How to replace a bathroom exhaust fan?

Sources

How to Replace or Install an Easy Install Bath Fan - The Home Depot

homedepot

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How to Replace a Bathroom Exhaust Fan | STANLEY® Tools

stanleytools

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How to Replace and Install a Bathroom Exhaust Fan - YouTube

youtube

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Answer

Here are the key steps to replace a bathroom exhaust fan:

1. Turn off the power to the bathroom fan at the electrical breaker. Use a circuit tester to ensure the power is off1.
2. Remove the old fan cover and housing. Use a screwdriver to remove the screws attaching the motor to the housing. Disconnect the wiring from the motor and remove the housing mounting screws12.
3. Disconnect all wires and the exhaust duct from the old fan housing. Remove the housing from the ceiling1.
4. If needed, adjust the ceiling hole to fit the new fan housing. Trace around the new housing and use a jab saw to cut the hole larger if necessary1.
5. Attach the new vent duct to the fan housing using duct tape or a hose clamp. Pull on the duct to test it is securely fastened2.
6. Insert the new housing into the ceiling hole, guiding the wires and duct. Attach it to the nearest joist using screws2.
7. Connect the wires, matching ground to ground, white to white, and black to black. Twist on wire nuts and push the connections into the housing2.
8. Insert the new fan mechanism into the housing, lining up the receptacle opening. Push it in until it clips into place2.
9. Plug in the fan and attach the cover. Restore power at the breaker2.
10. Finish by sealing any gaps around the housing with spray foam insulation to limit air leaks and reduce noise2.

Be sure to choose a fan with the right CFM rating for your bathroom size and a low sone rating for quiet operation2

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Video Full Text

• 00:00 Hey different virgin here from dirkfarmerj.com. If you've lived in the house you're in right now for 15 years or you bought an older house that you know is older than 15 years old sooner or later. You're going to either have to service or replace your bathroom fan the good news. It's not that difficult stay tuned and I'll show you why hey door farmer jay here from dirtfarmerj.com sooner or later you're going to need to service your bathroom. Ventilation fan well in this brief video. I'm going to walk you through the purposes of the fan how to service the fan. If it's just lubrication it needs and even it does give up the ghost what it takes to replace the modules in these lastly. I'm also going to show you. In case you have an older fan that parts are no longer available and you need to actually take out the fan and replace it some resources to do that and this is our habit. We always give you more um resources in the description below including a couple of ordering links uh for these products as well as instruction sheets and what I'll tell you later when you're putting a whole replacement in and so check those out down there and that'll help you to review anything that I cover in this video we have together well number one what's the purpose of the fan well.

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• 01:30 Uh you know everybody may think like what when we were on the construction sites they always called these uh stink fans or the less genteel fart fan but that is only one of the purposes and that is to remove shall. We say unpleasant odors just as importantly and probably more importantly. The idea behind this fan is to remove humidity from the restroom when hot water is run in the shower the bath or the sink. Why is that important well you may see humidity or condensation form on the surface and usually that wicks away pretty quickly when the door is left open or windows left open. But what's really especially insidious is when moisture gets behind the wall into the framing members and insulation and you get all sorts of bad things happening like mold that can really cause problems dry. Rot so the real uh important reason is to remove humidity. Now how about sizing these fans they come in different ratings called cfm cubic feet per minute ratings how much air they remove out the vent on the other side of this fan unit and the rule of thumb is that you need one cfm for each square foot of bathroom space minimum. In this little bathroom we're in right here. This is five foot that way to behind me and nine foot behind you over to the other wall. So five times nine is 45 square foot. This fan is rated at 50 cfm so it makes it but it probably would have been better to have something larger. So exactly why are we replacing our service. In this fan well. This house is 20 years old that served us a long time but take a listen and you'll see why that may not sound that loud. But when you're in this little bathroom it drives you crazy so the first thing you need to do to repair one of these or to replace the motor.

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• 03:42 Module is you're going to take off the grill and what you'll do is just tug on the grill and when you do it comes down. It's held by these spring clips you just squeeze the clip. It drops down see there and there's another one that's going up into this housing right here so let's go ahead and pull that we'll get rid of that. All right. Now that we've got that open. The next thing we need to do is unplug the motor unit right here. So we're just going to reach here unplug it and now this modular plate with the motor and the blower can come out so there's inscriptions right here on the main housing right here and there's one up in here telling you what to do next what you're going to do here is. It's going to tell you push right up up this way and when you do push out on the housing over here and what you're doing is letting that tab out of the little capture that it's in. When you pull this down. It pivots there's two more up here lifted out out of those and the whole unit comes out and as you can see it's collected a fair amount of dust over the years. So if we were just servicing this motor we'd go ahead and vacuum this off and as you can look up in here. The first order business let's go ahead and vacuum that all out clean it out all right now we vacuumed that out you can see the circular housing here and right over here is the duct exit so you need to make sure uh that that's not obstructed that the flapper works well that stops air flowing back in so that's all ready to go. Now.

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• 05:28 We're ready to either uh service the module and put it back in or put a whole new one. In all right we're going to simply put in a whole new. One of these. This is the existing old one uh but if you did want to service this and oil the bearings here this little simple motor. We're not going to provide you that in this video but go to the description below and check out the link. There where another youtube creator has done exactly that for you. In case you want to just keep this and service that but now we're going to go ahead and get rid of this and unbox. A new one all right we were able to buy this replacement ventilation. Fan we actually bought the whole thing the housing that you see up here in the ceiling that protrudes up into the attic. Uh the grill and uh the whole module for about 17 at the orange big box home improvement store so um but you can get them for a couple of dollars. More I just want to show you.

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• 06:28 This is new tone. 696 in this model has been around for probably 25 30 years and this is a standard housing up there which then means you don't have to do a bunch of terra. You're just going to replace so we're going to go ahead and open this and see what the new piece looks like all right so let's slide that out of there and as you can see there's a whole new module. Here. This housing is already up there and we're simply going to do the opposite of what they did. We'll go ahead and pop this out of here okay. So let's go ahead and put this a motor plate with the components and you saw that it only took a few moments to get the other one out. We vacuumed this out make sure the vent outlet is working well. Now we're simply going to reverse the process. These two tabs go into the two slots that are over here out of sight to you but I can see them here and then on this side is the main tab that that single tab go into and if you notice there is a hole right there if you were unsure that it was going to stay in. There you could drive a sheet metal screw in there to secure it. But it's been up there.

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• 07:37 This whole time for over 20 years with no problems. Now this may fight me a little bit let's go ahead and put this in just to get that tab. In securely we're going to put this up in the housing. Sure enough it fits fine. That side is in the slots on its side. There we go we're going to push this up on that side and as you can see it wants me. It wants to resist a little bit so what I'm going to do is just use. A screwdriver right here put that up push it to that place and then push the tab in and when I did notice the tab is inside. I'm going to yank on this to make sure it can't come out and there you are now. We're going to plug in our outlet right here and let's go ahead and test it well. There you go all right. Let's go ahead and take the grate you're just going to squeeze together the tab. On the end there insert that into the slot it holds on do the same thing closer. On this side. I have to get around in front of you a bit to do that and once it's hanging like that you simply push up clip and the job is done all right. Let's suppose this won't work for you. You tear into this.

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• 08:53 You find out that the unit uh is an older unit. You can't get parts for it. It was improperly put in place. Perhaps you've got dry rot and you need to repair well. At that point you need need attic access and you're gonna need a new fan unit now that would be a fan unit something like this. This is one that was also at our orange big box store a new tone 80 cfm. This has an integrated light. You can actually get bluetooth speakers and all sorts of things different grille configurations but that's the pretty side on the downside down. Here what you're going to have to do is get into the attic and actually do some work there to support the unit and what comes in these units are complete instruction sheets that show you new construction old construction all that in the description below.

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• 09:45 I've provided you a link to this actual. Pdf. Download that you can take a look to see what you're getting into another thing you may want to know around the house if you're doing a lot of your own home repairs and it has to do with electrical work. There are two or three testers you should not be without. You can check out the video at the top there that tell you about some uh testers that we looked at recently and that we depend on around here check that out and the bottom video youtube has gotten into your mind and is presenting a video that it thinks is perfect for you check it out until the next time. This is dirt farmer jay from dirtfarmerj.com.

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