Fixing the Bathroom Fan – Part 1

For the past month our bathroom ceiling fan has been rattling.  It’s a very VERY annoying sound.  Two years ago I installed a timer for it, and we leave it on for an hour during/after our showers.  This morning I’d finally had enough!!!  I got the ladder out, climbed up, and started dismantling it.  I forgot to take a before picture, so here’s an after picture – just pretend there’s tons of dust caked inside:

Hubby removed the plastic & ceramic cover [I always assumed that shiny orb was plastic, but it’s actually a ceramic cover for the light], then I removed the metal disc holding the light, & unscrewed the motor & its housing from the ceiling:

        

I unscrewed the motor from the housing – sooooooo dusty!!!  I loosened the dust with computer duster then plugged the fan into the wall and let it blow the rest out the dust out by itself:

        

I was very happy to hear no sign of a rattle!  Once the motor was clean I screwed it back into it’s housing.  Much better:

We took it upstairs and I screwed it back into the ceiling.  Hubby turned on the fan and… it rattled.  D’oh!  I removed it from the ceiling again and hubby plugged it into the wall.  No rattle.  ???  Then he turned it upside down like it would be when it was in the ceiling and it rattled!  I was amazed!  I was so sure it was how the fan was seated in the ceiling that was causing the rattle – that maybe over time it had become skewed or something.  It would have taken me a long time to figure out it was actually the motor itself when it was turned upside down.  Hubby quickly realized it was because the plastic fan wheel had come loose from it’s screw head.  When the fan was held wheel down, the plastic housing was flush with it’s top screw:

But when the fan was held upside down, like it is when it’s screwed into the ceiling, the wheel slides down the screw a little and touches the metal housing causing the rattle:

Hubby suggested I add a drop of super glue to the screw head, so I did.  Then placed the fan so the glue would dry and seal the fan wheel back to the screw head.  Genius!  After an hour I screwed the fan back into the ceiling & hubby flipped the switch.  No rattle!  OMG!!!  Such an easy fix.  A replacement fan at Home Depot is $100.  But we discovered on Amazon we can buy a replacement motor [#affiliate] for $40, which is good to know in case the glue doesn’t hold.

Everything looked so much better clean:

       

       

Now it runs sooooooo quietly and smoothly.  Hooray!