Connecting the Pipes

As I was replacing the bathroom fan, I recalled that the pipe just blew moisture into the attic. When we first moved in, we hired an electrician to install recessed lights as well as the bathroom fan. He put the flexible pipe from the fan into open space in the attic. He told me it was the conventional practice. I trusted him and never questioned it.

Fifteen years later, I realized that was not a good idea. When I watched a few clips on YouTube, I was horrified with all the molds on the woods when people just put the exhaust pipe blowing into the attic. I always hated going up the attic, but I had to just to see if there were any mold. To my relief, I didn’t spot anything even though the only circulation system we had was the ridge vent on the roof. The electrician was probably right.

Nevertheless, I wanted to get it right. When I watched YouTube videos, the consensus was to cut the roof and install the pipe to let the moisture go outside. No way I was going to cut the roof myself. I called Ricardo, my trusted handyman, to make an appointment for today to do the job.

Last night, however, I sought out advice from a friend who is an architecture. He told me I could connect the pipe from that bathroom to the pipe from another bathroom, which already had a vent to the roof. As long as both fans had flappers, I should be fine. All I needed was to remove the pipe to the roof and attach an aluminum T connector and hook up the other pipe from the other fan.

I went back to the attic and figured I could do the job myself, but I already called the handyman and didn’t want to cancel him. He showed up late and his eyes were all watery. I asked him if he was drinking last night and he told me he was drinking every night. Nevertheless, I let him do his job. We went to Lowe’s to pick up the flexible pipe and the aluminum T connector.

When he tried to install it, the materials we bought were bigger than the ones already installed. I told him I could run to Home Depot to pick up smaller pipes, but he me told they don’t make those anymore. He ended up taping the big pipes to the smaller pipes. It was a hack of a job. It didn’t look nice at all, but I could careless since it was on the attic. He charged me $150.

I am thinking of taking everything apart and repipe them myself. If I could find the right size for the pipes, I could do it with minimal tapes. I am not going to sweat it for now. I’ll revisit this project later on. The materials were about $40. It was not a bad $150 lesson.