- As with other electrical devices wired into your home, the bathroom ceiling fan sits on a circuit that's control by the electrical panel. When the fan suddenly stops working, first check the panel to see if a breaker switch has been tripped. Ideally your breaker switches should be labeled so you know quickly whether an affected breaker goes to the bathroom.
- Most fans can be fixed easily by replacing the motor, since the fan's other parts likely still work. The fan's model number will help you find a replacement motor at a home improvement store. To find the model number, pull away the fan's cover, then remove the screw that keeps the fan's plate in place. Some fan plates are attached with a clip, which you must squeeze. With the fan's housing out of the ceiling you can clear off any dust accumulation to reveal the model number.
- For a bathroom fan to operate correctly and transport the air outside, the fan must connect to a flexible duct in the attic. The flexible duct, in turn, attaches to a vent in the house's roof, gable or soffit. Without the flexible duct the moist air in the bathroom will only sit in the attic, where the joists can become water damaged or moldy. You can check for the presence of a flexible duct only by going into the attic and locating the fan.
- If the fan doesn't work properly, the connections between the fan's exhaust port and the flexible duct--or the flexible duct and the vent on the outside of the house--may have come loose. Again, you can only check the connections by going into the house's attic. If you or someone else used duct tape to keep the connections together, replace it with metallic tape since it can endure more heat without coming undone. An attic becomes much hotter than the rest of a house during the summer, plus the air flowing through the flexible duct is hot and moist most of the time.
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