For a bathroom of your size, a 110 cfm fan should be sufficient, providing it's actually exhausting 70 to 80 cfm. A part of your problem could be that the flex ducting is causing an increase in static pressure, which reduces the ability of the fan to move air. Changing the flex to smooth metal ducting might improve the fan's performance. You don't mention the type of roofjack or termination you have on the roof. Does it allow the exhaust stream to exit unimpeded? Does it have a back-draft flap? If so, is the flap opening properly? If it's stuck or doesn't open properly, that could be the source of your problem. Barring that, is the roofjack sized properly? If it's too small it could be constricting the air flow, which also increases static pressure, further reducing the efficiency of the fan. If you want to read a bit more about properly sizing a bathroom exhaust system, I recommend the Fantech website. It contains a great deal of good information for properly sizing and installing an effective bath exhaust system (be sure to check out the downloadable PDF files). The information you'll find there would apply in any setting, regardless of the exhaust fan brand you're considering or have installed. That being said, I have Fantech bath exhaust systems in all of my bathrooms. Not only do they operate in almost total silence, they are extremely effective. I never have a build-up of steam in my bathrooms, regardless of how hot or how long showers or baths go on. I haven't had a foggy bathroom mirror or condensation on windows in years. Here is a link that might be useful: Fantech Bathroom Ventilation

What a mess. To begin with, you're mixing up some of the terms, which makes for confusion. But you obviously have a lot more common sense than the previous owners and "handymen"! I'm not trying to figure out the whole thing. But I will just comment on a few obvious things: * the header over the opening (the fifth pic up from the bottom). It's absolutely inadequately supported. It should have been long enough to be supported on either side by a built-up post (several 2x4s or 2x6s nailed together--and there are even Code provisions for the pattern of that nailing. And even this assumes there is a bearing beam in the basement/crawlspace beneath. *Yes, those shims are inadequate and don't even provide full support. Maybe they figured a lot of caulking/glue would hold it altogether. *Those random 2x4s laid flat don't provide any useful support. *The third photo from the top reveals five-six studs removed and replaced with one misinstalled diagonal 2x4. You ask, "Is this support up to Code?" Uh, no. To come up with the appropriate fixes requires an inspection of the structure of the house, additions and all. "Up to Code." What a horrifying idea! Your helpful neighbours are taking the wrong approach. What you can't see can hurt you--especially if your house experiences a sudden structural failure. (Not to mention whatever electrical/plumbing "improvements" the previous owners made.) If the municipality provides a free inspection, I would take advantage of it and follow their advice. At the least, find a competent framing carpenter or a design professional who can design the corrections. Here is a link that might be useful: Details for Conventional Wood Frame Construciton

The Great Expanding project - most of us have gotten hit with that one! At first I was going to try to refinish the pine flooring in the room that was going to be the kitchen. But when we opened up the wall to the den, the kitchen floor in that corner was 2" lower than the floor in the next room (an addition). We also found a soft spot in the floor, and decided we might as well see what is underneath. The soft spot was a poorly patched old hatch - this part of the house had been moved on the property so it may have had a bit of a cellar below it where it was originally. We also found where the old oil burning stove use to sit .. . With that mess, we decided to replace all the subfloor. Now that we had it this far - why not level and beef up the floor while we were at it. was interesting as the bathroom and bedroom were on opposite sides of the room with no floor. We had planned on putting down laminate - so put down appropriate subfloor. Looks pretty good. Except that after living with it for three years while we worked on other areas, we realized it was not going to work for us. So about a year ago - up came the floor and the underlayment. We discovered some water damage by the patio door and DH said "Maybe we should get rid of it" and my eyes got big- no door opened up a lot more possiblitites - So in Novmeber last year, out came the patio door. Two new windows and we could get back to the floor. We decided on tile, but could not figure out a good transition between the kitchen and dining room and settled on running the tile through both rooms - meant ripping out the carpet and underlayment we had installed about the time we put down the laminate. It was actaully the den when we put down the carpet - and the dining room was on the other side of the kitchen . . . but I'm talking about the floor here . . (see why we never actually get done with anything?) Hard part was finding room in the rest of the house for all the dining room and kitchen items - played "shift the stuff" many times. And we finally got to laying the tiles. We'd move things to one side, lay tile, them move them to the other side to lay more tile. These were the old cabinets we were goign to replace -from the old kitchen so they never were attached to the walls. So that is how the project to fix the soft spot in the floor ended up rebuilding part of the house. This is why DH and I are DIY'ers. Could you imagine what the change order costs would be if we had hired someone to do the work! Here is a more recent picture - the wall oven is about where the french doors use to be. The adjacent room behind there has a totally different floor plan now - our whole house ended up being one expanding project after another (fun with 130 yr old homes). At this point I think we've rebuilt as much as we left alone. This is also a lesson in why you want to get your project done quickly - when it takes years you have time to change your mind. Cathy

Yep yep. I agree, it makes the most sense for it to be a load bearing post, and covering the openings, the A/C would be compromised, and OH MY GOD we do NOT want to do ANYTHING to interfere with the A/C!!! Besides, I have had an amazingly inspired idea. What if we covered up the center pole, all except the arrowhead shaped part, with the right size & shape of distressed & stained wood planks to make it look like a giant beam. Then, the bottom of the arrowhead would made to look like a crossways beam bolted onto it. I might have to continue with another gigantic fake beam underneath the entire length, but that might look really cool! I wish I knew how to visualize it, to show you how it looks in my head. Another style option might be fake steel beams, but I can’t find any tutorials how to do that???