Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Roof Vent (Bathroom Vent)

Alright, I promised I'd be posting photos of the terrifying job of installing the vent on the roof, and here they are.

To start the job, I looked at a few on-line videos, and I quite like the ones by "Ask The Builder.com". In it, he shows an easy way to locate the best spot for the hole, which is to just put a nail into the roof from the interior. You can see the shingle that's raised-up by the nail in this photo. This is where the vent will go.

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As I mentioned previously, the hardest part was the actual drilling of the hole. For further details on that, just go back to the previous entry. Once I had that done, my aluminum 4" duct was easy to install, using 3 small stainless steel screws.

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The next step was to remove the nails that would be in the way of sliding the vent into place, and to trim the shingles. Now this is where I screwed up. I had my measurements with me, but I cut an inch off the top shingle, and I shouldn't have. If I had brought-up the vent with me on the roof I would have caught this mistake. In the end, I was able to just piece-back the 1 inch strip, and bury it in clear roofing cement (along with the underside, and edges and anywhere that would help against leaks).

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You can see the goof here. The cement is clear, and it's laid-down pretty thick here (about 1/4 inch thick) over the edges of the vent.

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Lastly, here is my homemade ledge. Very crude, but it did the trick.

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Yay! All done.

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Now that it's been a few days, I've had the chance to use the fan, but I think there might be a problem with the top flap/shutter. It seems like after a few minutes of running the fan it then suddenly sounds like it's being obstructed. This means I'll have to crawl back up there again. Ugh...

Also, while I was up in the attic, I decided to run the "spare" wire that used to feed the bathroom light into a permanent overhead attic light with a switch next to the attic door. The attic actually used to have a working light in it, but it was on the old knob and tube system, and it's not connected anymore (the socket is also missing from the fixture).

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Another fun side note is that while cleaning the garage last week, I finally decided to get rid of the old vanity. My dad had suggested that I should keep it and use it for storage, but it's just so disgusting that I dragged it to the road. I did take a few "glamour shots" of it for you guys. LOL. I'll spare you and only post the ONE photo, but do take a moment to bask in its hideousness.

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3 comments:

  1. JC, your temporary ledge was a very neat job. I'm not familiar with the holed frisket hanging from the screw to the temporary ledge. There are always new things to learn at your site, and I am becoming a handyman — at least vicariously.

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  2. Hi JC! You made a very detailed account about doing your vent, but I think you overlooked some problems there. I’m so glad that you found it soon before it got worse. Anyway, I hope you aren’t having any troubles with it now so that you can prevent moisture damage to the wall and ceiling surfaces.

    Lakisha Autin

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    1. What did I overlook? Everything was installed as described in the instructions that came with the vent. I haven't had any problems in over a year. The small piece that got cut too far was not cut far enough to cause a leak, so I don't understand what I overlooked.

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