AKICILJ: the homeowners' edition

[mrissa]

There is a fan built into timprov's bathroom (the upper hall bathroom). As one might expect for ventillating a bathroom with shower etc. But this fan appears to be broken, and we have no idea how to even get into it.

What flavor of professional would you call for such a thing? The yellow pages "fan" section is pretty clearly people who are willing to sell me a ceiling fan to install externally, not people who are willing to service a pre-existing, internal fan. "Ventillation" seemed to be people who wanted to sell their services to professional buildings, but maybe I'm wrong. Who would you call, experienced homeowners among you? (Or even inexperienced-but-wise will do.)

Comments

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

I'd call a electrician but 1st I'd go into the attic and see if it was a loose plug or something else minor.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's not a loose plug, for sure: the thing starts up with a dreadful deep whine, and then does not actually roar to life.

[mirrorthaw.livejournal.com]

I qualify as Inexperienced-perhaps-wise, but the thoughts that spring to mind are: a general handy-man type or an electrician.

It's possible--even likely if the house is relatively new--that the exhaust fan isn't really expected to ever come apart. If it breaks, you rip the old one out and slap a new one in. Not exactly rocket science and a handy-man type would (I'd think) be able to do that, plus patch up any drywall that gets damaged in the process, and repaint as necessary.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think we'd take over "repaint as necessary" ourselves, actually, picking a new color for that bathroom. But I know there are good general handybeings in our area; will call. Thanks.

[pameladean]

I'd suggest a general handyman too. There are sometimes some in the Yellow Pages, or if you have a local newspaper, they will advertise in that very often.

We haven't really got one at the moment. I did have a recommendation from Joel Rosenberg, but I lost it in an email meltdown. I could inquire if you like. Greg Cotton also recommends this guy, so he should be pretty good.

P.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

handyman, contractor, electrician would be my tries, in that order.

[brooksmoses]

As with many of the other suggestions -- generally, that's the sort of thing I'd expect an electrician to handle.

(I'd sort of suggest against a general contractor, just because it's a small job compared to most of what they do, and that means it will go into the schedule whenever they get a minute, which is always "sometime next week" and really is sometime approximately next October any only then if it rains. But, then, that sort of problem is typical of anybody who'd do the job, from what I've seen.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, we've had the "we'll squeeze you in when we can, which is the 12th of Never," problem. On more than one occasion, in fact.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

I'd say go for an electrician - it's definitely an electrical problem. I think handyman would be the second best choice here, but probably only if you couldn't find an electrician.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

hvac!

you may have to do some calling to find a company who works in your area and who will do home rather than commercial, but that's the area you want. past that, i'd go with general handyman.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I would call my realtor, who is also a landlord, and ask her who I should call. That way I get a good person along with the right profession. My realtor rocks.

Left to my own devices, I would go electrician first, then handyman. We had electricians fix a ceiling light/fan back at our old house.

PS. What is it with your household and the ceiling-type fixtures? Isn't that two in two days?

[timprov.livejournal.com]

This one's been broken for quite a while now.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Ah, got it.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

An electrician. But I agree with mkille that realtors are extremely useful for references for all home-related things.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Our realtor specializes in an area of the metro that is not where we are. We didn't really have very much in the way of location constraints, so mostly we wanted someone we could trust to get appointments on request and do the paperwork right and devote a really focused chunk of time to hauling us around.

[warinbear.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who has done electrical subcontracting work in the past, I add myself to the list of people recommending 'electrician.'

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Add my vote for electrician. You really do not want something that is within the structure of your house to be electrically unsound.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I just replaced my bathroom fan a couple of weeks ago. I called the handyman guy we use for our Condo Association who also replaced a doorknob and tried to fix the garbage disposal. I can give you his number.

If it's anything like mine, it works something like this: The cover slides off to reveal the fan. Careful of falling stuff and gunkery. the fan itself is mounted with a few screws and a power cord. Our units are all similar, so I had him simply buy one and install it; took minutes and works fine (though is much louder).

[greykev.livejournal.com]

In my experience ceiling-mounted vent fans usually have spring mounted faces you can pull down and then detach, thus exposing the fan part and the screws holding it to the ceiling joists. --which is fine if all you need to do is vaccum the thing out a bit.

I'll ditto everyone on finding a handiman for replacement though; 1st there's the 'working with your arms over your head' which is tiring and increases the liklihood of mistakes. 2nd if you have blown insulation in the attic some of it will probably make a bid for freedom into the bathroom, right down onto whoever's doing the work. 3rd is the hassle of attaching (or replacing) the vent tube and then hooking it up to the existing wiring.

I think you're better off hiring it done and establishing a good repor with the handiman in case of future handiman needs.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

I'd call the neighborhood handiman. The general contractor type being who re-did our bathroom put in a fan where there was none before.

Well, actually what *I'd* do is do some research into how difficult it would be to do it myself, "think about it" for a while, and eventually hire it out to the neighborhood handiman. But your mileage may (should) vary.