Changing the Bathroom Fan Really Blows
I can't say I'm a huge fan of this last home upgrade project, and I'm writing this article to vent. I recently replaced my bathroom fan, which I've had no prior experience with and decided to give it a whir. All the warnings seem to have been mist on me, but completing this project was really a breath of fresh air.
Why do this?
I moved in to my apartment over 2 years ago, and the bathroom fans have always annoyed me and been in the back of my mind as an upgrade item. They're loud and squeaky, and they don't seem to work very well. After a short shower, the mirror still gets super foggy, and even the walls and ceiling get wet, which is obviously not good for mold. (Well, I suppose the mold is happy.)
After watching several videos on YouTube with guys complete this entire project in 15-20 minutes made me think, "how hard could it be?" I was ready to take on the challenge myself. My goal was to get a new quieter fan, with a higher airflow rate or simply quieter, or both.
How hard could it be?
Removing the old fan
The first step here was to take out the old fan. It's directly over the toilet so I couldn't use a regular stepladder to stand on, but luckily I had an A-frame ladder which worked perfectly to position me for the job. I put on some PPE, shut the power off, grabbed a flashlight, and put some newspapers on the toilet and floor to catch the falling debris. Luckily, the flashlight fit perfectly in a cupholder(?) on my ladder, which aimed directly at my work area. Pulling out the vent was the easy part, except it was rusted in there so it needed some force to yank out. Removing the motor and fan was also not too hard - there was one screw to remove, and then I needed to pull down a flap to take the motor out. However, it was absolutely filthy and caked in dust. I'm so glad I was wearing safety glasses and a face mask.
Next, I had to disconnect the house wiring from the motor housing. This turned out to be a massive challenge. The wires were connected with what seemed to be wire nuts, but the outer rubber coating rotated freely from the inner metal threading. I tried rotating it and clamping it down as hard as possible with a pair of pliers, but I could not get these stupid nuts to budge. I even sent photos to my coworkers (electricians) asking what they would do, which is exactly what I had done. In the end, I couldn't make any more progress, so I finally ended up cutting and stripping the wires. I saved the wire nuts to bring to work.
Now that the electrical interfaces were disconnected, I could remove the motor housing. This proved to be an even more daunting task than the last. The box was nailed in by 2 nails, in places I could easily reach. (Thank Gods.) Sadly, these nails also wouldn't budge no matter how much force I applied. I guarantee that this old construction was from the time this house was built in 1975; 50 years ago on the dot. What I ended up doing here was ditching the hammer, and using 2 pairs of pliers to weaken the housing itself (sheet metal) and eventually break off the housing completely. Those 2 nails are still in the beam to this very day. Finally, I had removed the old fan.
Installing a new fan
Now that the old fan was out, this is where the fun begins. I went to Ace Hardware and picked up a $75 ultra-quiet fan where the motor housing would fit perfectly in the sheet rock hole left by the old fan. I opened it up and found out that the duct sizing was incorrect! My bathroom has a 3" duct and the fan I picked up has a 4" duct. So that was disappointing, but I went back to return the item for another one, at the much cheaper price point of $25 but also louder. However, this new fan (2.0 sones) would still be a lot quieter than my old fan (5.5 sones) at the same airflow rate (50 cfm.) While I was there, I also picked up some WAGO electrical connectors.
When I returned home, I plugged the fan motor in a wall socket to make sure that the fan actually worked, which it did, and was much quieter than the old one!
Before doing any installation work, I attached a long brush to my drill and tried to clean out the rigid duct a bit. I had some length attachments, but I didn't want to put the brush too deeply into the duct for fear of it getting stuck or damaging my house ductwork. Remember, this place is 50 years old. However, for what I could see, the duct was a lot cleaner.
The new fan housing matched the size of that of the old fan perfectly - with one exception. It was rotated 90 degrees! What I mean is that the fans are about a 7"x8" rectangle. My old fan's exhaust duct was along the longer 8" axis, and the new fan's exhaust duct was along the shorter 7" axis!
At this point I was starting to lose hope and couldn't find an exact match online either, so I called a local handyman to get a quote for repair work. My jaw hit the floor when I heard his quote which revitalized me to keep chugging away at this myself.
To make the new motor housing fit in the hole in the sheet rock, I actually used an old kitchen knife to score away a strip of sheet rock. I was able to get a perfect fit in the 8" direction, and pushed the motor housing into place, while pulling the house wires through. I encountered another issue, where there was too much compression on the housing that prevented the check valve from opening or closing, so I forced it open.
Getting the exhaust duct connected to my house duct was also a struggle. It fit perfectly, but I heard how important it was to get an airtight seal. So after another trip to Ace, I picked up some special aluminum tape. Now this was another pain to apply. I had less than an inch of room in that direction to get my hands in there, so I cleverly came up with the idea of using the curved part on the back of a hammer to push the tape down. Frustratingly, the tape kept getting stuck on the house wires, which I would have to carefully reach in and pull out with some needle nose pliers, way too many times than I'd like to admit. After I was satisfied with the amount of tape on the duct, it was time to finish the assembly.
The first step was to connect the house wires to the motor housing wires - which was a piece of cake with the new WAGO connectors. My first easy W in this whole process. I did have to spend some time tucking the wires away to make room for the fan and motor. But finally with this part done I could turn the lights back on.
I designed a stupid, but simple test to determine if the electrical system was working. I grabbed my phone charger, plugged it into the motor housing outlet, and flipped the fan switch. My phone started charging! Now I was ready to install the motor. This part was also fairly straightforward, since there were actually no screws involved, just tabs that clipped the motor into place. I plugged in the motor to the housing and added some nails on the motor housing to fix it into place. Once again I flipped the switch to make sure the fan was working and it turned on! It was nice and quiet.
I repainted that area of the bathroom ceiling to clean things up (it took me a few tried to find the right shade of white in my paint supply) and installed the vent cover. Sadly, because the hole in the sheet rock was wider than it needed to be in one direction, you can see the hole beyond the vent from certain angles. I tried installing the old vent (which has a larger "lip") but because it hugged the ceiling more tightly, the motor was in the way and I wouldn't be able to push it up all the way. In the end, after all this work, I decided it was acceptable to see the hole in the sheet rock for the cost of having a much newer and quieter fan and cleaner ductwork. In the future, I could look a larger vent that's compatible with this motor that would hide the hole.
What took remodelers on YouTube 20 minutes took me about 10 hours of work. Thanks, YouTube!
Cost Totals
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Nu-Tone 688E (fan) | $25 |
| Wire cutter/stripper | $25 |
| Aluminum tape | $5 |
| WAGO connectors | $5 |
| TOTAL | $60 |
I already owned my PPE and several tools such as the A-frame ladder, drill, drill brush, flashlight, and all hand tools except for the wire cutter/stripper.