We bought our first house about a year ago. After tackling several home improvement projects such as installing new counter-tops, several new light fixtures, and a new sink - we were feeling fairly confident and 'handy'.
My brother gave us a $25 gift card to Home Depot as a housewarming gift, and we decided to spend it on a much needed repair - replacing our bathroom vent fan.
Since moving in, our bathroom fan had never worked. The whole bathroom would steam up when we took showers, and when people had to 'use' the bathroom - well, it didn't work.
It was something we really wanted to get working, so we decided to use the gift card and get it done as a Saturday afternoon project.
We went went to Home Depot and picked out a new fan. We assumed they came in standard sizes, so we picked out the one that looked the same shape/size as the one we currently had. It was about $40, but we figured it was worth spending a bit extra to finally get it fixed.
We brought the fan home, and started the process of installing it. The first step was to figure out how to get the old one out. We spent almost an hour disassembling the old one as much as we could, but we could not figure out how it was attached. We were tempted to give up and abandon the project, but we decided to climb up into the attic and see if we could figure out how it was attached from up there. It was our first trip up into the attic, which was kind of exciting.
(Here I am climbing up into the attic)
The attic was very hot and dark. It was not easy to make my way across the rafters and find where the bathroom fan was installed.
(Here I am making my way across the attic)
I finally managed to find it below all the insulation, and explored around with a flashlight to see how it was attached. After a few hot uncomfortable minutes of exploring around, I finally found how it was attached - it was nailed in to the rafters. They were not just any regular nails either - these were 3-4 inch nails! Why anyone would attach a little bathroom fan to rafters with such huge nails was beyond me.
I climbed back to the opening to get a crowbar, then back across the attic to the bathroom fan. I was finally able to pry the old fan away from the rafter.
(Here I am looking down through the hole)
I climbed back down, and we started the process of hooking the new fan up. The first step was to attach the new fan to the ceiling, so we proceeded to raise it up into the hole where the old one had been.
Unfortunately, we realized that fans do not come in a standard size. The new fan was about 1/4 inch smaller than the hole that was in the ceiling from the old fan. We knew it would look weird to have a 1/4 inch gap around the fan, so we decided the new fan was not going to work.
We were again tempted to give up, and just put the old one back in, but after removing it from the rafter with the crowbar, it was not in good shape. Plus, it never really worked to begin with.
We decided to go back to the store and buy a slightly larger fan. We figured we could easily cut away more dry-wall to make the hole the right size for a bigger fan. So back to the store we went. The next size up was about $80. We had gone this far, so at this point what's another $40.
We brought the new fan home, cut out a bigger hole, and attached it to the rafter. "Success!" we thought. It fit!
Ok, on to the next step. I am fairly tech savvy, so attaching the electrical wiring was not very difficult. We hooked everything up, flipped on the switch, and hooray - the fan turned on.
On to the final step - back into the attic to reattach the duct, to vent the air out the attic. I climbed back into the attic, and went over to where the new bathroom fan had been hooked up. Unfortunately, there was another set-back. The original fan had used a 3 inch duct, and the new larger fan that we bought required a 4 inch duct.
We researched online, and found that you could buy an adapter to connect a 4 inch duct to a 3 inch duct, so back to Home Depot we went. Luckily, it was only about $5, so it did not set us back by much. Back into the attic I went, to connect the adapter, and finally be done with this project!
I climbed back into the attic and started connecting the piece, when the whole piece of ducting that went from the fan out the roof came unattached and collapsed. I was beyond frustrated at this point, but there was nothing I could really do. I spent the next 30 minutes reattaching the duct, and I made sure that this time it would stay attached.
When I went to connect the final piece to the vent going out the attic roof, I realized something. The vent going out the roof was a 4 inch vent. They had used an adapter to convert the 3 inch duct to the 4 inch hole going out the roof. While I could have just attached it and been done with it, my "if you are going to do something, do it right" mentality kicked in, and I decided that since we were going through all this work to hook up a new bathroom fan, we might as well go back and buy a 4 inch duct - since that is how it was supposed to be done, and the hole was already cut to the right size.
Back to Home Depot I went, and spent another $40 dollars on 4 inch ducting.
I climbed back into the attic for the fifth time, and proceeded to hook up the new ducting. I climbed back down, cleaned myself up (from all the attic insulation), and went to try out the new fan.
It didn't work. &#%@. After all this work, the stupid fan we bought didn't work. How is this possible? We tried it out before hooking everything up, and it seemed fine. Did we break something when installing it?
We Googled it, and found that if you had kinks in the duct, or took corners too tight, that it could restrict the airflow - preventing it from having the ventilation it needs to send the air out the attic. We climbed back up and found that it did get somewhat kinked when going around a few corners, so we went back to Home Depot and spent another $15 to buy two metal corner pieces that would not kink/bend around the corners.
We went back up and installed them, but the thing still didn't work. What the heck! Well, we were in too deep at this point - we needed to get this figured out. We decided to use process of elimination, and see how the fan worked without the duct attached. I unattached the duct, we turned the fan on, and it worked! Ok, at least we were starting to narrow it down.
We proceeded to attach one piece at a time, and tested the fan each step of the way. After every piece, we would turn the fan on, and see if it worked. We got all the way across the attic with it still working, and went to attach the final piece - the one going out the roof, and that was what did it. It stopped working again as soon as we connected it to the vent. Well, what the heck?
We did some exploring around, and finally figured out out. The people who had owned the house before us had gotten the roof redone in 2008. When they redid the roof, the had shingled over the hole going out the attic!!
We decided we needed to get this part professionally done, so we hired a roofer to properly open up the hole. Another $175 later, and we had a proper hole venting out our attic. We got the ducting hooked up, and now our bathroom fan finally works!
I will say that after all this trouble, it is a great bathroom fan. We can take long hot showers, and the bathroom mirror does not even fog up. It has great ventilation, and does a great job 'clearing the air' as bathroom fans are meant to do. While it cost way more than the original $25 gift card we intended to spend, and took many more days than our original 'Saturday afternoon project', it was definitely worth it! We love our new bathroom fan!