Ventilation

Mike T., Swampeast MO

STILL in a quandry regarding ventilating my bath with steam shower.

Finally have it all up and running--as per mfgr. instructions the shower is "sealed". Saw zero steam leakage around door, through control wall. Shower/steam room has two lights in ceiling--gasketed "shower lights" but something tells me they don't seal perfectly.

After running steam generator about 15 minutes, opened the door to the let main exhaust fan clear the steam--it condensed and dripped a decent amount of water on the floor. Cleared the room of steam rapidly. While it won't be used too much in humid weather like now (dewpoint mid 70s, 3½" of rain so far this week) anything is possible of course.

Have left ceiling above shower and rest of bath intentionally "open" to the mechanical "room"--a closet above a staircase. Much of the bath has eave space above with knee walls in the attic.

I can quite easily block the above-ceiling space from the rest of the bath; block the ceiling space from the rest of the knee-wall space; keep everything "open" etc. Old home so there is certainly some infiltration, but construction/insulation are quite good. Only window is large, fixed glass block affair.

Reasonably easy as well to install additional exhaust/fresh air inlet(s) to any of the areas via the mechanical area but I can't figure out what will be best for the structure. Exposed wall of mechanical area about 25' above grade and N-facing.

I hate wasting energy, but don't want to destroy the structure with excess moisture either. At least the vast majority of the framing is cypress so it doesn't want to rot.

Bath about 150 sq.ft.; 1,200 cubic feet. Bath door leads to little hall at top of open staircase, also open into sleeping porch. FA cooling but other half refused to allow a return in the bath--there is a large return in the sleeping porch and every other room served by that system.

Any ideas? Reasonable expense OK, but prefer relatively simple/low-maintenance systems. Attic renters are already coveting the bath, so will be hard to keep them out and everything will likely see fairly frequent use by people of questionable responsibility. "Idiot proof" controls are best!