Question: The master bathroom in our San Roque home is a little on the small side and it does not have a window, so it can get pretty steamy in there when my husband or I are taking a shower.

Our problem is that the ceiling fan which is as old as the house (45-plus years) has been making a terrible metallic grinding nose for the last few months and now it has stopped working entirely.

We are retired, living on a fixed budget, and my husband is worried that the fan will be very expensive to replace.

Please let me know what will be involved to get the old fan repaired or a new fan installed?

Your Handyman: Some ceiling exhaust fans are designed so that the electric motor can be removed and replaced, but usually this type of fan is found in restrooms in commercial office buildings or retail stores.

An older bathroom fan in a residence usually just needs to be replaced when it becomes noisy or stops working.

If the fan is relatively new but just suddenly stopped working, then in this case you would want to first check to make sure that there is not a problem with the wall electrical switch. 

The switch may be broken and stuck in the off position, or it may have a loose or disconnected wire that is preventing electricity from powering the fan.

When troubleshooting, it always makes sense to eliminate the easiest and least expensive possibilities first.

Building codes require that a residential bathroom has either a window that can be opened for ventilation or an exhaust fan, and in most homes built in recent years the bathrooms will have both a window and a fan.

In the absence of adequate ventilation, moisture from the shower can soon lead to the growth of mildew on the walls, tile and towels, and the bathroom will soon begin to take on an unpleasant musty smell.

The first step in the process of replacing your fan is to remove the plastic cover that conceals the fan motor and, often, a light and heating unit.

The plastic cover is usually held in place with either a screw located in the center of the cover or by long springs located on the sides.

If there is a light in your fan, you may need to remove the light cover to expose the screw.

If you can’t locate a screw, then gently pull down on the cover until the springs on the side slide clear of the metal housing that is set back into the ceiling.

Once you have the plastic vent cover removed, you should be able to see the sides of the rectangular metal box that houses the fan.

Carefully measure the outside dimensions of the box and then you are off to the hardware store to find a new fan with the same dimensions so that it will easily slide into the existing ceiling opening after the old fan is removed.

A new fan that is larger will require that the existing opening in the drywall or plaster ceiling be enlarged, which usually is pretty simple.

If the new fan is smaller than the existing opening, the opening will need to be reduced to fit, which may not be so simple.

When shopping for your new fan, a general rule of thumb is that newer appliances just about always run more efficiently and quieter than their aging ancestors, and a more expensive fan is going to be quieter than a less expensive model.

For reasons that I personally have never completely figured out, the noise level of a bathroom exhaust fan is not rated in the commonly understood unit of decibels, but in a unit of measure called a “Sone,” which is a measure of loudness (?).

A high Sone rating means a loud fan, basically, and a lower rating is a quieter fan. However, many smaller bathrooms are confined to the point that sound is amplified off the bare walls, and it just is not easy to get a quiet exhaust fan in a small bathroom.

When you have the new fan and are ready to remove the old fan, be sure to determine which circuit breaker provides power to the fan and turn it off.

The No. 1 rule of working safely with electricity is to never work on an energized circuit. The second rule is to call an electrician if you do not have experience or training to safely do electrical work.

Unfastening the old fan box from the ceiling will take a little patience so that the drywall or plaster is not damaged. But once the fan box is loose from the ceiling joists, disconnect the electrical connection and you should now be able to carefully pull it down about halfway out of the ceiling opening.

Now reach into the attic and disconnect the duct and completely remove the old fan box.

Depending on how things line up, the first step in installing the new fan box is to either connect the electrical service or the duct.

Once you have the wiring and duct connected, it is time to fasten the box to the ceiling joist(s) with several self-tapping wood screws. Now you are ready to assembly the fan motor and the light, if applicable, into the box and turn the power back on at the circuit breaker.

It is very important that the electrical connections are made correctly. If you have any uncertainty about what is correct, then you should hire a professional.

If there is an accessible attic above the bathroom, one fan option that is significantly quieter is an “inline” fan that has the fan motor attached in line on the exhaust ducting several feet or more away from the actual vent location in the bathroom ceiling.

If the inline fan is, say, 6 to 8 feet or more away from the ceiling opening, then often the only noise that is heard in the bathroom when the fan is operating is the swooshing noise of the movement of air into the vent opening. Little if any noise from the fan motor will be heard in the bathroom.

Replacing the existing ceiling mounting fan with an inline fan will be both your quietest and most expensive option, but will require some time spent working in the attic, a little drywall work, some electrical work, and possibly some additional ducting.