will I need? Thanks for all your advice.

[JT]

tom, venting into the attic is a bad idea and against
most (probably all) model building codes. If you don’t
want to go through your ceiling, maybe a through-the-wall
model would work for you.
I believe the minimum volume called for by the UBC is
5 air changes per hour, but 8 is more commonly used.
The volume of your bathroom is 600 cu. ft., so
(600 x 8)/60 = 80 cfm. I think Panasonic makes a 90
cfm. (check http://www.tamtech.com). You should be aware that
bath fans don’t have a lot of power behind them, so
you need to keep ducting as short as possible, and
make all bends as gradual as possible. If your duct
path gets nasty, you will have to go to a larger model
to get the cfm you need.

[Author]

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