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Triple master contractor Ed Del Grande
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By Ed Del Grande
Q: Hi, Ed. My wife and I enjoy reading your column and thought we would seek out your advice on this matter. We have a skylight in our bathroom that drips terribly in the cold weather onto the bathroom floor after we use our shower. The skylight drips so bad that it creates a mini rain storm inside our bathroom even though it's not raining outside the house. Our ceiling is eight feet high and the skylight adds another five feet in that area. Why does this happen only in the winter and how can we stop this? We look forward to your suggestions. Tim (Pennsylvania)
A: Tim, believe it or not your skylight is just following the laws of nature according to the conditions you have set up in your bathroom. To put it simply, you have a skylight that thinks it's a dehumidifier! A dehumidifier has a super cooling coil that condenses moist air and then the water collected by the cool coil drips into a holding bucket.
Well, it sounds to me like you have little or no ventilation in your bathroom and that is where your problems start. With no ventilation in a bathroom, warm moist air created by a shower has no place to go and will just sit in the bathroom like a cloud. In the wintertime the skylight glass will be cold due to the freezing outdoor temperatures. Since the skylight may be the coldest surface in your bathroom and the hot moist air will rise directly into it, the skylight glass will now act like the cooling coil in a dehumidifier and condense the moist air into water. Think of a cold glass of iced tea in the hot summer weather. Once the moisture builds up to a point on the glass where it gets too heavy to support itself, it will fall to the floor in the form of rain droplets. Believe it or not you have created a mini ecosystem in your bathroom!
Okay, now that we know what is causing the rain over your toilet, fixing the problem is not that difficult. Moist air is the problem, and you need a good bathroom exhaust fan to control and remove it from your bathroom. An exhaust fan will pull fresh air into the bathroom and discharge moist air outside the home.
If you have an existing bathroom fan, use it every time you take a shower. To properly use an exhaust fan, turn it on fifteen minutes before you shower and leave it on until at least fifteen minutes after you shower.
If you have no exhaust fan, you need to have one installed. You may want to have a contractor do this job since it will involve carpentry, electrical and ventilation skills, and may require a permit. Keep in mind that exhaust fans need a good supply of fresh air through an opening or air intake vent, and they need to discharge outside into the atmosphere. A common mistake is to vent the fan into an attic and that will only move your moisture problem from the bathroom to the attic. Thanks for writing in with this interesting problem. I always enjoy responding to good "fan" mail!
Ed Del Grande was born and raised in a family-owned plumbing business. With more than 25 years of experience in every aspect of construction, he holds current Master licenses in pipefitting, fire protection and plumbing. If you have a question for Ed, send him an e-mail at eddelgrande@hgtvpro.com.
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