Bathroom exhaust fan learning experience

For some reason when we had our upstairs hall bath redone we just left the existing exhaust fan despite it being loud and clattery and probably on its last legs. SO's mom and sister are coming for a visit this week so I finally got around to installing the new one I bought a few months ago. I've learned a couple of things. First, they come in different sizes and for whatever reason the one in our downstairs bathroom is bigger. I had, of course, bought one like that. Second, you don't have to replace the whole box. You can just replace the motor unit and the bracket it attaches to. the motor unit even has a regular 110 plug and the box, which can remain, has an outlet, so you don't need to do any wiring work if you're just replacing the fan/motor unit.

As a result SO had to go to home depot and get a different motor/fan unit to match what was there, and it was SUPER easy to install. And we now have a whole unit for when we redo the master bathroom in a couple of years. (The master currently doesn't have a fan since code only requires a window. We want a fan regardless of code so we'll eventually use the one I bought a few months ago.)

It's a good thing the motor units are so easy to replace, because these are not built to last and need to be replaced more often than seems reasonable, at least to me.
A slight digression, but we currently have a colony of yellow jackets nesting in ours and coming into the bathroom through the grille of the fan. This issue manifested itself yesterday morning at about 5:00. We currently have the grille covered up (plastic shipping envelope and painter's tape) which has slowed down entry into the house. They are small and easy to squash, so DH suggested they might be newbies, especially since this infestation seemed to happen all at once out of nowhere. A new generation hatched? We've sprayed stuff into the opening, but still don't have the problem solved. Brings a whole new level of excitement to the showering experience!

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Originally Posted by rosarugosa

It's a good thing the motor units are so easy to replace, because these are not built to last and need to be replaced more often than seems reasonable, at least to me.
A slight digression, but we currently have a colony of yellow jackets nesting in ours and coming into the bathroom through the grille of the fan. This issue manifested itself yesterday morning at about 5:00. We currently have the grille covered up (plastic shipping envelope and painter's tape) which has slowed down entry into the house. They are small and easy to squash, so DH suggested they might be newbies, especially since this infestation seemed to happen all at once out of nowhere. A new generation hatched? We've sprayed stuff into the opening, but still don't have the problem solved. Brings a whole new level of excitement to the showering experience!

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OMG! Yikes!

Good grief, rr!!! Best of luck getting it all resolved! without getting stung!

I had to replace one in 2021 at the restaurant, I was surprised how easy it was. It certainly doesn't hurt to be mechanically inclined, but somethings making it easy, certainly helps.

okay---sounds like what you have is a Broan(brand) bathroom exhaust fan. but yeah---to COMPLETELY rebuild, refurbish & restore a Broan, you can buy the kit to do so, online. That way---you don't needta do a buncha work, installing a new one--rewiring, cutting, drilling, crawling upstairs, etc. You just plug-n-play the new fan motor, heating element & light bezel inta the existing fixture. yup. Given that the original install was about 20 years old, being able to obtain this kit was a time & labor saving. Yup. I boxed up the old parts(some of which were still usable) in the new box, and stored it in the attic. Yeah, I know that goes against the current trend of dumpstering everything, but oh well. Thankk Mee.