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Electrical Wiring

Timer switch for bathroom fan

10 years ago

I'm about to have my bathroom switches installed.

I have a Panasonic bathroom fan already installed. I got one that doesn't have a light (I'm going to be getting 2 recessed lights and 2 sconces installed next to the medicine cabinet so I don't need a light on the fan).

Anyway, for the fan I want to get a timer switch. I have been looking at this one:

http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/ProductDetail.jsp?partnumber=LTB30-1LZ&section=44956&minisite=10251

The only problem is that I've read some customer reviews that state that this timer sometimes makes a loud buzzing sound after a while. Has anyone had good luck with this switch?

Alternatively, I was wondering whether anyone knows of another timer switch that has really worked well. I'm looking for a switch that does not go beyond 30 minutes but has the option of timing a fan for 5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes.

I'd really appreciate any feedback!

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Comments (3)

bus_driver
10 years ago
The Grainger 2E175 has the functions you desire. It will work with any device as it has no electronics to create compatibility issues. But it does "tick" while in operation. Not annoying to me and I would treasure having hearing good enough to hear it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Grainger
0
bostonoak
Original Author
10 years ago
Thank you for your suggestion. I will check it out.

By the way, I have just learned from someone about this timer:

http://intermatic.com/Products/Timers/InWallTimers/Electronic_Timers/EI200_Series/EI205W.aspx

Two people have now told me that this timer is really good!

I looked up customer reviews on Goggle and could not find anyone with a bad comment. People seem to like it.
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Is this brand new? Maybe the fan has a motion sensor or a humidity sensor? I bought a house one time where the previous owners thought the porch light was haunted. Turns out the owner before them had put a timer in the attic to operate the light automatically. The switch just applied power to the timer.
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We're about to start our bathroom and I just bought a quiet Panasonic vent/heater. (Our other bathroom has a fan that's loud and heater that's insanely loud, and we didn't want to do that again. It seems like the choice is between very quiet and very loud.) I'm concerned about the fan, and especially the heater, being left on, and so was wondering about timers. In my old house I had a clunky mechanical timer for a whole-house fan that you turned, but I didn't want that; I didn't know that there are easier-to-use timers now available. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had any specific brand/model recommendations? (That Intermatic link is helpful, but I think it's more complicated than we want. A single fixed time would be fine, as long as you could manually shut the fan/heat off if you didn't want all the time to play out.)
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The black jumper is the hot jumpering power from one switch to the other and then to some other unswitched device. Connect the timer white to all the other whites. Take the hot black wires off one terminal of the switch and connect them to the black wire of your new timer. Take the wire from the other terminal and connect it to the red wire. Connect the green to the ground.
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The first question is whether neutral is present in the box you want to install this timer switch. If not, you'll need to get a timer that doesn't require a neutral (these will be either mechanical ticking clockworks or they'll have an internal battery to power the timer). Even 500W will be plenty to power the fan motor. The important thing to realize is all those wattages however are typically for resistive (incandescent lighting and heaters). You need to look at the seperate motor rating. If you have a netural wire, any of the EI200 timers will be fine (the sub code are all just different colors, etc..). If you don't have a neutral, you'll need one of the FD spring wound timers.
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Bruce in Northern Virginia
10 years ago
I am using this Leviton timer to control the heater part of my Panasonic bathroom fan/heater and it has worked very well this past winter. This model has time options of 5-10-15-30 minutes, but I think they have models that cover shorter and longer time periods.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002WTC91K/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Bruce

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