Most houses in Australia do not have the waste from the kitchens and bathroom fans ducted to the outside atmosphere, they simply dump into the roofspace of the home, this can cause all kinds of problems and is a very big contributor to Sick Building Syndrome.
What is Sick Building Syndrome – There are many causes, most causes are related to poor air quality. The World Health Organisation Report into Sick Building Syndrome suggests up to 40% of newly built and renovated homes could be linked to this syndrome. The causes can be attributed to inadequate ventilation, chemical contaminates, bacteria, mould and mildew. As our endeavour is to explain to you the problems of not ducting your kitchens and bathrooms to the outside atmosphere, we would inform you that large quantities of water vapour are produced by cooking, washing, showers and heating, condensing to form 11 litres of moisture a day, with the moisture trapped in the roofspace causing the insulation to become saturated losing its R value creating the perfect environment for allergy problems, asthma, fungal infections due to the growth of mould, mildew and fungus growing in poorly ventilated spaces with minute mould spores triggering allergic responses, some mycrotoxins can be lethal when exposure is high enough.
The importance of ducting kitchens and bathrooms to the outside atmosphere instead of dumping them into the roofspace cannot be trivialised.
The best way to do this is connect via flexible ducting from the bathroom or kitchen fan directly to a Universal Tile Duct or a Smoothline Ventilator Duct in the case of a corrugated colorbond roof. With the Smoothlines you have the choice of a double duct or a single duct, all of these work well to remove all the contaminates that otherwise would have stayed in the roofspace creating havoc.