Bathroom Fan Vent?
 

Does anyone know where the bathroom fans vent? There is no external vent in the roof in my house or neighbors except for the dryer.

They vent to under the roof eave or "soffit". Look for round vent openings on the underside of the eave.

Thanks. That was my suspicion. There are no vents in my soffit but guessing that the vent pipe ends just above the soffit. Not great but presumably meets code.

No idea of the vintage of your house, but ours a 2013, has round vents in the soffit area for each of the bathrooms. Having the bathroom vent just going to the soffit area and NOT outside IMHO would not satisfy code as this would place a great amount of humidity in the roof area. You might want to look around and confirm there is no vent outside, and have this corrected.

Here is an excerpt from the current 2017 Florida Building code.

"501.3 Exhaust discharge
The air removed by every mechanical exhaust system shall be discharged outdoors at a point where it will not cause a public nuisance and not less than the distances specified in Section 501.3.1. The air shall be discharged to a location from which it cannot again be readily drawn in by a ventilating system. Air shall not be exhausted into an attic, crawl space, or be directed onto walkways."

It believe that older codes allowed bathroom exhaust ducts to discharge air into the attic space. If the air is discharged into the soffit attic space, it can easily be sucked back into the attic because the natural ventilation flows upward from the soffit to the ridge vents and rooftop vents. I have seen bathroom exhaust ducts terminated a foot of so below the roof ventilators, which would be a better place to terminate the duct, but it would really be better to discharge the air to the outside of the house.

2017 Florida Building Code - Residential, Sixth Edition


CHAPTER 15 EXHAUST SYSTEMS
First Printing: Jul 2017

M1507.2 Recirculation of air.

Exhaust air from bathrooms and toilet rooms shall not be recirculated within a residence or to another dwelling unit and shall be exhausted directly to the outdoors. Exhaust air from bathrooms and toilet rooms shall not discharge into an attic, crawl space or other areas inside the building.

Our neighborhood was built in 2008. I'm guessing that venting into the soffit area was acceptable back then but clearly does not meet the current code. I'll investigate running pipe up to the roof vent at the high point in the attic.

IMHO, save yourself lots of money, and have it vented through the soffit, bathroom is probably along an outside wall, and the run from the vent fan to the wall will be very short, under 4 feet? Soffit is easily removed and with any luck the whole project can be done from a step ladder without cutting a hole in the roof.

I agree, but it sounded like the OP didn't know where the exhaust went to. I definitely wouldn't cut a hole in the roof unless there is a serious humidity problem.

It's also mentioned in the 2001 Building Code.

Sorry, I just have nothing to do right now:ohdear:

But where are the fans??
 

Hi. We haven't purchased our house yet in the Villages, but we've been looking closely at all the pictures of the model homes. I noticed in every single one that there was no fan over the shower or bath. Is there a fan somewhere else in the bathroom? If there is, I must have missed them because I can't see anything that looks like a ceiling fan anywhere. Thanks!

A couple of ours are built right into the bathroom light so they are not noticeable unless you turn the switch and hear them.

Oh so they really are fans there then. That's good! Thank you!

This is a typical light and fan combination. Most of them have separate wall switches for the light and the fan.

According to a recent home inspection, all of the bath exhaust fans vent from the perforated soffit area surrounding the home. I think this is preferable to multiple penetration vents in the roof, which have the potential to leak around the flashing.