Attic Fan Ductwork

Trying to solve the heat gain problem in your attic by using a fan is like lying out at the beach with a fan blowing over you and thinking you re not going to get a sunburn.

Attic fan ductwork.

In your attic it would be a good consideration to. It was new when the ac was put in 7 years ago. Much of that heat then conducts downward and finds its way into the house. It can cause you a lot of problems with mold and mildew forming on the underside of your rafters and decking as well as getting into your insulation.

When bathroom exhaust ducts are not properly insulated and vented the warm moist air traveling through them hits the colder section of the duct in the unconditioned attic space causing condensation on the duct work. This is much easier to do if you have attic access because if you don t you usually have to remove some ceiling drywall and run the ducts along a joist. Which direction is better. That condensation drips from the duct work in the attic space and the exhaust fan.

Jim asks is it ok to have a bath exhaust fan vent into my attic no it s never a good idea to have any exhaust fan in your home dump all that hot moist air in your attic. In all cases the ducting needs to conduct the exhaust to the building exterior and needs to terminate in an animal proof vent cover. But while you can t have two fans with one vent you can make one fan and one vent serve two bathrooms. Throw duct leakage into the mix and the problems are even worse.

This article describes routing bath exhaust fan duct upwards through an attic or roof space or downwards through a floor or crawl space. A grille in each bathroom attaches to ducts which then fasten to a y connector at the fan. This american designed fan is designed to reduce attic temperatures and remove destructive moisture thus making your home more comfortable and reducing the load on your hvac system and lowering your electricity bills. If you have ductwork furnaces air conditioners water heaters water piping etc.

The building code requires a bathroom exhaust fan to vent outside the building so installation of a new bathroom fan necessarily involves installation of ductwork. Meticulously seal seams and add reflective insulation around your ductwork convert your attic to a conditioned space. Recently i had another hvac company come out and put in a new bathroom vent and they told me they believed the duct work was full of water. With hundreds of square feet of ductwork surface area in the attic and a δt of 75 f the air coming out of the vents in your home will be significantly higher than 55 f.

This setup requires an in line centrifugal fan mounted in the attic drawing air simultaneously from both bathrooms see photo.