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Failures

olbriar said:
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"It's all fun and games, 'till someone gets hit with the stick."
 
ozonetrooper said:
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I really hate tiny, poorly-designed bathrooms. The situation above starts with a tiny, poorly-designed bathroom and the homeowner replacing the toilet with an elongated design that wouldn’t clear the door.
Sure, a pocket door may resolve that issue, but retrofitting one is an expensive undertaking and it still doesn’t resolve the issue of a box that should have been a coat closet and not a bathroom. ;)
 
rootabaga said:
I really hate tiny, poorly-designed bathrooms. The situation above starts with a tiny, poorly-designed bathroom and the homeowner replacing the toilet with an elongated design that wouldn’t clear the door.
Sure, a pocket door may resolve that issue, but retrofitting one is an expensive undertaking and it still doesn’t resolve the issue of a box that should have been a coat closet and not a bathroom. ;)
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This is the reason "Barn doors" became popular inside homes. Tight spaces with less than thought-out design ideas.
 
Not even that: just design elements that have changed to suit ignorance! Consider bathroom ceiling vent fans. Over time, they have come to be located over the toilet, as if their function is to vent toilet odors. That would require removal of every cubic foot of air in the bathroom, which (at 50 CFM) will take a long time. The fan is actually there to remove heat and humidity from bath/shower activity: keeping the bathroom drier, preventing mold & mildew, and the mirror won't fog up. That only requires the humid air at the ceiling to be removed. Yet why isn't the vent fan near the shower and not the toilet? Because consumers, wrongly assuming its function, demanded it elsewhere. Architects and contractors just surrendered.

(One example of many)
 
The_Chief said:
Not even that: just design elements that have changed to suit ignorance! Consider bathroom ceiling vent fans. Over time, they have come to be located over the toilet, as if their function is to vent toilet odors. That would require removal of every cubic foot of air in the bathroom, which (at 50 CFM) will take a long time. The fan is actually there to remove heat and humidity from bath/shower activity: keeping the bathroom drier, preventing mold & mildew, and the mirror won't fog up. That only requires the humid air at the ceiling to be removed. Yet why isn't the vent fan near the shower and not the toilet? Because consumers, wrongly assuming its function, demanded it elsewhere. Architects and contractors just surrendered.

(One example of many)
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I have yet to give in to that misconception. I simply educate the customer and do the right thing.

Had many complaints, most were from the "ignorant" misled folks that simply don't know.

I still don't care. They have less issues than the homes built by the contractors who give in.

And years later now they agree with my choice to locate the exhaust fans closer to the shower. Their neighbors are fighting mold and mildew issues and they don't.
 
I have been in many attics in my lifetime, and the kicker to those fans is most do not even vent outside, I have seen too many that do not even have a vent hose on them, they are venting to the ceiling space above the bathroom or attic space as it may be.

I once went into an attic that had the clothes dryer vent hose going into the attic space as opposed to outside. The entire attic space was covered with lint from the dryer !
 
The_Chief said:
Not even that: just design elements that have changed to suit ignorance! Consider bathroom ceiling vent fans. Over time, they have come to be located over the toilet, as if their function is to vent toilet odors. That would require removal of every cubic foot of air in the bathroom, which (at 50 CFM) will take a long time. The fan is actually there to remove heat and humidity from bath/shower activity: keeping the bathroom drier, preventing mold & mildew, and the mirror won't fog up. That only requires the humid air at the ceiling to be removed. Yet why isn't the vent fan near the shower and not the toilet? Because consumers, wrongly assuming its function, demanded it elsewhere. Architects and contractors just surrendered.

(One example of many)
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In my En Suite shower room the fan is hear the shower as it should be. In the main bathroom it's over the toilet.
 
ozonetrooper said:
I have been in many attics in my lifetime, and the kicker to those fans is most do not even vent outside, I have seen too many that do not even have a vent hose on them, they are venting to the ceiling space above the bathroom or attic space as it may be.

I once went into an attic that had the clothes dryer vent hose going into the attic space as opposed to outside. The entire attic space was covered with lint from the dryer !
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Played that game. Hours wasted cleaning up so the work can be done.
 
ozonetrooper said:
I once went into an attic that had the clothes dryer vent hose going into the attic space as opposed to outside. The entire attic space was covered with lint from the dryer !
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Merely extra blow-in insulation, right?

:p

At least the (brainless) contractor who built our house had the good graces to run a flex hose from the vent fans into the soffit, where it can (theoretically) go outside...
 
One modern theme in better homes is a centralized fan in the attic (exhausting properly to the outside!) with intakes from the laundry room and bathrooms to quietly and quickly vent the humidity (and some odors, of course). Expensive to retrofit, but a terrific idea.
 
rootabaga said:
One modern theme in better homes is a centralized fan in the attic (exhausting properly to the outside!) with intakes from the laundry room and bathrooms to quietly and quickly vent the humidity (and some odors, of course). Expensive to retrofit, but a terrific idea.
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That's the lazy man's way of doing things. It's not quite correct. In that setting a simple set of strategically placed eyebrow vents will do a better job of that idea, especially with heat building up in the attic.
 
BrickHouse said:
That's the lazy man's way of doing things. It's not quite correct. In that setting a simple set of strategically placed eyebrow vents will do a better job of that idea, especially with heat building up in the attic.
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I’m not sure where you are coming from. It’s all ducted from the intakes to the centralized fan, and then a duct to the outside. Nothing mixes with attic air.
 
rootabaga said:
I’m not sure where you are coming from. It’s all ducted from the intakes to the centralized fan, and then a duct to the outside. Nothing mixes with attic air.
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I had the misconception things were ducted into the attic then pushed/pulled out with fans.

That configuration works quite well with louvered (anti "back flow") connections.
 
BrickHouse said:
I had the misconception things were ducted into the attic then pushed/pulled out with fans.

That configuration works quite well with louvered (anti "back flow") connections.
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Yes, if I remember right the ceiling intake vents in each room are weighted louvers so the airflow causes them to open, and when the fan stops, they close again (much like the louvers for a "whole house" fan). I first saw that design in a spec home, and if I ever build a home, it will be included. Of course that is unlikely to happen anyway, since I can't even convince my wife to spend $5 on a pull-chain switch so I can install it in the ceiling fan in the downstairs half-bath (it was originally directly connected to the light so it's on whenever the light is...speaking of failures!).
 
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