The Decision to Install a New Bath Fan

When it comes to installing a new bath fan, one of the most important decisions you'll make is how to approach the ceiling installation process. In this particular instance, the original ceiling was in poor condition and needed to be replaced entirely. Rather than pulling down the old ceiling and risking damage to the insulation and vapor barrier, the homeowner decided to install new drywall directly over the existing ceiling.

This decision proved to be a good one, as it saved time and money by eliminating the need for extensive repairs and replacement of the old ceiling. The homeowner carefully measured out the space where the fan would be installed and created a layout on the drywall to ensure a smooth installation process.

Once the drywall was in place, the homeowner used a drill bit to pop up into the attic and begin working on the wiring hookup. This involved removing the disc from the housing and popping the motor casing open to access the wiring. The homeowner carefully pulled out the old wiring and replaced it with new wiring, making sure to hook everything up correctly.

The next step was to attach a sheet of drywall over the top of the fan housing, which would provide an additional layer of insulation and protection for the electrical components. Once the drywall was in place, the homeowner attached the cover on top of the housing using two spring-loaded tabs that held it in position.

To test the new installation, the homeowner plugged the power source into the fan and flipped the switch, watching as the motor sprang to life. The sound of the fan running quietly overhead confirmed that the installation had been done correctly, and the homeowner could see the fan spinning lazily above them.

The Benefits of Replacing a Bath Fan

Installing a new bath fan can be a relatively straightforward process, especially when compared to more extensive repairs or replacement projects. By choosing to install a new fan in place of the old one, homeowners can take advantage of several benefits, including improved ventilation and reduced energy bills.

One of the most important considerations when installing a new bath fan is ensuring that it is properly sized for the space. A fan that is too small may not provide adequate ventilation, while a fan that is too large may waste energy and increase electricity costs. By measuring the space carefully and choosing a fan with the right size motor, homeowners can ensure that their fan is working efficiently and effectively.

Another important consideration when installing a new bath fan is ensuring that it is properly hooked up to the electrical system. This involves removing any old wiring or connections and replacing them with new ones, which may involve cutting into the drywall or making other adjustments. By taking the time to get everything hooked up correctly, homeowners can ensure that their fan is safe to use and operates as intended.

Tips for Installing a Bath Fan

Installing a bath fan can be a relatively simple process, but it requires attention to detail and careful planning. Here are some tips to help make the installation process smoother:

* Make sure to measure the space carefully before purchasing a new fan.

* Choose a fan with the right size motor for your specific needs.

* Take the time to hook up the wiring correctly, including any necessary electrical connections.

* Ensure that the fan is properly secured in place using screws or other fasteners.

* Consider installing additional insulation or soundproofing materials to reduce noise and improve efficiency.

Conclusion

Installing a new bath fan can be a relatively straightforward process, especially when compared to more extensive repairs or replacement projects. By taking the time to plan carefully and ensure that everything is hooked up correctly, homeowners can take advantage of several benefits, including improved ventilation and reduced energy bills. With the right tools and a bit of patience, anyone can install a new bath fan with confidence.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi I'm Shannon back from house improvements comm and today I just want to shoot a video here and we're going to show you how to replace a bathroom fan in the bathroom we've already removed the old fan basically to do that there's a few variances that could be possible but first of all you want to turn the breaker off to the actual power source so turn that off don't just turn the switch on the wall off turn the actual breaker off double check that there is no power at the unit with a power tester and once you're sure that that's that's bad you can start to unhook the wiring cold it all off in some cases it might require that you go up in the attic if well I guess it depends where it's installed if it's in the ceiling area and except it's accessible from up top you may have to go out there to remove it if it's only accessible from in the room where you're working most of them will come out right there without cutting a big hole in the ceiling sometimes you may have to actually cut a hole or an extra big hole to get at the mounting another option may be some some companies have retrofits where you actually leave the metal box in the ceiling but you pull out the fan itself and just change the fan unit this is good if you've got a really noisy fan and really you know it's functioning but it's noisy and you just want to quiet it down a lot of them are coming out with retrofits with a quieter type fan that can go right into the housing you have so you might want to check that out even it saves you a little bit of time some of the things to look at when you're purchasing a fan there's basically really really two two or three main things most fans you'll either have just a fan you could have a fan with a light integrated into the cover and you could have a fan a light and humidity sensor integrated in a lot of them are coming out with sensors now so they actually would kick in when or if the humidity gets to a certain level I haven't dealt with a lot of those ones yet so I don't really can't command that they were great or not I still like to put all my fans I don't even like them on a switch I like to put them on a timer so you can actually come in it's separate from the light switch in the bathroom so when you need the fan you punch into the timer how much time you want it to run this way you can you know come in and have your shower and leave the fan running for a good half hour after you've left and then you know that it's going to get rid of all that humidity that was in there if it's on a switch most people are going to turn that switch off when they're done their shower and they're leaving the room and you know that's alright but you still left a lot of humidity usually in there the fan needs a few more minutes to work so that's why I like to use a timer so one of the other things are two of the other things you want to look at is the one is the CFM so your fan which is the cubic feet per minute of air that it actually removes from the room and the other thing is the sones and that is how loud or quiet the fan is so with the CFM s an easy calculation is to take your bathroom take the length times the width times the height and multiply that by decimal one five to come up with a total CFM s so simply if your bathroom is eight feet long for example five feet wide eight feet tall multiply those three times decimal one five and that'll come up with a number in my demonstration there I think that's around fifty or something like that now your CFM Z or fan should be just a hair bigger than what your actual calculation comes out to I don't like to use anything less than a ninety CFM fan you know bigger is better so that's basically the CFM's you need to figure out what you need for your room otherwise you're just wasting your time it's not going to move enough air as far as the Solon's go I believe they basically range from zero to five and a lot of the manufacturers actually have it marked right on the side of the box what what your fan or what your yeah what your fan puts out for sones the lower the number the quieter the fan so if you have anything less than about - that's a pretty quiet fan I've seen I've never seen a zero but I've seen a point four you know usually they're right around that one for a good quality fan I think this one we're going to put in a D this is just the housing for it this is a 90 CFM and the sone is one so it's this one's pretty quiet even though it's a big housing it's a nice big fan and it doesn't put out a bunch of racket rattling away up there in the ceiling soon so those are the basic things you're looking for when you're buying the fan and I mean you could spend up to 250 dollars on a fan there's that's not unheard of you could spend $30 on a fan if you buy the $30 one you're getting a $30 fan it's not likely going to be very quiet it's probably going to have you know 40 maybe 50 CFM s so not a real not probably a real good choice but you know in that hundred hundred and twenty dollar range you'll find a pretty good selection there and probably find one that will fit your needs so okay I think that's the main things you need to look for when buying so I've taken mine all out of the box already what you're going to find in the box is you're going to find the ceiling cover and like said some of them may have a light in it so you're going to find that you're going to find the little damper that snaps onto the housing this is where your ductwork hooks on you're going to find the instructions as well and then you're going to find the housing and the motor unit and this will usually come all assembled other than these I've already put the mounting bars on so these would have been loose in the box but I mounted them onto the to the Box already in here this is the fan unit the motor housing and they're attached there's usually one screw in there attached on a side that you need to remove to get that out I pre loosen this one because it was difficult to get out so once you have that screw out a lot of times you need to push on the housing a little bit it's kind of clipped in there you'll hear a snap oops before you do all that and plug the plug the wiring harness which generally just pulls right out and then the fan I mean obviously this would be over your head if you already got it installed but the fan unit pulls out and there's no need to have that in there while you're doing the actual installation it's just makes it harder to work with because it's a little heavier but so you can see the basic basic configuration small electric motor and and a squirrel cage type fan so I'm just going to set that to the side so what's going to happen is in most cases you're probably replacing a fan you already have and I think like I mentioned before it could be an insulated ceiling it might be just in floor joists or ceiling joists where there is no insulation possibly the case we're dealing with is it's in an attic so it's in an insulated space we're going to have an insulated duct which we're going to be able to reuse the one that was there it's already mounted to a vent that goes through the roof and is all done in with the shingles at the same time so we're just going to reuse that it all looks fine the venting itself will hook on to this damper and if you kind of look at the damper and in the instructions they even mentioned to most of them you can see it's pretty flat across the top here and there's a bit of a little bit of a bulge right there this would be the top flat side would be the top and I haven't seen any that connect any differently than what this one is there's a couple little clips on the side and then just simply once you get it in the right position snaps right onto there and that's really all that holds it on and you can see the little little flapper inside of there and all that's for us so if wind blows back down the vent on your roof or your eave it blows up against there and closes that off so you don't get too much of a cold draft down there it's not a hundred percent sealed up but that's how that works like I said we're going out through the roof you could yours could be vented straight out and you know maybe down through the soffit or even straight out the wall on the exterior house but it should be vented it shouldn't just vent into a floor space or attic space it should go to the exterior house otherwise you're defeating the purpose you're trying to get that moisture out of your home so and if it is in if you're in a colder climate and it is any any like an attic space a cold space the ductwork should be insulated as well so so that's that part actually here's a here's a sample piece of the ductwork that is exactly well pretty much exactly like what we're going to be using so you can see it's got the inner sleeve kind of a flexible actual ducting it's got a white insulation bath type insulation wrapped around it and it's got a vapor barrier on the outside already and it comes exactly like this you just buy it buy however many feet you need so what would happen and we might not be able to show up that well in the actual bathroom and in the Attic so I'm just going to show you right here simply this one's four inch you can that's something I should mention your existing ductwork maybe especially if you're going from a smaller fan to a bigger one your existing ductwork may be you know only three inches if it is it's better if you can replace the ductwork because most of these new fans all have a four inch duct so if you're reducing that size as soon as it it leaves the fan and gets into the ductwork you're you're making the fan not work as efficiently as it's designed to although there are reducers that you could add onto here that would reduce from four inch down to three and I mean you can hook it up it's just not as good so anyways the this duct work just simply slips right over and then use a foil type if this is just a tape but it's a foil phase tape it works better than actual duct tape duct tape kind of deteriorates over time and breaks down this does not so we slide that over you know nice inch or so over the lip of the event that comes with the fan tape all the way around there to seal it up then we make sure we pull the insulation you know you might have had to kind of push that insulation up out of the way to to get this on there and then you want to pull the insulation down it's a little hard for me to do here because the fan wants to move but you know pull your insulation rate down and around as much of that plastic damper as you can once you have it there then what I do is I kind of fold up the excess plastic that's around the outside and I put another wrap of that foil face tape on there to make that seal right there as well so so that's how how you deal with that this this piping here that I have cuts cuts easy it's kind of a two-step process you cut it off to length but there's oh there's a reinforcing wire inside of this part so you'll have to use a side cutter something to cut the wire as well but you just cut the plastic part with your knife okay so that's the duct work for the electrical hook-up there's there's sometimes a bit of variance there some of them are accessible from the inside so once you've got it up in the ceiling you can actually get your wiring done there might be a cover here whatever that you can pull down and access the wires this one doesn't and a lot of them won't you a lot of them you have to access it from up in the ceiling space or the attic and what you'll have is a little cover here that's held on with one screw usually and it comes out of the way you can see I've already inserted a wire clamp into here they won't come with this wire clamp so you need you'll need one of those so your wire existing wire will come through here and with the sheathing on it with the outer sheathing on it come through here and you clamp it down and then the wires that are sticking through the inside just like a normal plug in or anything like that you should have enough wires to do what you want to do so you might have four or five inches of wire inside of this cap right so depending on the fan you have this one only has a fan there's no humidity sensor there is no light either so this one is pretty generic basically all I need to do is I would hook the white wire that's coming in from my supply to the white wire here the ground wire which might be just a bare copper wire hooks to the green on the fan and the black wire coming in hooks to the block basic no problems there different scenarios you might have and your your fan instructions will show you how to do this as well so don't be afraid to refer to them because there are a few variables if you had let's let's just say you have a fan with a light in it and some people will just set it up you know maybe because their existing wiring only allowed for one power source so they might just have it all running off the same timer switch so that the fan and light both come on at the same time so that means if you have a light in here in the fan you're going to have probably at least one extra wire it might be red right so you bring in your normal wiring you hook all your whites together your ground to the ground the black one that was in here so you only had a 14-2 coming in the black one would hook to the power source for the fan and the power source if you have it for the light and that would allow that one switch or timer down in the in the bathroom to actually turn everything on at one time if your wirings say you've got two switches set up separately downstairs so you could turn the light on on its own or the fan on on its own then the wiring coming in here would at least be a three wire which would mean you'd have not only a ground and a white but also a black and a red okay so then it's just a matter of hooking up the corresponding the whites and the ground aren't going to change they're going to be the same but your red in your black that are coming in here would hook up to the corresponding wire that you need it to function in the fan so like I said refer to your instructions because it will be in there it'll show you the different choices and different scenarios so in our case I'm going to have to hook up this wire up in the attic so again just because of the situation I'm not going to be able to probably show you the actual wiring that's why I wanted to just discuss it here on the bench it's tough enough for me to get up in the attic without the camera and lights and another person so I'm just going to pop that back in there so don't lose anything I'll just pull it out again when I'm up in the attic talk it up to hook those up obviously you're going to use wire nuts or a lot of people just refer to them as rats if you don't know how to use these you can look search some of my other electrical videos in particular wiring multiple receptacles on our YouTube channel and you'll see me using those as well and demonstrate it I think I've pretty much done all I can do here on the bench I guess a quick quick talk about actually doing the install before we move is there you have a couple options most fans will come with this extra fin on one side this fin is designed so that if you just push these back if you were placing it right up against a joist or a rafter you could actually mount it right on to that now if your rafters here you can mount it right there and would just would hang there if you in our case were to get it kind of centered in the room where we want it I'm going to be out in the middle between two rafters so that's where these mounting bars come in and they're adjustable this way they mount with a nail into the wood so I can spread them out actually hit the rafters slide the housing around to where I need it and it's just a little more flexible that way the other thing I guess I'll mention is what you're what you're trying to achieve with the with the the box itself with the housing you want this bottom edge to be flush to the to the bottom face of your drywall so flush with your ceiling that's how you're trying to set it up with all so once I get it all in there get the wiring hooked up the venting on and again I'm not going to be able to really show this up there but what I'll do then if you're in an area where you're supposed to have a vapor barrier and there's an existing one in your attic what I do is cut a piece of poly plastic that's made for vapor barrier purposes and it's going to be fairly big probably about three feet square in this case and I'm going to lay it right over the whole unit cut around the ductwork seal it all to the existing vapor barrier as much as I can seal it around you know this will be on here I want to tape it all around all this with I'll be using like red duct tape that you'd use on house wrap seal up everything rate where the power comes through it the wire comes through it seal that up try to make it as airtight as you can it is pretty difficult because everything going on here but it is possible to to get it pretty pretty good so so I think that's all I can really show you on the bench next thing I'm going to do we're going to set up in the bathroom I'm going to get this something mounted up in the ceiling and then I'll have to climb up in the attic and and get get all the wiring and venting hooked up so we'll continue in the bathroom okay so in the bathroom here we've we're actually going to be covering this old ceiling with some new drywall you can even see over there we've got the first sheet up so I just cut a little bigger hole here so that you might be able to see bet a bit better what I'm doing I'm not going to be able to show from down here hooking up the ductwork are they electrical that's why I tried to show you on the bench in the other room I've also you'll see some cardboard up in that opening that's really just there holding the insulation back so it isn't falling all over me when I'm trying to hammer this in and talk to you so you won't typically see that up there so I'm going to take the housing up this is the existing ductwork I'm going to push it up just out of the way so you can see that insulation yucky stuff and I already went ahead and kind of pre marked out where I want this to be so if it looks like I'm just slapping it up there I'm not I've actually got some Marty's there to tell me where I need to go with it so uh so I'm using those hanger brackets like I said and I just want to get them to my marks tack the nails in who should be at you by the time I'm done this you can see that's why I have the glasses on to be quite honest probably a mask wouldn't be a bad idea either I just slip those bars out I'm lining them up on my marks I had on the other side I'm not nailing it completely in until I know that I've got things exactly where I want them okay so those bars in there now they allow me to adjust this kind of wherever I want to kind of get get it in the room I don't know you can probably tell that it's hanging down looks like it's hanging down below this and that's that is what I wanted because remember I'm coming in with another sheet of half-inch underneath there the reason I'm just because somebody's going to ask the question so I'm going to answer right now the reason I'm drywalling over this is this ceiling wasn't in that great of shape just banged up and that and instead of pulling this down and having all that insulation the vapor barrier probably come loose and fall down with the ceiling it's just easier to go right over top it with some new stuff so so I've got that in there I've got my fan sitting basically where I want to put it I'm going to pop up into the attic get the wiring hooked up actually I can I can pop the disc apart pop the motor housing in there for you and anyways I'm going to do all that other hookup will maybe throw up the sheet of drywall and then I'll pop the cover on to right at the end of the video just so you can see how see how that all works okay so it's just a matter looking for the appropriate tabs on this housing to figure out which direction it works usually usually there'll be a cutout like this that lines up with the power source and that's your biggest clue on which way actually goes in there like I said most of them kind of snap into hold it there so you don't have to hold it while you're trying to get the screw in actually I'll maybe leave the screw out in case I've got to pull it out again but anyways once you get that up in there you didn't cert the screw that was there take the power source plug it in I'm going to leave it unplugged too right now so I'm going to go up top and get things hooked up up there we'll come down and do the bottom drywall and throw the cover on so you can see when we're up here like I said there's not a lot of great room to show you anything video wise it's just to crowd it's hard enough for me to get up here let alone get the camera in a decent spot to get a shot so I'm just I've got the vent hooked up I've got the electrical hooked up now I'm going to take the my poly and try to do the best vapor barrier I can and then I can pull out the cardboards and Slough in some insulation all around everything that that I've got here you want to try to if it is an insulated ceiling you want to try to make sure you get lots of insulation up on top as well even I probably will bring up a couple batts of insulation just lay them across the top just for some extra most of what you see here is all blowing in so it's sometimes hard to get piled up just in one spot so so I'm just going to get my polity in there do what I can to seal it up and then get the the insulation in place and I'll come back down okay so I finally back down out of that ugly attic obviously we haven't painted the ceiling did a mudding or whatever but I just want to show you how the cover goes on so you're on the cover you're going to find these two kind of spring-loaded springs I don't what you're tall and on the side of the housing here there's two little bent out tabs a pair on each side that the spring slipping behind and I'm pretty sure you're not all I might be able to do one side where you can see COC I'm squeezing them together getting them behind those tabs now when I push the cover up and see how the attention of those tabs basically is going to hold it in place I've plugged the housing in as well just get this side done up push that up and hold it up there as long as you've positioned the fan right it holds it up there we had turned on the breaker already I'll hit the switch you might be able to hear that running quite possibly but it works so I guess that's how to install or replace a bath fan I think we showed you as much as we possibly could actually doing the install and we showed you the rest that we could on the table so should have a good idea at this point now what what you need to do if you liked this video that'd be great just click the little I think it's over there the little like thumbs up on the video also right below here there's a link to our website at host improvements comm it's right in the comments below me and from there you can get into our website where you can find articles I actually think we even have an article about installing bath fan if I'm not mistaken from there there's also the forum tab that you can go into the forum and ask questions or look around or maybe help somebody else with a problem they're having and as well on the YouTube channel here we've got tons of videos up so have a look around and maybe you'll like them all thanks for watchinghi I'm Shannon back from house improvements comm and today I just want to shoot a video here and we're going to show you how to replace a bathroom fan in the bathroom we've already removed the old fan basically to do that there's a few variances that could be possible but first of all you want to turn the breaker off to the actual power source so turn that off don't just turn the switch on the wall off turn the actual breaker off double check that there is no power at the unit with a power tester and once you're sure that that's that's bad you can start to unhook the wiring cold it all off in some cases it might require that you go up in the attic if well I guess it depends where it's installed if it's in the ceiling area and except it's accessible from up top you may have to go out there to remove it if it's only accessible from in the room where you're working most of them will come out right there without cutting a big hole in the ceiling sometimes you may have to actually cut a hole or an extra big hole to get at the mounting another option may be some some companies have retrofits where you actually leave the metal box in the ceiling but you pull out the fan itself and just change the fan unit this is good if you've got a really noisy fan and really you know it's functioning but it's noisy and you just want to quiet it down a lot of them are coming out with retrofits with a quieter type fan that can go right into the housing you have so you might want to check that out even it saves you a little bit of time some of the things to look at when you're purchasing a fan there's basically really really two two or three main things most fans you'll either have just a fan you could have a fan with a light integrated into the cover and you could have a fan a light and humidity sensor integrated in a lot of them are coming out with sensors now so they actually would kick in when or if the humidity gets to a certain level I haven't dealt with a lot of those ones yet so I don't really can't command that they were great or not I still like to put all my fans I don't even like them on a switch I like to put them on a timer so you can actually come in it's separate from the light switch in the bathroom so when you need the fan you punch into the timer how much time you want it to run this way you can you know come in and have your shower and leave the fan running for a good half hour after you've left and then you know that it's going to get rid of all that humidity that was in there if it's on a switch most people are going to turn that switch off when they're done their shower and they're leaving the room and you know that's alright but you still left a lot of humidity usually in there the fan needs a few more minutes to work so that's why I like to use a timer so one of the other things are two of the other things you want to look at is the one is the CFM so your fan which is the cubic feet per minute of air that it actually removes from the room and the other thing is the sones and that is how loud or quiet the fan is so with the CFM s an easy calculation is to take your bathroom take the length times the width times the height and multiply that by decimal one five to come up with a total CFM s so simply if your bathroom is eight feet long for example five feet wide eight feet tall multiply those three times decimal one five and that'll come up with a number in my demonstration there I think that's around fifty or something like that now your CFM Z or fan should be just a hair bigger than what your actual calculation comes out to I don't like to use anything less than a ninety CFM fan you know bigger is better so that's basically the CFM's you need to figure out what you need for your room otherwise you're just wasting your time it's not going to move enough air as far as the Solon's go I believe they basically range from zero to five and a lot of the manufacturers actually have it marked right on the side of the box what what your fan or what your yeah what your fan puts out for sones the lower the number the quieter the fan so if you have anything less than about - that's a pretty quiet fan I've seen I've never seen a zero but I've seen a point four you know usually they're right around that one for a good quality fan I think this one we're going to put in a D this is just the housing for it this is a 90 CFM and the sone is one so it's this one's pretty quiet even though it's a big housing it's a nice big fan and it doesn't put out a bunch of racket rattling away up there in the ceiling soon so those are the basic things you're looking for when you're buying the fan and I mean you could spend up to 250 dollars on a fan there's that's not unheard of you could spend $30 on a fan if you buy the $30 one you're getting a $30 fan it's not likely going to be very quiet it's probably going to have you know 40 maybe 50 CFM s so not a real not probably a real good choice but you know in that hundred hundred and twenty dollar range you'll find a pretty good selection there and probably find one that will fit your needs so okay I think that's the main things you need to look for when buying so I've taken mine all out of the box already what you're going to find in the box is you're going to find the ceiling cover and like said some of them may have a light in it so you're going to find that you're going to find the little damper that snaps onto the housing this is where your ductwork hooks on you're going to find the instructions as well and then you're going to find the housing and the motor unit and this will usually come all assembled other than these I've already put the mounting bars on so these would have been loose in the box but I mounted them onto the to the Box already in here this is the fan unit the motor housing and they're attached there's usually one screw in there attached on a side that you need to remove to get that out I pre loosen this one because it was difficult to get out so once you have that screw out a lot of times you need to push on the housing a little bit it's kind of clipped in there you'll hear a snap oops before you do all that and plug the plug the wiring harness which generally just pulls right out and then the fan I mean obviously this would be over your head if you already got it installed but the fan unit pulls out and there's no need to have that in there while you're doing the actual installation it's just makes it harder to work with because it's a little heavier but so you can see the basic basic configuration small electric motor and and a squirrel cage type fan so I'm just going to set that to the side so what's going to happen is in most cases you're probably replacing a fan you already have and I think like I mentioned before it could be an insulated ceiling it might be just in floor joists or ceiling joists where there is no insulation possibly the case we're dealing with is it's in an attic so it's in an insulated space we're going to have an insulated duct which we're going to be able to reuse the one that was there it's already mounted to a vent that goes through the roof and is all done in with the shingles at the same time so we're just going to reuse that it all looks fine the venting itself will hook on to this damper and if you kind of look at the damper and in the instructions they even mentioned to most of them you can see it's pretty flat across the top here and there's a bit of a little bit of a bulge right there this would be the top flat side would be the top and I haven't seen any that connect any differently than what this one is there's a couple little clips on the side and then just simply once you get it in the right position snaps right onto there and that's really all that holds it on and you can see the little little flapper inside of there and all that's for us so if wind blows back down the vent on your roof or your eave it blows up against there and closes that off so you don't get too much of a cold draft down there it's not a hundred percent sealed up but that's how that works like I said we're going out through the roof you could yours could be vented straight out and you know maybe down through the soffit or even straight out the wall on the exterior house but it should be vented it shouldn't just vent into a floor space or attic space it should go to the exterior house otherwise you're defeating the purpose you're trying to get that moisture out of your home so and if it is in if you're in a colder climate and it is any any like an attic space a cold space the ductwork should be insulated as well so so that's that part actually here's a here's a sample piece of the ductwork that is exactly well pretty much exactly like what we're going to be using so you can see it's got the inner sleeve kind of a flexible actual ducting it's got a white insulation bath type insulation wrapped around it and it's got a vapor barrier on the outside already and it comes exactly like this you just buy it buy however many feet you need so what would happen and we might not be able to show up that well in the actual bathroom and in the Attic so I'm just going to show you right here simply this one's four inch you can that's something I should mention your existing ductwork maybe especially if you're going from a smaller fan to a bigger one your existing ductwork may be you know only three inches if it is it's better if you can replace the ductwork because most of these new fans all have a four inch duct so if you're reducing that size as soon as it it leaves the fan and gets into the ductwork you're you're making the fan not work as efficiently as it's designed to although there are reducers that you could add onto here that would reduce from four inch down to three and I mean you can hook it up it's just not as good so anyways the this duct work just simply slips right over and then use a foil type if this is just a tape but it's a foil phase tape it works better than actual duct tape duct tape kind of deteriorates over time and breaks down this does not so we slide that over you know nice inch or so over the lip of the event that comes with the fan tape all the way around there to seal it up then we make sure we pull the insulation you know you might have had to kind of push that insulation up out of the way to to get this on there and then you want to pull the insulation down it's a little hard for me to do here because the fan wants to move but you know pull your insulation rate down and around as much of that plastic damper as you can once you have it there then what I do is I kind of fold up the excess plastic that's around the outside and I put another wrap of that foil face tape on there to make that seal right there as well so so that's how how you deal with that this this piping here that I have cuts cuts easy it's kind of a two-step process you cut it off to length but there's oh there's a reinforcing wire inside of this part so you'll have to use a side cutter something to cut the wire as well but you just cut the plastic part with your knife okay so that's the duct work for the electrical hook-up there's there's sometimes a bit of variance there some of them are accessible from the inside so once you've got it up in the ceiling you can actually get your wiring done there might be a cover here whatever that you can pull down and access the wires this one doesn't and a lot of them won't you a lot of them you have to access it from up in the ceiling space or the attic and what you'll have is a little cover here that's held on with one screw usually and it comes out of the way you can see I've already inserted a wire clamp into here they won't come with this wire clamp so you need you'll need one of those so your wire existing wire will come through here and with the sheathing on it with the outer sheathing on it come through here and you clamp it down and then the wires that are sticking through the inside just like a normal plug in or anything like that you should have enough wires to do what you want to do so you might have four or five inches of wire inside of this cap right so depending on the fan you have this one only has a fan there's no humidity sensor there is no light either so this one is pretty generic basically all I need to do is I would hook the white wire that's coming in from my supply to the white wire here the ground wire which might be just a bare copper wire hooks to the green on the fan and the black wire coming in hooks to the block basic no problems there different scenarios you might have and your your fan instructions will show you how to do this as well so don't be afraid to refer to them because there are a few variables if you had let's let's just say you have a fan with a light in it and some people will just set it up you know maybe because their existing wiring only allowed for one power source so they might just have it all running off the same timer switch so that the fan and light both come on at the same time so that means if you have a light in here in the fan you're going to have probably at least one extra wire it might be red right so you bring in your normal wiring you hook all your whites together your ground to the ground the black one that was in here so you only had a 14-2 coming in the black one would hook to the power source for the fan and the power source if you have it for the light and that would allow that one switch or timer down in the in the bathroom to actually turn everything on at one time if your wirings say you've got two switches set up separately downstairs so you could turn the light on on its own or the fan on on its own then the wiring coming in here would at least be a three wire which would mean you'd have not only a ground and a white but also a black and a red okay so then it's just a matter of hooking up the corresponding the whites and the ground aren't going to change they're going to be the same but your red in your black that are coming in here would hook up to the corresponding wire that you need it to function in the fan so like I said refer to your instructions because it will be in there it'll show you the different choices and different scenarios so in our case I'm going to have to hook up this wire up in the attic so again just because of the situation I'm not going to be able to probably show you the actual wiring that's why I wanted to just discuss it here on the bench it's tough enough for me to get up in the attic without the camera and lights and another person so I'm just going to pop that back in there so don't lose anything I'll just pull it out again when I'm up in the attic talk it up to hook those up obviously you're going to use wire nuts or a lot of people just refer to them as rats if you don't know how to use these you can look search some of my other electrical videos in particular wiring multiple receptacles on our YouTube channel and you'll see me using those as well and demonstrate it I think I've pretty much done all I can do here on the bench I guess a quick quick talk about actually doing the install before we move is there you have a couple options most fans will come with this extra fin on one side this fin is designed so that if you just push these back if you were placing it right up against a joist or a rafter you could actually mount it right on to that now if your rafters here you can mount it right there and would just would hang there if you in our case were to get it kind of centered in the room where we want it I'm going to be out in the middle between two rafters so that's where these mounting bars come in and they're adjustable this way they mount with a nail into the wood so I can spread them out actually hit the rafters slide the housing around to where I need it and it's just a little more flexible that way the other thing I guess I'll mention is what you're what you're trying to achieve with the with the the box itself with the housing you want this bottom edge to be flush to the to the bottom face of your drywall so flush with your ceiling that's how you're trying to set it up with all so once I get it all in there get the wiring hooked up the venting on and again I'm not going to be able to really show this up there but what I'll do then if you're in an area where you're supposed to have a vapor barrier and there's an existing one in your attic what I do is cut a piece of poly plastic that's made for vapor barrier purposes and it's going to be fairly big probably about three feet square in this case and I'm going to lay it right over the whole unit cut around the ductwork seal it all to the existing vapor barrier as much as I can seal it around you know this will be on here I want to tape it all around all this with I'll be using like red duct tape that you'd use on house wrap seal up everything rate where the power comes through it the wire comes through it seal that up try to make it as airtight as you can it is pretty difficult because everything going on here but it is possible to to get it pretty pretty good so so I think that's all I can really show you on the bench next thing I'm going to do we're going to set up in the bathroom I'm going to get this something mounted up in the ceiling and then I'll have to climb up in the attic and and get get all the wiring and venting hooked up so we'll continue in the bathroom okay so in the bathroom here we've we're actually going to be covering this old ceiling with some new drywall you can even see over there we've got the first sheet up so I just cut a little bigger hole here so that you might be able to see bet a bit better what I'm doing I'm not going to be able to show from down here hooking up the ductwork are they electrical that's why I tried to show you on the bench in the other room I've also you'll see some cardboard up in that opening that's really just there holding the insulation back so it isn't falling all over me when I'm trying to hammer this in and talk to you so you won't typically see that up there so I'm going to take the housing up this is the existing ductwork I'm going to push it up just out of the way so you can see that insulation yucky stuff and I already went ahead and kind of pre marked out where I want this to be so if it looks like I'm just slapping it up there I'm not I've actually got some Marty's there to tell me where I need to go with it so uh so I'm using those hanger brackets like I said and I just want to get them to my marks tack the nails in who should be at you by the time I'm done this you can see that's why I have the glasses on to be quite honest probably a mask wouldn't be a bad idea either I just slip those bars out I'm lining them up on my marks I had on the other side I'm not nailing it completely in until I know that I've got things exactly where I want them okay so those bars in there now they allow me to adjust this kind of wherever I want to kind of get get it in the room I don't know you can probably tell that it's hanging down looks like it's hanging down below this and that's that is what I wanted because remember I'm coming in with another sheet of half-inch underneath there the reason I'm just because somebody's going to ask the question so I'm going to answer right now the reason I'm drywalling over this is this ceiling wasn't in that great of shape just banged up and that and instead of pulling this down and having all that insulation the vapor barrier probably come loose and fall down with the ceiling it's just easier to go right over top it with some new stuff so so I've got that in there I've got my fan sitting basically where I want to put it I'm going to pop up into the attic get the wiring hooked up actually I can I can pop the disc apart pop the motor housing in there for you and anyways I'm going to do all that other hookup will maybe throw up the sheet of drywall and then I'll pop the cover on to right at the end of the video just so you can see how see how that all works okay so it's just a matter looking for the appropriate tabs on this housing to figure out which direction it works usually usually there'll be a cutout like this that lines up with the power source and that's your biggest clue on which way actually goes in there like I said most of them kind of snap into hold it there so you don't have to hold it while you're trying to get the screw in actually I'll maybe leave the screw out in case I've got to pull it out again but anyways once you get that up in there you didn't cert the screw that was there take the power source plug it in I'm going to leave it unplugged too right now so I'm going to go up top and get things hooked up up there we'll come down and do the bottom drywall and throw the cover on so you can see when we're up here like I said there's not a lot of great room to show you anything video wise it's just to crowd it's hard enough for me to get up here let alone get the camera in a decent spot to get a shot so I'm just I've got the vent hooked up I've got the electrical hooked up now I'm going to take the my poly and try to do the best vapor barrier I can and then I can pull out the cardboards and Slough in some insulation all around everything that that I've got here you want to try to if it is an insulated ceiling you want to try to make sure you get lots of insulation up on top as well even I probably will bring up a couple batts of insulation just lay them across the top just for some extra most of what you see here is all blowing in so it's sometimes hard to get piled up just in one spot so so I'm just going to get my polity in there do what I can to seal it up and then get the the insulation in place and I'll come back down okay so I finally back down out of that ugly attic obviously we haven't painted the ceiling did a mudding or whatever but I just want to show you how the cover goes on so you're on the cover you're going to find these two kind of spring-loaded springs I don't what you're tall and on the side of the housing here there's two little bent out tabs a pair on each side that the spring slipping behind and I'm pretty sure you're not all I might be able to do one side where you can see COC I'm squeezing them together getting them behind those tabs now when I push the cover up and see how the attention of those tabs basically is going to hold it in place I've plugged the housing in as well just get this side done up push that up and hold it up there as long as you've positioned the fan right it holds it up there we had turned on the breaker already I'll hit the switch you might be able to hear that running quite possibly but it works so I guess that's how to install or replace a bath fan I think we showed you as much as we possibly could actually doing the install and we showed you the rest that we could on the table so should have a good idea at this point now what what you need to do if you liked this video that'd be great just click the little I think it's over there the little like thumbs up on the video also right below here there's a link to our website at host improvements comm it's right in the comments below me and from there you can get into our website where you can find articles I actually think we even have an article about installing bath fan if I'm not mistaken from there there's also the forum tab that you can go into the forum and ask questions or look around or maybe help somebody else with a problem they're having and as well on the YouTube channel here we've got tons of videos up so have a look around and maybe you'll like them all thanks for watching\n"