New Bathroom Fan

It’s always something.

The fan in the kids’ bathroom, which has been very noisy since we moved in, finally gave up the ghost. I was informed of the fact yesterday: “It just makes a humming sound.” How hard could it be to replace? Well…

You can see that the box was installed prior to the drywalling and the ceiling texturing. It was a bit of a mess. I watched a YouTube video from Lowe’s that showed how it should go. I thought that the steps would be:

Remove fan and motor,
Remove box,
Go to Lowe’s with the disassembled fan and find one that was the same size and shape,
Install new box,
Install new fan.

I wasn’t entirely wrong, but the problem was that I couldn’t remove the box. And until we went to Lowe’s spoke with Gary and saw that there were flanges on either side of the box (which is how it was screwed to the stud), I was stuck marvelling at the magic box that was attached to the stud by no visible means. We came home with the new one and after some demolition of the old box, was able to remove it. Not before considering that we might need to climb into the attic to access the flanges (and maneuvering the long ladder up the stairs, before finding out that it was too long to maneuver into the closet to climb into the attic).

That should be the end, right? Wrong.

Finally settled on No More Nails double-sided tape to attach the outlet from the new box to the vent, after about a half hour of trying other things. The new one’s box was about an inch smaller in both directions than the old one, so I needed to shim it to center it in the hole. The dang grounding wire had a mind of its own. Couldn’t remember how the electrical plug attached to the box.

But finally it was in and when Tammy flipped the breaker, it came to life.

The stain thing was there when we moved in. Pay no attention.

Ended up being about four hours. Maybe more. Sweaty work, and painful holding tools and other things above my head. Tammy was a great helper and had a lot of patience with me when it wasn’t going well.

All that and I rode 98.5 km this morning out to Bragg Creek and back. Pretty much all of me hurts right now.

We should totally replace the fan in the ensuite bathroom. 🤔