Vent Fan Up and Running

Mix a bunch of humidity in a confined space with no where for that moist air to go and you get mold... lots of it.  In a previous post, I mentioned that my lovely wife just loves her hot showers.  With no ventilation, mold builds quickly, especially when I have the window covered with a plastic seal to stop any drafts.

Several months ago, I researched out the best vent fan for the bathroom.  Overwhelmingly, I found that Panasonic was the brand to go after.  Beyond venting the bathroom, I also wanted to improve the lighting and add heat.  The undersized baseboard is just not large enough to heat our bathroom.  So the top-of-the-line Panasonic FV-11VHL2 was the fan to go after.  With a retail price at $502, it is not cheap but I'll rarely settle for retail pricing.  Searching online found the best price, namely, Amazon.com (pricing may vary).  For $251.00 with free shipping (of course) this rather large bathroom vent fan was in my home.

Installing it was a bit difficult only because of my inexperience and it's an old house.  There are two options for installation, both of which required cutting a hole in either my siding or my roof.  With no ladder (yet), I needed to enlist the help of a co-worker who moonlights as a handyman (for a fee).  As I have a mild fear of heights, I thought it best to have him aide me with the roof installation.  The roof install was our chosen method since I wanted to minimize any changes to the home's exterior looks, as a roof install would not be seen from the street.  Not only did he aide me with the roof install, he also took over the entire instillation.

Side Note:

It's not always a good idea to get "hired help" from a co-worker/friend.  I wanted to replace an existing smaller lamp in the bathroom with this much larger unit.  In order to do this, we needed to make the ceiling opening larger.  My co-worker friend decided to get the job done with a power tool.  Not thinking, I fetched it for him.  He used his "sawzall" from the attic side down to cut apart my 250 year old plaster ceiling.  For those of you not familiar, a "Sawzall" is a reciprocating saw that shakes the crap out of what ever is near it.  I have to admit, I was pretty upset by the sight of a one square foot piece of plaster crumble and fall to the bathroom floor.  Being a co-worker and a friend, I didn't have the heart to verbally beat him up for it.  He did take the blame for it and, over the course of a few months (yikes!), patched it.  The work started November 20, 2011, and ended this past Friday night, February 17, 2012.  Of course, most of the work was completed on November 20th.  The remainder of the time was spent juggling schedules, cancellations, etc. while waiting for my co-worker friend to come back and apply the plaster patch in three layers.

The following are photos during the installation of November 20, 2011.

Now that the vent fan is in place, its time to route power and the exhaust duct to the roof.

A little insulation around the exhaust helps to avoid condensation during use.

While walking through the attic, we noticed that there was a junction box labeled "extra".  Inside were four free lines.  We had hoped to connect the heater to one of those lines since it required a dedicated line straight from the electrical panel.  My friend connected a breaker-finder tool to the wire and went to the electrical box to find which breaker the line went to.  No breaker was found.  The conclusion at that time was that the wire may have terminated in another junction box.  

With perhaps the 10th hour that we've been working approaching, my friend needed to get on with life.  We called it quits after making a temporary connection to the existing lighting.  When the light switch was turned on,  so did the fan and the lights.  No heat since I wouldn't want to set off the breaker making everything useless.

Over the next couple of weekends I dedicated my time to tracing the wires in the bathroom.  I turned off the breaker to the bathroom and took off the decorative switch plate revealing the wiring inside.

What a mess... I tried to organize the wiring into the individual conductors.  On the left is one line (one hot, one ground and one neutral).  In the center, pointing downwards is another line (one hot, one ground and one negative).  Pointing to the right is the third line (two hot, one ground, one neutral).

I then connected a tracer to each line and used the included probe to literally trace the connected wire back to the panel (or wherever it may lead).  The tracer was purchased from Amazon.com for a little under $80.

As it turns out, the left line went to a GFCI outlet, the middle one was from the panel and the right line went to the lighting.  The switches were wired in the most annoying fashion.  The left two switches controlled the GFCI outlet, why two I do not know.  It was more of an annoyance when my wife would plug in her hair dryer and it wouldn't work.  We would have to play with the two switches to get the outlet to work.

I straightened the wiring out removing what was originally installed.  I purchased two new 15 amp switches and one timer switch.  Identifying the source line, I hard wired the GFCI plug to be always on as opposed to on/off with a switch.  From that same line, I also feed the lighting and the new fan through a switch and timer, respectively.  In the photo below, the switch on the left is a dummy switch since the big name home improvement store did not have any blank plugs for the three switch plate.

Now, the heater.  This was perhaps the hardest part.  The heating element required a dedicated 20 amp breaker.  Using the tracer, I was able to locate where the extra line in the attic terminated.  It ended up in the panel in the basement, just not connected to a breaker which would explain why my friend's breaker tracer couldn't find it (no breaker, no trace).  I purchased a 20 amp breaker for my GE panel (the name brand matters) and installed it in one of the empty slots.  At the same time I purchased wire mold chases and a switch box.  I also got a timer rated for the 20 amp circuit.

There's so much more to describe, and by the time I finish giving the details of everything, boredom would have passed and the point lost.

So what is the point?  Well, I bought a vent fan to remove the possibility of mold build up and to also help heat the bathroom on our cold winter nights.  After many months, it was finally done!

Update 02/08/15:  After having the vent fan installed and used for almost 3 years, the vent fan has not been the perfect unit as researched.  I have gone through one set of CFL bulbs (yes, they do eventually go out, but after only 18 months of use?) and the heater had stopped working.  I called into Panasonic to get a solution and was told that the unit is under warranty still (with 30 days left) and a new heating element will be mailed.  FOUR MONTHS LATER (must be on purpose).... the heater came in, I installed it and.... I still have no heat in the bathroom.  Damn thing still doesn't work even though there is power going to the unit.  This is another issue that I have to sort out in time, since I'm no longer under warranty.

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Water in my electrical panel

My wife and I are getting ready for a trip back to our parents homes' for Thanksgiving.  After packing the car, I wanted to secure our home for our extended leave.  I locked the back door, then went into the basement to check the basement door.  We previously worked on the breaker box which was left uncovered from when we were installing the vent fan in our bathroom.  I wanted to re-attach the cover, so as I was re-attaching it, I am supporting the panel with my left hand, screwing in the second of six screws when all of a sudden water started to squirt out from the breakers!  I quickly unscrewed the two screws, pulled off the panel and was quite surprised to see most of the breakers covered in water.  First things first, the main was switched off.

"Honey, what happened to the power!" calls my wife.

With the main off, in the dark, I remembered that I had the business card in my wallet of the electrician that came to our home that day of the power outage in October.  I called him up.  I explained the situation, and he said, "If this were any other day, I would be right over, but unfortunately, I am with family and have a bird to take care of."  I understood, but he did a repeat of our first encounter.  He described to me how to correct the water issue:

1. Turn off the main and each individual breaker.
2. Take out each breaker by pulling it out from the center of the box towards the side it is on.
3. Unscrew the wire leading into each breaker so that now the breaker is completely free.
4. Get a can of WD-40 and saturate the breaker.
5. Wrap the breaker in a thick towel and gently beat it.  The oil in the WD-40 will disperse the water in the breaker bringing it out of the casing.
6. Get a can of compressed air and spray off any residual water/oil left.
7. Repeat the towel beating and compressed air cleaning until there is no more water.
8. The WD-40 will dry in about 30 minutes.  Re-attach the wire and plug the breaker back into its location on the panel.
9. Repeat for all the wet breakers.

Took me a couple hours, but I completed the task and with my hands shaking, I turned on the main, then breakers 1... 2... 3........23.  Power was up and running.  We waited about half an hour to make sure everything was stable, then packed up the last of our belongings and left for the weekend.

The electrician said that water can get into the electrical box through the main conduit leading from the outside line.  It would trickle down the conduit into the home and directly into the panel.

A week later, before the next rain event, I took a look at the main power feed entering our home. The line attaches to the exterior wall at the roof line. It enters a conduit that then travels down the exterior wall to the meter.  From there, the conduit leaves the meter and goes further down the wall to the basement level where a bracket is installed.  Looking closely at the bracket, it is loose, rather unattached to the wall.  I found the source of my water leak.

Just of note, this is the same location where investigative work was undertaken several weeks prior by the structural company working in the basement.  They did such lousy finishing work on the exterior. Not only is that bracket not secured but there is also a lack of caulking.  I purchased a box of paint-able white exterior caulk from Lowes and went at that bracket. This could have been disastrous!  Imagine if my wife and I left and water continued to leak onto live breakers.  A fire erupts after a spark is created and my 250 year old wooden home burns up like a Thanksgiving bonfire.  I may sound like a "drama queen" to any contractor, but when it comes to my family and my investment, it's nothing to blow over. I have to watch future contractors like a hawk. I have to scrutinize their work as we'll be the ones living with their oversights.

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Curious Electrical Issue

I just received my new bathroom vent fan!  I cut open the box and studiously read the manual.  The directions said that I needed a "dedicated 20 amp breaker".  I have no idea what breaker is assigned to the bathroom.  Ok, a trip down into the basement is needed.  I open the electrical box and behold:

No lables?!  That just makes things a bit complicated. My wife and I spend the next hour going over switch by switch.  I delegated her to turn on all the lights and carry around an old plug in alarm clock for the rooms that have no hard wired lighting.  We each had an iPhone that we used in Facetime mode.  As I flipped each breaker to off, she would go room to room to find what was still on and what was out.  This method solved several of the unknown labels (especially when I kept accidentally turning off Breaker No. 4, turning off our WIFI, no WIFI = no Facetime) but a few of the breakers are still unknown.  And more alarming is that with all the breakers off, half of the lights in the kitchen were still on.

Here is what was figured out:

Breaker

1.  20 Amps - Unknown.
2.  15 Amps - Unknown.
3.  20 Amps - Unknown.
4.  15 Amps - Second Floor: South Two 
              Bedrooms.
5.  20 Amps - First Floor, Library.
6.  15 Amps - Oil Furnace.
7.  15 Amps - First Floor: Rear Stairs, 
              Dining Room, Living Room.
8.  15 Amps - First Floor: Half Bath, 
              Kitchen Addition, Porch; 
              Basement: Lights.
9.  15 Amps - Second Floor:  Full Bath.
10. 20 Amps - First Floor:  Kitchen Light 
              Over Sink & Dishwasher?
11. 15 Amps - Unknown.
12. 20 Amps - Unknown.
13/15.  80 Amps - Cloths Dryer.
17/19.  60 Amps - Oven and Range.
14. 20 Amps - Microwave.
16. 20 Amps - Radon Pump.
18. 15 Amps - Attic.
20. 15 Amps - Master Bedroom.
21. 15 Amps - Unknown.
22. 20 Amps - Main Entry Lighting and 
              Exterior Front Lights.
23. 15 Amps - Basement: Electrical 
              Socket (Dehumidifier).

I guess I have to figure out a solution for the bathroom vent.  I wonder if I can use one of the "Unknown" 20 Amp breakers?  Since they do not control anything (assuming that is) then perhaps I can just feed a wire down from the attic and plug it into the breaker box.  I'll have to look into that.

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