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New Home Problem
Nov. 13th, 2006 01:00 pmSaturday morning during JD's birthing class, one of her students told her that the bathroom fan was buzzing and not coming on. Today I inspected the faulty fan...only to find plenty of fun stuff in the process.
With some guidance from the manufacturer, I detached the motor/fan portion and tested it in another outlet (busted). For thoroughness, I plugged JD's hairdryer into the plug in the ceiling and it worked. Okay, bad motor, good box in ceiling...I should only have to worry about buying a new fan/motor. Alas, the model I have is OLD and the website has claims I don't quite buy that my model is similar to another (which looks a lot different in numerous ways to what I have).
Spurred by my knowledge that the former homeowner failed to vent the stove top vents (yeah, that was a pleasant discovery), I decided to go up into the attic and see if the bathroom vents actually vented anywhere. You already know the answer.
Both bath fans were buried under the insulation. There was no way that the air from either of our bathrooms was doing anything other than spinning inside the fan's box in the ceiling. The only practical thing the fans actually did was make noise. I have cleared the blow-in insulation from around the vent opening for the master bath so it will at least vent into the attic.
Since JD and I rarely use the fans, this is now a "sometime in the next 3-4 months" task. The cost for buying new is the same as buying replacement fans/motors, so it's a matter of us deciding if we want to upgrade to have a fan and light/heat lamp combo or stay with just a fan.
With some guidance from the manufacturer, I detached the motor/fan portion and tested it in another outlet (busted). For thoroughness, I plugged JD's hairdryer into the plug in the ceiling and it worked. Okay, bad motor, good box in ceiling...I should only have to worry about buying a new fan/motor. Alas, the model I have is OLD and the website has claims I don't quite buy that my model is similar to another (which looks a lot different in numerous ways to what I have).
Spurred by my knowledge that the former homeowner failed to vent the stove top vents (yeah, that was a pleasant discovery), I decided to go up into the attic and see if the bathroom vents actually vented anywhere. You already know the answer.
Both bath fans were buried under the insulation. There was no way that the air from either of our bathrooms was doing anything other than spinning inside the fan's box in the ceiling. The only practical thing the fans actually did was make noise. I have cleared the blow-in insulation from around the vent opening for the master bath so it will at least vent into the attic.
Since JD and I rarely use the fans, this is now a "sometime in the next 3-4 months" task. The cost for buying new is the same as buying replacement fans/motors, so it's a matter of us deciding if we want to upgrade to have a fan and light/heat lamp combo or stay with just a fan.
