Litter Box Exhaust Fan: How to Size, Select, and Build a DIY Custom Cat Bathroom System
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- Опубликовано: 23 сен 2024
- Cats are great. Litter boxes stink, though. Let's fix that.
We've designed and built two litter box exhaust systems, in the tiny house ( • Tiny House Tour: #Tiny... ) and our forever home ( • Ventilation System for... . Here's an interesting one for my brother's home, that's a bit more complex than ours.
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I took the concept of your tiny lab cat box idea and iterated it to my in-law's house renovation a few years ago. We ducted a small hard pipe exhaust in the laundry room wall that goes into the built in cat box. They have 6 cats and it gets cleaned daily but it's amazing what a small 25 cfm inline fan exhausting to outdoors can do in a small space like this. There is zero smell or issues in the house for 6 cats. The only time they ever had a problem was when they lost power for a few hours, other than that they said they absolutely love it. It's amazing how such a small solution solves a common problem.
If I were to do it again, I would have done a few minor things:
-instead of having a filter grille on the face of the exhaust port, I would have put in an in-line dryer filter at human level (such as the fantech DBLT4W) so it would have been more accessable than crawling down weekly into the cat box to clean the fur and litter specks out of the mesh of the filter grille.
-I would have pushed harder for an ERV because this thing is on 24/7. At 25 CFM, the fan is sufficient for cat smells at it's lowest setting but that is 25 CFM exhausted all the time. The house is a 70's build with NO combustion appliances that is not super air tight other than the attic deck being spray foamed. Maybe when it comes time to swap out the fan someday, I can justify it to them.
If/when we re-do our 50 year old kitchen space, I plan to have a small exhaust (10-15 cfm)in the cabinets that our trash cans will be in (there are only 2 of us and a kitchen trash bag lasts 4-5 days and often get taken out by smell first instead of how full the bag is). Our exhaust from this will go through our ERV to capture some of the energy.
HELL YEAH CHRIS, you are awesome
YES! I remember you touched on this concept in your tiny home and I've been planning to implement one myself since seeing that. So helpful, thanks!
The hint about the grow industry is brilliant! I live in Colorado, this weekend I’m going to shop local and get my cat box exhaust materials from a local grow supplier.
AC infinity is a good source for small vent equipment. I've used their computer fans for equipment looking and plane to use their inline fans for upcoming project. They have good dimensions, controllers, and specs for all their stuff. I have not tried their customer support though.
I've got one in my house essentially. Water heater room is a 3x6 room. I've messed with the intake pipes but verified co numbers but a 4" intake pipe 12" from the floor and a 3" exhaust pipe coming off a 40k btu 40 gal water heater is the exhaust going out. The catbox is in the room and it has one of those magnetic exterior kitty doors going through the wall into the room. 100% scent free and nobody who walks in the house can ever figure out where the litter box is. After doing the litterbox venting thing you really can't go back.
Awesome thanks for this I have been designing a cabinet for my cats litter box and was just looking for this information
I’m a bit resentful of the grow room industry because when I wanted to build an automatic actively aerated compost container (as one does) a few years ago there were really no cost effective options on the market for variable speed fans. Potheads get all the nice things.
Haha maybe they deserve it more, only Santa knows for sure
Alot of potheads create very nice things of all kinds. I suspect a pothead created many of these super useful home fans. The huge problem is ending up on a DEA list for buying a litter box fan. We need to legislate that problem out of existence, day before yesterday.
Haha damn
Very good. I was thinking about this same setup but for only one cat. Something a person needs to consider is the home's airconditioning. When the AC comes on it causes a vacuum throughout the house. (Any opening to the outside will allow air to be sucked into the home) The cat litter enclosure vent fan should be able to overpower that vacuum so the airflow being pushed out of the enclosure doesn't get sucked into and throughout the house. Additionally I was considering using large computer fans since they are quiet and can have speed control.
Thx for dharing, and FYI your A/C should NOT be depressurizing your home- something is wrong if that’s the case, and it can lead to bad stuff.
I built a box for ours years ago. The box is out in the garage and is a sealed box with a entrance into the laundry room. We used the littermaid automatic boxes then which I had dump the litter into a box below that was on wheels and had a bag so I would roll that box out tie up the bag and toss it. Then just refill the litter box with litter.
For the vent fan I use a PC fan that has been running non stop for something like 8-10 years though it does need to be replaced and upgraded. The problem I run into is venting outside. The box is located on the prevailing wind side of the house so balancing the tension of the check valve with the minimal amount of airflow and the wind blowing against it is a pain.
I do like the fan and filter products for the green business... Lots of cheap parts for other cool stuff. I have a plan to build a few filter items for the shop with some of that stuff since the filters are so cheap and work well. Good systems for welding fume exhaust/filtration painting etc.
Why do all vent caps seem to be terrible? I just added an exhaust fan for our bathroom and every vent cap I looked at doesn’t really close all the way or come any kind of close to air tight. It seems like a waste to open a hole in our house envelope for a fan that will be run very infrequently (guest bath). Same thing with a larger vent cap for kitchen exhaust - I can see so much daylight through it!
No matter how much crap I talk about ventilation rates being too low, I love this A LOT.
✊🏽
This is probably a silly question. But could the tubing go behind the box, like you suggested, and then down through the floor into a crawl space and then out, instead of up and out?
Looking forward to the new 2024 cat box minimum air flow CODE . Don’t forget duct leakage test using The Energy Conservatory or Retro Tech duct blaster. Required pass certification..
Lol 😂. Oh, a computer fan, and you decrease the voltage to the fan by almost 50% and the fan will become silent and move your required one CFM. You can pick them up used at all computer repair stores for the throwing out old computers. . .
And you will be using less than 1 W of power . 👍
Nice, Tom
might have to create a new blower door device for it
@@gingerznz5742 a hairdryer
I built something like this and it didnt work. I think it was because the front side was more open. I will add a front panel with a small door and try again. Good thing I didn't throw everything out in a fit of rage.
Would locating an ERV return vent to pull from the box be a terrible idea? I’d assume so because of the dust load, but thought I’d ask
That’s how my own home is rigged. It works.
@@HomePerformance good to know, thanks! Seems like it might make things simpler for sure
Would a pc fan work? Very quiet, variable speed, numerous size options, cheap as dirt, incredibly low power requirements. Also do your cats show any hesitation about going inside?
Sure that would work. No, the cats can’t hear anything bc the fan is so quiet.
@@HomePerformance Cats can hear quite a bit more of the audio spectrum than humans or even dogs can. So I don’t think that’s true. But they also sense with whiskers which I would imagine being in a slight vacuum would have some impact on.
@Nhfilz we do blower door tests with cats inside the house at -50 Pa (.2 inches of water column), and I’ve never seen a cat be bothered by the pressure fyi.
We are going to do this to our home but need to know something. We are venting out the side of our home. Will our neighbors smell it? If you’re sitting outside do you get whiffs of cat litter smell then? This is a concern too.
If they’re within 10 feet, yes probably. If you clean the box daily probably fine otherwise.
Thank you
You should have released this video on April 1, that would’ve been pretty funny
Dead serious over here, Cy, why are you laughing
What about a computer cooling fan?
I found one that you can adjust speed and adapt to a wall plug that I'm going to use! I think computer fans are the way to go. And they should be quiet too!
Does he have a video or amazon list of tools/instruments that would be handy for homeowners to test and troubleshoot their homes?
Video forthcoming
@@HomePerformance 😁🙏
May be just easier to get an automatic cat litter box to remove poop. Litter robot? $550 ish and yes I know it’s on the expensive side
its not the poop its the ammonia smell. Yuck.
Has anyone found a fan that can go as low in CFM as what he's saying lol
Computer fan
Good idea. Only safe way