Bathroom Exhaust Fan Replacement - Burwood

We replaced the bathroom exhaust fan at Ben's place in Burwood today.

The old fan had stopped working completely. It wasn't pulling any air out of the room, and Ben was starting to see traces of mould in his bathroom. That's usually the first sign a fan has given up. Steam hangs around, turns to condensation, and mould loves that.

Ben didn't want the same thing swapped in. He wanted something a lot more powerful.

We isolated the power and pulled the old fan out. Before anything new went in, we checked the ceiling opening and the duct that takes the air outside. It's much easier to fix a problem while the hole is open.

We fitted a trade-grade fan, 150mm. Most bathroom fans are only 100mm, so this one moves a lot more air.

We went trade-grade on purpose. A cheap builder fan is often made to last until handover and not much longer. This one is built to run for years.

Fitting a bigger bathroom exhaust fan is a bit fiddly. The ceiling cut takes patience, because too small and it won't fit, too big and you're hiding a gap. The ducting has to line up too, so the air goes outside and doesn't just rattle around in the roof. We took our time seating and securing it so it runs quiet and doesn't vibrate.

The old cover wouldn't have suited the bigger unit, so we fitted a new square ceiling grille. It sits flush, covers the cut edge and leaves a clean finish. The bathroom already had LED downlights, so we worked around those and left them as they were.

On the electrical side, we put the fan on its own combo RCD in the switchboard. An RCD safety switch cuts the power in a fraction of a second if electricity starts going where it shouldn't. In a room with water and power, that's what you want. Having the fan on its own also means any problem is easy to track down.

Then we tested it. It started up properly, it pulled air the way it should, and the safety switch did its job. We don't pack up until we've seen that with our own eyes.

Ben now has a strong, quiet fan in his Burwood bathroom, and the steam clears out like it should.