well the floor to ceiling glass shower is going to trap the steam considering the vent will be outside of the footprint of the shower-- so maybe dont do floor to ceiling so the steam can rise and escape

A fairly average bathroom fan has 110CFM of venting.

In order to get something more powerful like your range hood look for 300CFM.

Or go monstrous at 600CFM: https://www.wayfair.com/iLIVING--600-CFM-Bathroom-Fan-with-Variable-Speed-ILG8SF10V-L3644-K~XLV1018.html?refid=PINTO49-XLV1018&experiencetype=2&selectedvertical=3

To reinforce what was said above, I always install timers so the fan continues to run long after a shower...

Modern bathroom exhaust fans use humidity sensors and so they run until the humidity in the room lowers to a certain point. Mine runs for a certa8n period of time after a shower.

I jave long long thick hair and don’t have particular issues of my bathroom remaining moist for long periods of time. I don’t know if I’m unusual but I also don’t keep the doors shut when unoccupied and don’t have problems of moisture in the bedroom or other areas of the house because of the bathroom.

I have a small (36" square - minimum to be to Code) shower in my MBath, and I had the exhaust fan installed in the ceiling of the shower. I also took the tile all the way across the ceiling. We had had considerable problems with condensation and paint in our previous old fiberglass stall in the same location and I did not want any paint inside this small shower. It works very well with a exhaust fan I bought at Lowes - nothing fancy but does have a light as well. Switch for it is right outside the shower.

I wasn't concerned about "odors" when I chose this. One can always keep a bottle of room spray near the toilet. It was moisture and condensation that were my concerns.

Many typical bath fans have a poor fan curve. This means that the more bends and other impediments in the ducting from the fan to the exterior vent the lower the CFM and thus humidity removal. So a fan that's promoted as 110 CFM may only perform at 30 CFM when connected to ductwork. That's not good.

So, use inline fans from Fantech. They have a better fan curve and are much quieter than typical bath fans. In our house we have 200 CFM in most baths and 300 CFM in the master. Then make sure that the ductwork is installed properly and has as few bends as possible and no squeezes.

Wow this is all extremely helpful.

RES to be honest I’m not quite sure what a steam generator is lol. Is it not reasonable to do floor to ceiling glass anyway just for the sake of confining regular shower steam?

Helen I had no idea modern exhaust fans come with steam sensors. How modern are we talking here? Literally have never used a bathroom with this feature. It’s hard enough to get my other family members to use our garbage fan. It would be awesome if it just activated on its own.

Oh man, I tried leaving the door open while I showered a few times in my old apartment in my early 20s. All of my paper artwork throughout my bedroom and kitchen started to wilt lol. My entire place was like a sauna.

Sativa wow I was expecting to have to spend so much more money lol. I’m definitely going monstrous.

Anglo oh I am definitely fully tiling our shower also, ceiling included. Honestly I can’t imagine redoing a bathroom nowadays and not tiling the ceiling. It’s just so much more practical, clean & aesthetically pleasing.

Also I’m glad to hear it’s a known practice to put the fan IN the shower. It seems to make so much more sense. Why not put the fan over the source of the steam?

Opaone that is exactly the kind of secret intel that I made this post for. This is something I need to tell my contractor.

I have no idea when humidity detecting systems were first marketed but they are now common. Mine is manufactured by Panasonic and goes on and off automatically depending on ambient humidity. Tjey are required by Code in my jurisdiction as are motion sensor lights in the bathroom.

No shower walls to the ceiling that way the fan can actually do its job. The moisture sensing fans are great we don’t have thme but we leave fans running for about an hour after a shower or bath . My fans are both above the shower and the tub .I have never bothered tiling the ceiling in any of my bathrooms it seems a bit school shower room to me and I have never had a problem and it gives a spot for a bit of color in an all white bathroom.I certainly agree the most direct venting possible is best. We have a ranch house so the vents go straight up through the ceiling

Since you describe your cape as small, I assume that the bathroom will be small, too. I have a 5 x 8.5 ft plus the shower to the side bathroom with the exhaust fan a couple feet outside the shower and my new Panasonic humidistat and motion controlled fan does a great job at 80 or 100 cfm.

We had to have the fan installed with the motion sensor on the side further from the door to keep it from running every time someone was simply in the area near the bathroom. We keep the pocket door mostly closed to shield the sensor from tripping, still. The bathroom mirrors have never fogged even after a long shower. I do have my ceiling covered in the shower material, too. I love the look and clean feel. Houzz often crops photos, you may need to click it.

OP,

I have a fully enclosed shower with a tiled, sloped ceiling (2" per linear foot), glass to the ceiling, but with a transom (tiling) window above the door. It's built like a steam shower, but I don't have a steam generator. A steam generator pumps steam into your shower and requires a very very skilled and experienced pro to build correctly.

My exhaust fan is in the ceiling just outside of the transom window. If I want the shower to get steamy inside I close the transom. If I want it to stay cooler and clear, I open the transom and run the exhaust fan while in there. My exhaust fan in on a timer and can run for 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes. A humidity sensor sounds great though. An exhaust fan inside the shower sounds great too, but I don't know anything about those.

If you don't want to have a transom window, then I'd recommend that you hinge your shower door so that it can swing inward and outward. That way, after your shower you can leave it pushed inward after your shower. That way it won't be sticking out into y our bathroom while you are getting ready for work. BUt I guess if you choose an exhaust fan that is inside your shower you probably would just leave the door closed and you don't really need it to open inwards. If you put the fan outside the shower though, it will be helpful to let it open inward (the glass installer just doesn't put the stop in the hinges).

A note about tiling the ceiling of the shower. In an upstairs bathroom, we tiled the sloped wall and ceiling with 3" x 12" white subways, same as the rest of the shower walls. They did not require any special support to stay up there and it was a pretty simple task for the contractor to do. However, the tiles in my master shower are 12" x 24" porcelain, obviously much larger and heavier. My contractor took about 3 days to do just the ceiling. He only did 1 or 2 rows at a time and then he would support them overnight (and I think for a few days) with these long adjustable support poles. So if you are using large tiles on the ceiling there will be some additional cost because of the extra time and effort that will take.

Make sure that your contractor can give you a clear, reassuring answer to this question: "Can you please explain to me why these tiles will never fall down and kill me in the shower?" I asked my contractor that, and he was not annoyed at all to answer it with a chemistry professor level tutorial.

I used be be too shy to ask a question like that, but after I asked my OB "Have you ever dropped a baby?" I got over it.

Oh, but AJCN, tell us - had she ever dropped a baby?

My contractor also supported my ceiling panel overnight.

Nancy, ha, ha. Actually, almost. He said that one time a father (who was a doctor himself) told the mother to push when the doctor had told her to wait, and out shoots the baby. The doctor and a nurse both "caught" the baby together. But he said that there is a sling-type of thing, like a hammock, that would have caught the baby if they had missed it. The father was an opthamologist, OB-ing was not his specialty!

Sizing the unit for the room is imperative along with the shortest length of venting possible - this will maintain the efficiency of the unit. Look into Panasonic and Broan/Nutone - they both make good quality and quiet fans ( look at the sones rating - that is the noise level ). Unless you want a steamy shower I would not do glass to the ceiling - you will need some air intake for the fan to work properly. The general rule of thumb is 1 cfm per sq ft on an 8 ft ceiling. You can't go wrong with going bigger..

Also - turn it on BEFORE you turn the shower on.... if you get the air moving before the steam is created, it doesn't have a chance to build up

Good luck

I am very sensitive to drafts. If you have to have an air intake space for a shower to function, it seems like that would feel chilly, unless your air is almost as warm as your water. For that reason, letting the steam leave the shower and go out to the fan just beyond the shower is less likely to make a drafty shower experience. Your curtain or glass enclosure will block the drafts from the room.

We had a shower with floor to ceiling walls once. Never again. It was impossible to keep the mold/mildew out of it. When we remodeled we stopped the shower walls at 7.5 feet (9 ft ceiling), and all was perfect after that.

In our latest house the bathroom needed remodeling badly. We took out a closet, put in cabinets, and ended up with about 90 square feet. There are no windows and no AC vent into the bathroom. I put in an exhaust fan about 1 foot outside the shower wall. The fan is low sone and sized for 150 square feet (so, oversized). If you put the fan in the shower the air is pretty much guaranteed to be mist. Putting it outside allows the moisture to evaporate slightly before getting sucked away. I did not fiddle with the gizmo switches. Our fan has an on/off switch. I turned it on when the contractor finished installing it and only turn it off to clean the fan. It runs all day, all night, always, since Jan 2016.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/ReVent-80-CFM-Easy-Installation-Bathroom-Exhaust-Fan-with-LED-Lighting-RVL80-D/307272212

Many fans+light allows bath and shower installation provided that they are protected by GFCI circuit.

I can't imagine living somewhere that I was not heating or cooling 80% of the time. Doesn't it get hot in San Antonio? Aren't you exhausting your cooled air? That would draw the hot air in through cracks and seams. Or are you acclimated to a hot climate and live with it?

I hadn't thought about it being chilly in the shower if the exhaust fan is in there and it's automatic. I guess if it's not automatic, that would be okay because you can enjoy the steam and then turn the fan on and keep the shower door closed when you're finished, evacuating the steam and not letting it escape into the room. But if you put a transom over the door, let the door swing in and out, and place the exhaust fan outside the shower very near the transom, I think you maximize your choices.

Want to enjoy some steam? Close the transom, shower, open transom and push door inward, turn on the fan.

Want no steam? Open the transom and turn fan on before you start the shower, shower, push door inward, let fan continue to run.

Concerned about a bunch of steam escaping into the bathroom? Then maybe putting the fan inside the shower is a good idea for you. I tried to think of a way to choose no steam while the exhaust fan is in the shower, but I couldn't because it would make you cold. When I run the fan with transom open it doesn't make me cold.

I read on here one time that if you blast cold water after a steam shower it knocks the steam down. I haven't tried it because I like to sit there for a while in the steam and I didn't want a cold blast. But maybe that will be something you could try.

As far as a mold problem if you have glass to the ceiling, we have not experienced that. Mold can be caused by a couple different things such as bad waterproofing, bad choice of materials, inadequate exhausting fan, etc. We leave the door pushed inward while the fan is running, and the transom over the door open all the time, except when we close it to capture steam, so there is airflow.

well the floor to ceiling glass shower is going to trap the steam considering the vent will be outside of the footprint of the shower-- so maybe dont do floor to ceiling so the steam can rise and escape

Yes, this was my first thought too. We recently ripped out the shower in our master bathroom ... the ceiling above the shower was lowered to 7' and the glass doors came up to about 6', allowing less than a foot of space for steam to escape. It wasn't enough.

There must be an undercut in the bathroom door to allow dry air to be drawn into the bathroom to replace the humid air that has been exhausted.

Yes, you must be able to "draw in" new, fresh air.

To reinforce what was said above, I always install timers so the fan continues to run long after a shower...

I think the idea of a time is brilliant.

Helen I had no idea modern exhaust fans come with steam sensors. How modern are we talking here? Literally have never used a bathroom with this feature. It’s hard enough to get my other family members to use our garbage fan. It would be awesome if it just activated on its own.

I didn't know either. Suggestions on choosing wisely?

@Mrs. Pete - I have a Panasonic Whisper and it seems to be highly rated so in my limited experience, I can recommend one of their models. My designer selected the exact models based on whatever was necessary for Code and my bathroom configuration.

It seems to work really well - it runs for a period of time after someone showers but is very quiet.

Not sure if it's semantics but they read humidity and not steam per se so there doesn't have to be visible moisture or steam for them to operate. Originally mine were set to be too sensitive so they were going off for no apparent reason - i.e. in the afternoon when no one had taken a shower for many hours. When my HVAC made a service call on something else, he kindly adjusted it so that it was less sensitive which is fine.

I am not sure why people generate so much steam. I have a moderately large shower (footprint of the original tub/shower combination with glass doors that don't completely go to the ceiling. After turning on the shower for about a minute, the inside of the shower glass becomes condensed and the temperature of the shower becomes comfortably warm. There is NO condensation on my mirrors and the fan continues to operate for awhile afterwards. The floor and walls of my shower as well as the shower glass are dry after a relatively short period of time - i.e. the next time I use the bathroom after a shower.

I don't think I would want a fan IN the shower because it would be taking away the nice toasty warm being generated and the fan mounted in the ceiling outside the shower seems to work fine. I keep the shower door closed but generally my master bath door is open. I have sliding mirror glass doors immediately at the entrance to the bathroom and these have never shown the slightest bit of condensation or moisture escaping from the bathroom.

We have one of those exhaust fan/LED light combos in two of our bathrooms... one is in our powder room, nice because if you want the main light, the fan turns on too, and the other in our very small guest bathroom. So, for a couple of years now we can’t use our master bathroom shower (it leaks into the family room, we haven’t started the gut job remodel this bathroom needs yet because we’ve had higher priorities) so hubby and I use our guest bathroom shower daily now for a couple of years. That light/fan combo has been GREAT! Ours has a timer, not a sensor. I keep it set at the 30 minute mark (which is the max mine runs for) so if I take a 20 minute shower, it still runs for 10 minutes after I leave that bathroom. Not sure it’d be powerful enough for a larger bathroom, this one is quite tiny with a small corner shower, but I stay warm AND the mirror never even fogs up! Ever! LOL! (Which was a minor hassle when I tried to take a proper steam shower to cough up mucus because I had to do it with minimal light (the vanity light is on a separate switch)

So glad I stumbled upon this!

My G.C. is like a little kid on Christmas when it comes to ventilation fans (something I'd rarely given a second thought to before). He installed the biggest Panasonic whisper quiet types, including two in the master bathroom.

And regarding Nancy in Mich.'s comment: "I can't imagine living somewhere that I was not heating or cooling 80% of the time."

Nancy, I actually kept track last year and we turned on our heater just twice (for 2-3 hours) and our A/C eight times. Another reason I'm glad my folks decided to move to California in 70 years ago! But...earthquakes. :-o

OK, my question: why do people choose to tile all the way to the ceiling? I wasn't sure if it was just that they prefer that look or if it's for protecting the drywall from moisture, or ??