Handyman Tim...What A Laugher!

Someone should have installed a video camera in my bathroom this weekend to capture my antics in trying to replace the bathroom overhead fan/light. It could have become a viral hit on You Tube!

So, the existing fan got real noisy real fast…..OK, time for a diagnosis! A failing bearing (any Time-Life book worth its salt will tell ya that!) and this meant a hasty trip to the local big-box hardware store. Thirty-eight dollars later, I was off with another do-it-yourself project for Sunday.
Who wants to watch football and drink beer when you can curse and swear and nearly kill yourself?

First, my all-inclusive kit is missing all the necessary hardware bolts and screws. So what? We’ll find them around the house. Sure. A quick look at the directions told me I would need a LONG look at the directions. I can’t read Spanish, but those directions looked about as useful to me as the ones in English.

Of course, Step One is to TURN THE POWER OFF. This was relatively easy, but why my basement was wired on the same circuit as my upstairs bathroom (plunging me into darkness at the circuit panel) leads me to believe the workers who built my house were on CRACK at the time.

This feeling only grew as I removed the existing fan. It was jury-rigged to a ceiling beam. The duct exiting to the outside was actually a gutter drain pipe that I don’t believe exited anywhere but into my attic. Nice.

I’m sure it must have been humorous to see me pounding and yanking at the blasted old fan. Finally, what was left of it came loose after I literally hack-sawed through nails used to fasten it. Of course, the ceiling (sprayed to look like stucco) suffered more damage than the new face plate would cover. It was fortuitous that my eight year old was at a friend’s house, as the air inside the bathroom was blue.

To make a long story longer, I finally got the new one in and working, only after slicing my finger open with a utility knife while wiring the darn thing. My lingering memory will be standing on the edge of the tub, simultaneously holding the unit while trying to twist wire screws onto misbehaving wires with my other hand. It’s a miracle that I didn’t break my neck.

After it was all done and the bathroom cleaned up, my family admired my handiwork and asked, “Was it difficult to install?”

“No, not at all…it was a breeze”

Then I had to turn the fan on to remove the odor of BS.