condensation help

Stop having showers??

 

How many outside walls?

 

Do you have Loft insulation ? What type of heating in there

 

How has the fan been vented to the outside, through the ceiling and into the loft, out through the roof or via the eaves ?

Standard 100mm fan wont cope with long runs of ducting, too many bends or saggy flexi ducting

Might be worth checking the exit route

 

Have you thought about continuous air extraction/replacement using a mechanical heat-recovery system? That would keep the moisture levels down and the air fresh.

 

i agree with the above post, 100mm wall exaction fans wont be any good, unless you use a mixed flow inline fan that sites in the loft these can achieve an extraction rate of 245m3 as opposed to the standard 78m3 you may get with a fan out the wall.

I have never used one myself, but do think this is the way forward.

 

Terry, the 'steam' will condense on these tiled walls just because they are the coldest surfaces in the room, and there's lots of 'steam'.

So you either need to raise these surface's temps to that which will not support condensation (impractical) or else get rid of the 'steam'.

It does sound as tho' your current extraction system ain't up to the job. These combined vent/light heads are, of course, a bit smaller than chust a vent, so that probably doesn't help.

Do you know what extractor make/model is fitted?

You'll almost certainly see a dramatic improvement if you upgrade that extractor - I don;t know if that means the whole system (inc diameter) or whether you can get away with chust a more powerful fan on your current layout - for this we'd need to know what your current model is.

Meanwhile, you want to dry the bathroom? Simples - leave the rad off ('cos it'll be a waste) and open the window and door fully.

It'll be bludy cold in there. But dry


(Er, hopefully the air direction will be in the door and out the window. If it's t'other way 'round, you'll have all that 'steam' in t'house...)

 

'Mechanical heat recovery system'?!

The guy chust wants to keep his tiles dry, not take out a second mortgage.

 

If you've got steam condensing in the vent pipe and dripping out the fan, then the fan isn't going to work as efficiently as it should - also water dripping out through fan is not good for the fan either

I'm guessing standard white flexi ducting, run through a cold loft space ?
This ducting doesn't allow a smooth passage for the steam and slows down it's exit, encouraging it to condense, especially in a cold envoironment

I've got one of these combined fan/lights in my bathroom, just a basic model from wickes
Bathroom has two outside walls, part tilled and can be a bit chilly but the fan does cope, have it set on 20 minute overrun

I've used 100 mm soil pipe with my fan and it's vented vertically out through the roof
Connected fan to soil pipe with a short length of flexi and added a condensate trap to soil pipe and drains out via 21mm waste pipe
Also lagged the soil pipe as loft can be chilly

That's enough of my life story for now !

 

I had some issues with condensation in bathroom too, old fan had a huge length of the flexible ducting, whoever fitted it had left a nice trap in it, so it had filled up with water, no more extraction. Realised it was full of water seconds after I lifted it, to have it drain back through the running fan into the bathroom

Changed it out for an inline fan ~ 250m3/hr with shortest possible ducting and all is well. With the window open very slightly I don't even get condensation on that

 

Which fan did you chose, Craig?

 

I think the future is whole house controlled ventilation. This must be better than holes in your windows (aka trickle vents) and powerful extractors undoing the hard work of the heating system.

 

Yes, my little anime friend, the future is w-h-c-v.

But, man, this guy chust wants his loo to be dry, that's all.

 

Cool.

This ain't rocket surgery, you know. If you produce a lot of moisture in a small area with cool surfaces, you'll get condensation.

That moist air simply needs to be removed. You do that using extraction or opening up doors and windows. I know which one is less chilly...

As Dave says, if yer grill is dripping, your current system ain't up to the job - there should be enough flow through that duct to keep things dry. Yes, there will be some condensation on the duct insides, but that should be cleared out by the flow.

By 'vertical' I suspect your tradespeep means straight up through your roof - the most direct route. Yes, that should help, but - man - it'll cost.

If your current setup is already fairly straight-forward - and it sounds *** tho' it is - I'd be inclined to just upgrade that to save monies. Use smooth rigid ducting to go up from the vent and bend it asap with a shallow fall out - again with smooth pipe - to the eaves so any condensation in there runs out to the eaves vent. And then find the most powerful in-line extractor you can get.

Change the shower vent to grill only - lose the light fitting (stick one in adjacent to it if you want light in there.)

Find out what make and model fan you already have, and check it's extraction rate. If you can find a direct replacement that's - ooh - twice(?) as powerful, then it might be worth - for cost reasons - to replace that.

If your current 4"(?) fan is already pretty powerful, then you may be looking instead at having to upgrade to 6".

But, stick with the eaves if you can to save hassle and money.

Unless you're loaded?

 

Sorry, been away. I've fitted an Airflow Aventa 5" version