Your bathroom exhaust fan needs to be vented because it can save you from many issues and save you money.
How to Tell if Bathroom Fan is Vented? You can tell if your bathroom fan is vented by checking your attic, accessing its outer wall, and placing tissue paper on its plastic grille. Furthermore, you can observe if there are any stains, presence of molds & fungus and check the conditions of the wallpaper and paint.
However, some fans do not have ducts and do not need vents, but they are not appropriate for the ceilings, and you should not install them there. They are suitable for walls and will direct the removal of steam and moisture to the outside.
Check your attic
The vents of the bathroom fans are usually present in the attic of the house. The plumbers who install them in your bathrooms make the way of its duct and vent into the attics.
Moreover, you can see a long aluminum foil vent inside your attic if you want to check the exhaust fan.
In addition, there is no visible presence of a vent at the place where you have installed your fan in the bathroom.
You can only check for it by going to the attic and looking for the vent pipes inside it.
Furthermore, you can feel the increased humidity level in your attic if you have been unsuccessful in finding the pipes.
All the moisture and humidity in your bathroom will be in the attic because the fan sucks it all from there and leave it in the attic.
However, it is not suitable for the vents to be in the attic because all the humidity and moisture from the bathroom can damage your attic.
The damage will spread all over the house because you are removing the moisture from one place of your home but leaving it in the other part of your house.
The idea of installing the vents is not encouraged and practiced anymore because people started to see the negative effects of it in their homes.
Most people use the attic as their storage place and put the items that are not used daily or need them seldom.
These items can face side effects and will become useless for future use.
Look at the outside wall
The vents nowadays go outside the wall of your bathroom or directly through the roof. So you can go outside your home and see the wall cap of the vent.
In addition, it is better this way to fix the presence of moisture and humidity in your house.
The wall caps outside the house have flappers, which remain closed when it is not running.
In addition, the closing of flappers will help to stop the entrance of outside dirt and dust inside the home.
Moreover, they open the moment you turn on the exhaust fan as they provide a way for the inside air to pull outside.
However, there is a chance that the vent is leaving the roof through the attic instead of inside it.
It will be left through the roof or outside the attic wall. It is effective as it protects your house from damage and keeps your walls strengthened.
Furthermore, it is essential that you tell your plumber to install the vent outside the wall and not into the attic.
Tissue paper test
The tissue paper test is commonly done to check if the vent is there and working correctly. This is because these exhaust fans pull air out.
However, it happens, sometimes, that the bathroom fan is not working efficiently and lacking in its effectiveness.
However, there can be many reasons behind this, such as accumulation of dirt or faulty motor.
You require a piece of toilet paper and place it over the plastic grille of the fan while it’s running.
The vent will try to suck inside it, which is your sign that it is vented and working correctly.
Therefore, the tissue paper test is the only practical test you can perform to tell whether your doubt is right or wrong.
In addition, you can test it again if you doubt that dirt accumulation is stopping the fan from working correctly.
You should contact your plumber if you have done everything but the problem is still there.
Your trusted plumber will go into the attic and check the vent for you and change the location of the vent if needed.
Ask him to change the location to the outside of the house if the vent is in the attic. He will replace the older vent with the new one and change the location.
Absence of stains
You can see the stains on your ceilings and walls due to condensation due to the absence or a faulty vent.
In addition, you can be free of worry and doubts about the vent if you do not see any signs of stains in your washroom.
It ensures that your room remains stain free and always clean and presentable.
It is an essential part of the bathroom because it helps maintain your washroom.
Furthermore, they are always vented, but there can be a chance that their installation location is incorrect or your plumber did not fix them correctly.
It is time to contact your plumber if you see stains on the ceilings and walls.
Presence of Molds & Fungus
The molds and fungus will be everywhere if there is a high content of moisture in the place.
The moisture is the most favorable environment to produce molds and mildews.
Moreover, it will stop the formation of molds and fungus because it will take out the moisture from the washroom.
It is essential to run it for more than 20 minutes to dry up the moisture and not give any chance for the fungus to grow.
However, you can have a chance of molds and fungus on the bathroom floors, tiles, walls, and corners if the moisture and water are still there. This happens when the exhaust fan can not remove the steam.
The molds can damage the inner layer of the structure of the washroom and can affect the interior.
Check paint and wallpaper conditions
The paint and wallpaper will start to peel and scrape from the wall due to moisture. It is because of the absence of a vent.
You can observe the increase in these signs if the vent is faulty.
It can suck the moisture out and dry it up from the places where it can cause damage.
Moreover, it will make the wallpaper and pain soft and start to fall off. The falling of them will make the washroom dirtier and dustier.
Related Articles: