FAN REPAIR

The fan in the master bathroom went out and I pondered whether I should hire someone to replace it or do it myself/ourselves. After doing a little research, I found out that our old fan is not rated (CFM’s) nearly as high as it should be. Getting the correct fan would mean getting a bigger one which would mean cutting a bigger hole in the ceiling, bracing it in, and all of that. Finally, I decided we could do it. While I was at it, I measured the CFM requirement of our other bathroom and ordered one for it too since it hasn’t worked right in a long time.

When the large box arrived with the two fans, I again thought about contacting someone to install them. They looked a bit too much. Yet, looking at them on Tuesday, I was motivated to open them up and see what it looked like. I could see a couple of problems right away so off to Lowe’s I went. There is a guy who works in the plumbing section who has saved me many times. I talked to him; he set me up with a few items and back home I went. I got everything laid out just like I thought it needed to go but I decided to wait until Eileen got home before cutting holes, etc.

My plan was good but Eileen spotted some technical flaws…okay, thank God I waited until she got home. We would have had a mess. So Eileen and I with the help of our son and daughter proceeded to install the first fan. After we had the hole cut, we noticed that the fan was designed for new construction, not replacement. Therefore, we had to make some construction modifications and design modifications in the fan housing!! After several hours of toil, we finally got it finished. It looks and works great.

Having been successful with the first fan and having learned a few tricks, my son and I installed the smaller fan without much problem. Well, I did run into a couple of problems but my son got me out of them. One problem was that after wiring up the fan, it wouldn’t work when the switched was flipped. I checked and rechecked my wiring but it still wouldn’t work. I asked my son if he had any ideas. He looked at the scene and noticed the fan was unplugged from the housing. He was gentle in suggesting that plugging it in might make it work. It did!!