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Welcome back to MyMobilehomeMakeover.com! After my last post about mobile home moisture, I realized that there’s still more I can share about our difficulties with and triumphs over moisture in our home.  Today’s topic: Bathroom Exhaust.

This week, we have (haha, well my husband has)  installed a new exhaust fan in our bathroom.  A lot of moisture gets trapped in there because we like to take pretty hot showers.  We’ve also covered the walls and ceiling with bead board for a cottage look (See Bathroom Redux post) and the surfaces in that room are pretty non-porous.  Moisture just beads up on the skylight and sometimes even rains down on me in the shower when the sun is shining!

Anyway, the ceiling fan we installed in the bathroom remodel was very lovely and all, but hardly functional.  And this was pretty disappointing because it was a real beotch pain to put in.  Of course, being a mobile home, the original fan was some backward cheapo fan with an oddball installation method that didn’t match any other logical method known to mankind. But we went at the challenge with gusto and retrofitted a lovely, poorly designed fan just because it matched the decor.  We are nothing if not optimists!

 

Original Ceiling Fan

First ceiling fan install. Lovely fan, not so functional.

While the style of the fan complemented our decor very well, if you look at the light cover, it just doesn’t allow for enough air to be sucked up around the globe to go up into the fan. Another reason we chose the fan was because it allowed for a dimmer in the bathroom light so when someone (me!) takes a hot bath in the Winter, they can relax in a dimly lit room.  But, the dimmer wouldn’t work without a slight buzz that made me crazy, so it never really fulfilled all of it’s many claims to fame.

Fast forward to two years later, my husband is on the roof in November ripping up shingles and pulling out the fan assembly to install one that actually works!  What a wonderful world it would be if this could have been done from the bathroom, but alas, no such luck.

Exhaust fans in your bathrooms are essential in a mobile home.  Even this time of year when we run our pellet stove 24/7 to heat our home, the level of moisture trapped in the bathrooms is not good for that space.  Unfortunately it doesn’t spread around the house the way we need it to in order to keep from having to run a humidifier so the living room ceiling (still popcorn of course!) doesn’t crumble to dust from the dry air near the stove.

The new fan “we” (Big D!) installed this weekend is just a fan, no light, full power, jet propulsion style!  Not too loud and works like a charm.  We’re keeping our fingers crossed that this will keep the rain showers to a minimum in there.

 

 Broan White 80 CFM Bath Fan

Broan White 80 CFM 2.5 sones Bath Fan

I must add, I did do a lot of the installation work on the original fan replacement (as I did much of the demolition and remodel work for the entire project). But today, I was hoping for an easy job so I could get to work on a new project, and this one just ended up taking hours longer than anticipated. So, who got into a snit and bagged out of the project?  Well, that would be me.  But Big D has forgiven me.  He’s nice like that.

Stay dry!

The McGees