The new U.K. regulations require forced air ventilation (fan).
My specific query is that our shower room has this but the bathroom (with a shower hose over the bath) does not. Should it?
Thanks
Does anyone know the Swiss requirements (if any) for forced air ventilation requirements in a bathroom and a shower room in a new dwelling?
Does it have a window?
My first two apartments had no ventilation other than a window, my third had ventilation in both bathroom and shower room also it was completely useless.
Is this causing a specific issue that you wish to raise with the landlord?
I don't think that I have ever seen a ventilated bathroom with window in Switzerland.
I don't know the rules so am probably of limited help but:
We renovated a house last year and it was never even suggested to us to add them (bathrooms have windows), we looked at a house less than 5 years old and that didn't have them (windows also).
What about bathrooms without windows?
My bathroom is in the inner side of the apartment (bordering with the neighbour's apartment, not on one of the outer building walls). So no windows.
There is a hole in the wall high up above the shower, with a sort-of filter cap, going to what seems to be (I haven't tried opening it yet) a ventilation pipe in the wall heading up. However it does not feel like anything is actively ventilating through it (no "wind" when putting the hand on it). Is there supposed to be a ventilator somewhere in that pipe? Perhaps it's broken?
Before I always had windows on the bathroom, but this one does get a lot more humid after showers, and I think there's something that looks like mould near one corner of the ceiling now (not sure if it's new).
-- Tom
...and if there is a mould problem in the bathroom as a direct consequence of the ventilation system being useless, can the landlord hold me liable for having the ceiling re-painted or cleaned?
and if you should, hypothetically speaking, have such a problem, you could PM me as I have some wonder-stuff sourced in the UK that actually does kill the black mould and it doesn't come back again. Unlike the rubbish I bought here - 3 different varieties with a common denominator, they were all singularly useless.
That was my follow-up question. I bet the answer is "legally no, but in practice..."
I would ask my contact at the Immobilienverwaltung about the ventilation, but last time I asked about something, she sounded so impatient to the effect of making me nervous enough to struggle finding the German words I needed (they "don't want" to speak English)... (As I'm looking to move in the next half year, angering them at this point can only make it more difficult once a reference is asked of my previous landlord)
It might be an electric fan but just not connected up. Our fan was connected to the light switch which was a pain in the bum every time you clicked the light on to just pop in and look for a hairbrush or change the towels so we had an electrician split the switch into two switches - one for the light and one for the fan.
It is possible that the previous tenent might have disconnected it and not bothered to reconnect it or, like we did, use a split switch.
When I moved out I had to pay for repainting the ceiling. The shower room had a rubbish fan and the paint started flaking off the ceiling. renter's insurance didn't cover water damage either. Was only CHF 200 per ceiling and I tried to do it myself but wish I didn't bother.
As for ventilation, bathrooms with window's here don't require ventilation fans to be installed. I asked too when we bought our house a few years back.
Tom1234: I didn't know that in the UK you must install forced ventilation. I just had a bathroom re-done there where we made the window bigger with air vents, but we didn't put in forced ventilation. Is that rule for new builds only?
Just ignore her put-on impatience; it's designed to make you complain as little as possible so she has less work. You need to assert yourself and your rights as a tenant over her attempted intimidation. I have a few choice words for such service industry employees.