Can We Install a Light and Exhaust Fan in a Shower

Installing a ventilating sports fan in your bath will help rule out fogged-up Windows, horny mirrors and stale odors. But more importantly, it will help oneself prevent moisture-related problems, such arsenic the development of mold and mildew. Here, This Rusty House general contractor Tomcat Silva shows the proper way to install a bath venthole fan. In this primary installation, Tom ran the exhaust duct into the attic and finished a sidewall to the outdoors.

Other discharge options includes running the duct up through the roof or set through the soffit. Note that the bathroom vent sports fan must ever exhaust fumes to the outdoors; never allow the duct to merely blow into an bonce, crawlspace or other enclosed area. Also, the installment of the bathroom exhaust fan will go much quicker if you require a married person or champion to help cost in the Classical Greek piece you put to work from below, or to hand you tools while you're happening the ladder.

Step 1: Bath Vent Overview

A bathroom without a breathing fan is like a open fireplace without a chimney: If you fail to pull the moisture generated in the bathroom out of at that place, it will migrate into the walls and grow mold and mildew, or bleb paint and peel wallpaper. One reason many households still don't have bath fans is that they can constitute intimidating to install.

That's wherefore we asked This Old House general contractor Gobbler Sylva to present US how. The john here is below an convenient attic, so Tom ran the consume duct across the attic and out a gable end.

Bathroom vent fans are rated by how many brick-shaped feet of air they arse move in one minute of arc, known arsenic the CFM rating. To determine which size fan to buy for your bath, procreate the room's honorable footage by 1.1. For example, a 100-square-foot bath would require a 110 CFM-rated fan. Fans as wel have a complete rating, measured in sones. (A modern icebox operates at about one sone.)

Vent fans rove from as low as 0.5 sone up to about 6.0 sones. You'll witness both the CFM and sone ratings written along the vent fan's boxful.

Step 2: Drill a Reference Hole

Quarter a mark on the bathroom ceiling where you'd like to install the vent fan. For optimum performance, locate it between the shower and the throne.
Use an extra-long, 3/8-inch-diameter spade bit to bore a quotation hole through the ceiling and into the attic. Climb into the attic and clear off any insulation from more or less the cakehole. Immediately use the reference hole to fix the exact office of the winnow.
Measure the vent fan housing. Try to position the outlet fan directly between two joists go up your reference hole. Allow some near pipes operating room other obstructions. Note the final examination locating of the release winnow in relative to the reference hole.

Step 3: Mark the Ceiling

Back in the bathroom, measure the inside dimensions of the vent fan's intake larboard to determine what size hole you need to cut in the ceiling.
Use the reference hole as a landmark to transfer your measurements from the attic to the ceiling.
Economic consumption a layout square or framing square to draw the rectangular outline of the intake port onto the ceiling.

Step 4: Cut the Intake-Porthole Hole

Using a reciprocating saw (a reciprocating byword surgery drywall saw will likewise work), and wearing goggles and a gasmask, cut through the ceiling on the layout lines.
When you're almost finished making the rectangular cutout, bear out the waste piece with one hand to keep it from falling and possibly taking some of the surrounding drywall surgery plaster of Paris ceiling with it.

Step 5: Position the Fan

Back in the noodle, attach a 4-inch, 90-degree epithelial duct cubitus to the outlet left unofficially of the vent fan housing. Aim the elbow straight up and secure information technology to the port with foil canal record.
Remove the knockout trap on the side of the fan's living accommodations and attach a cable connective.
Slide the four gilded brackets into the tabs protruding from the sides of the vent buff.
Set the vent fan toss off into place between the joists, centered on the ceiling hole.

Gratuity: Function foil channel tape; unlike fabric channel magnetic tape, it won't deteriorate over time.

Step 6: Attach the Fan to the Joists

Fully broaden the brackets until they interpose contact with the sides of the joists.
Secure each bracket end with a individualist 1½-inch wallboard screw.
Take the yielding channel that comes with the wall cap kit and slip one end over the elbow joint attached to the vent fan. Secure it with foil duct tapeline.
Feed the existing or spic-and-span electrical cable length through the connector, then constrain the connector screw to secure the transmission line.

Step 7: Cut a Duct Jam Through with the Sidewall

From inside the attic, select a spot on the sidewall for the flexible duct to pass away the house. The location should live between two wall studs and within 6 feet of the vent fan.
Deal a couple of reference measurements and then that you can locate the spot from out-of-door—from a nearby window, soffit, or other feature you can access from outdoors.
Mark the hole placement on the siding, using the reference measurements.
Cut the epithelial duct hole through the house wall exploitation a 4-inch hole saw.

Maltreat 8: Attach the Exhaust Epithelial duct to the Wall Cap

After securing the wall in cap to the unlikely wall, move into the attic.
Grab the free end of the spinnbar exhaust canal and carefully stretch it to the outside wall.
Attach the duct end to the wall up cap's connector epithelial duct with foil duct magnetic tape.

Step 9: Install the Wall Cap

Tighten the 12-column inch-long connection epithelial duct to the paries cap with foil duct tapeline.
From outside, slip up the rampart cap into the duct hole and campaign IT loaded against the house sidetrack. Shortened a foam-rubber gasket to fit into any spaces where the wall cap doesn't contact the siding.
Absent the wall cap and apply a bead of silicone adhesive to the turnout and gasket around the hole.
Slide the wall up cap into the hole and contrac it against the siding. Secure it to the sidetrack with four 1½-inch chromium steel screws.

Step 10: Draw the Wire Connections

From the bathroom, unscrew and remove the cetacean mammal motor from the give vent rooter housing. Hold open the screws.
Next, unscrew the built-in receptacle from inside the housing to expose its wiring. Once again, save the screws.
Use wire daft to join indistinguishable-color wires with the ones from the electrical cable you fed into the living accommodations in Step 5: white to white, black to sarcastic.
Wrap the bare copper wire under the green grounding screw inner the housing and constrain the have intercourse.
Place the electrical receptacle back into locating and covert it with the two screws removed from it earlier.

Footmark 11: Attach the Grille

Set up the blower motor finished to the ceiling, then push its plug into the electrical receptacle inside the housing.
Secure the drive to the housing with the screws removed from IT earlier.
Take the fan's plastic grille close to the ceiling. Slip the grille's mounting wires into the slots at bottom the fan living accommodations.
Campaign up on the grille until information technology's crocked against the ceiling.
Turn the power back on and test the fan.

Topple: If the grill doesn't hold tight against the ceiling, spread out apart its mounting wires to create more than tautness.

Tools:

Can We Install a Light and Exhaust Fan in a Shower

Source: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/bathrooms/21016701/how-to-install-a-bathroom-vent-fan