Hello there lovely people, thanks for your interest in this blog of mine. So, today we are gonna see how to repleace a mobile home bathroom exhaust fan in few steps. If you are here it means that your bathroom is full of steam after just one shower, but don’t worry, it may seem difficult at first but it requires no hard work or specific skills. Consider that I have replaced my own exhaust fan twice and every time it took no more than one hour.
Few tips before the replacement
You just need to bare few things in mind when repacing your exhaust fan. First of all look for an exhaust fan which is not too loud, otherwise you’ll regret the change 5 minutes after the work is done. Secondly, CFM (cubic feet per minute) is important to get the right type of exhaust fan, the larger the room, the higher your exhaust fan numer of CFM should be, this indicates the quantity of steam that it can clean per minute. One last thing, to make things easier, it is always better to choose an exhaust fan wchich fits perfectly in the hole of the old one, so that you don’t need to adjust anything, be it the fan or the wall/ceiling. If you cannot find it no problem we are gonna see all the options to replace your exhaust fan easily. These are the few steps needed:
Step 1
So, first of all cover up the area of your work in order to leave it clean once you finish the replacement, it will save your time up. Then, turn the power off the old fan. After this, pop off the cover and double check that the power is off, we don’t want any surprise once we are up there working on electric wires and other stuff like that!
Step 2
Once the cover has been removed, remove the motor of the fan by unscrewing the mounting screws. You can easily do this as there should be space for your hand to move and use the required tools. If the screws are different from one another, just put a tag on them to remember the correct place where to put it back. After this step, you’ll have the motor outside of the pit and the housing of the motor still in and connected with the ven dot.
Step 3
The last step to remove the old fan is to move aside the housing of you motor and slowly unplug the ven dot. Just be careful not to damage the venduct as it is made of fragile material and if damaged you’d have to change it as well. Remove the wires exiting from the housing and remove it.
Perfect, so we are here with our hole in the wall and with (hopefully) a new exhaust fan with us, we just need to fix it right into its place. If the fan is bigger or smaller than the hole, you can either press the new fan to the ceiling, draw some points and then cut the exess ceiling, or patch up the ceiling by fixing a small wooden bar just above the hole and put a small extection just of the lenght of the hole to cover up part of it and make it smaller.
The first image shows how to put a patch into the ceiling and add few more space to partially cover the hole in case it’s too big.
Now you are ready to put the new fan, let’s see how:
Step 1
Firstly, just set the duct connector in the ceiling and, holding up the housing, slide the connector into the dut. Then screw all the screws into the right holes to fix it properly. After this step you’ll need to go up above the ceiling and lay on the joists to finish the job (and have a new perspective of your house from above and within)
Step 2
Now to fix it just connect the brackets to the joists and then connect the body with the screws. During these operations I preferred to lay down on a wooden bar to be comfortable (I’m a comfy guy, I know) and not make things harder.
Step 3
Attach the duct to the connector with the proper tape. I used the duct tape which is quite reliable and stable, it can resist to moisture and pressure from the ouside and the inside. After this we have to work on the wires.
Step 4
Unscrew the wirestion of the junc box and remove the cover, then take out the wires for a better view on the situation up there. Don’t panic, I know it may seem at first a bit tricky and timer bomb situation, but stay assured it’s easier than expected: wires are your friends and their colours will help you get through it!You’ll usually have three wires going out of the fan, and three wires of your house connector: just plug the wires of the house to the matching colour of the fan wires. At the end of this step, replace the juction box cover and turn on the power. If the noise is too loud, like not-too-normal sound, then there’s something wrong and you need to turn the power off again and check that everything is fixed properly.
After these steps you just need to put the cover of the fan back on the ceiling and enjoy your bathroom with no more excessive steam after just one shower!
I am including a short video on how to replace your exhaust fan in case you need more images to have a better picturein your mind, hope you find it useful.
Thanks to be still here and hope to see you soon in the other small guides that I’ll post these days. Cheers!
