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Exhaust Fan Replacement

14 years ago

The exhaust fans in my bathrooms are 25 years old and do an inadequate job of removing moisture. I would like to replace them with quieter and more efficient fans. The current ones vent vertically out the top of the fan to the roof. When I look at new ones like from Panasonic, they all ventfrom the side.

Any thoughts on how to install new fans?

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Comments (3)

drywall_diy_guy
14 years ago
If it vents out the side, you can still use a flexible hose to vent to the roof. If you are in a cold climate, coat the vent hose with expanding foam (Great Stuff) to give it both support and insulate it from the cold - this will prevent condensation from occurring inside the vent hose.

To install, fasten the fan in place with hangers as directed or solidly screw the side of the housing into your roof truss (my first choice). Use more expanding foam if needed to insulate around your fan.
studio460
14 years ago
You probably figured this out by now, but I just completed this nasty little project today myself. At first I bought the wrong fan, got home and realized that our 40-year-old fan was an axial fan which mated directly to 7" round ducting, straight up, through the roof.

Since access to the crawlspace would've been a huge hassle (to try and make a centrifugal fan work instead, as suggested above), I went back to Home Depot and bought an $87 NuTone axial fan (it's a "NuTone 8210 8" Vertical Discharge Utility Fan"). Although it's called an 8" fan, it actually has a 7" outlet (so it mates with 7" round ducting). The darn thing sure is loud at 6.5 somes, and very utilitarian in appearance. But it sure sucks out air at a pretty good clip: 210CFM.

I actually like its utilitarian aesthetic and it works quite well with our "industrial-tech" motif, but I would've much preferred to install a quieter Panasonic fan instead (don't think they make axial-mount fans). Anyway, bought some 7" ducting, and went at it. This was a tremendous hassle, with a PITA factor of about a million. Finally got it in and wired.

Anyway, the moral is . . . they do make axial fans that should be a near- direct fit to your existing cavity and ducting.
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Comments (9)
In your last sentence of your first post your infer that a simple situation would of been black to black, white to white and ground to ground. So seems that what you were anticipating when you began removing the fan. But you also state while actually removing the fan, "It had three wires within conduit connected to it, those wires were orange, blue and grey. Then also connected to it was a separate set of wires coated in plastic, they were black, white, and a copper ground." Sounds like someone was trying to do a quick job during a commercial break or a halftime show maybe?? Anyway you say the orange, blue and grey wires from withing the conduit were definitely wired to the fan terminals? Or could they have been wire-nutted to the black and white wires from the NM cable? Then a pigtail from the wirenuts to the fan? Are the wires from within the conduit solid or stranded. Go CHIEFS
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Just to clarify - in plain english... Typically, you only have 1 live wire coming into a box with 2 switches. That live line is split and then goes to both switches - usually via 2 short wires. If you just hook the live wire to the first switch, then the second switch doesn't get power. Also, your husband may have done everything "right" and then knocked something loose while trying to stuff the wires and switch back into the box. If he isn't familiar with electrical work, the connection to the switch may not have been solid enough to withstand pushing it back in. That is actually pretty dangerous, so someone needs to open it back up and fix the problem asap.
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Highly unlikely with the wiring that's there. Someone would have had to intentionally run extra wiring (ie: 3-wire) to the fan. You will most likely be stuck with the fan and light coming on at the same time unless you can run another wire from the switch.
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Comments (3)
Just get a fan that is a little bigger than the fan you presently have. the use a drywall saw and razor knife to cut the opening bigger. Just make sure you get the size in CFM for the size of your bathroom. Fans are rated in cubic feet per minute and sones. CFM can be calculated using the link below. Sones are the amount of noise they make. the lower the sone # the quieter the fan. A rule of thumb the more expensive the fan the quieter it is. Here is a link that might be useful: calculating the size of bathroom fan.
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studio460
14 years ago
{{gwi:1508825}}

NuTone 8210 8" Vertical Discharge Utility Fan (grille painted with silver caliper paint)

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