Our House

One of the first things we noticed when we were looking at this house was the lack of a bathroom fan in the bathroom - it seemed odd to us since every house we’ve lived in has had a fan, and this being Minnesota, leaving the window open during a shower is impractical half of the year!

Installing a new fan can be tricky, but it’s not impossible. With the help of Alex’s coworker Joshua, we installed the fan this Sunday afternoon.

First, we went into the attic and found a beam we could bolt the fan onto. After drilling down into the bathroom from above, we traced the fan motor onto the ceiling so we knew where to cut.

Then in the attic, we began attaching the piping to the fan which we drew out of one of the front vents in the attic. Normally you should leave these vents open, but our roof has a TON of vents (6 vents, and 6 soffit vents too), so this one was going to blocked off by the insulators when they came next week anyways. So we pulled the pipe out of there.

Our attic is filled with styrofoam and some vermicullite, as well as some pieces of fiberglass insulation. While digging around in there to clear room for the pipe, we found old scraps of newspaper (Minneapolis Star and Tribune) as well as old puzzle pieces.

The newspaper was particularly useful for us, because it showed us that not so long ago this attic had been used for storage, and maybe even a sort of living space (that explains the puzzle). In fact, it’s large enough that we could always make it into another room if we need to down the road. There are already some creepy hangers up there:

We got the piping all wrapped up and connected, and screwed it onto the vent so it won’t come loose if it’s windy or rains. We also shoved some of the fiberglass insulation in there, just in case squirrels try to get in before the insulators can seal it off for good.

We didn’t feel we were qualified to run the wiring for the switch, though, so while the mechanics of the fan are all ready to go, the switch will be put in by an electrician on Tuesday. And then we’ll have a bathroom fan finally!