Experimental performance investigation of ventilation schemes in a private bathroom

This paper presents an experimental modeling of unpleasant odor dispersion from the toilet in a bathroom mockup. A hypothetical odor (SF6 tracer gas) was emitted from the position of a dummy sitting on the toilet in the bathroom. This experimental investigation aimed to examine the influence of ventilation schemes on the ventilation performance of the unpleasant odor removal. Three ventilation schemes of the bathroom have been investigated in the present study: (1) model A, forced ceiling-supply and wall-exhaust systems, (2) model B, natural window-inlet and forced ceiling-exhaust systems, and (3) model C, forced ceiling-supply and ceiling-exhaust systems. This research employed the tracer gas decay (step-down) method to evaluate the age of air and the air exchange efficiency in the bathroom and the constant injection method to investigate the odor removal efficiency of the bathroom under the three studied ventilation schemes. Results show that the ventilation performance from high to low was model A, C, and B.