That bathroom vent install took me 5 hours instead of 2

I figured swapping out an old bathroom fan would be an easy Saturday job, you know. Turns out the previous owner crammed flex duct through a joist cavity that made zero sense, so I had to cut a new exit hole. Then I spent like an hour and a half just trying to get the duct clamp on straight because of the angle (my fingers still hurt). The wiring was fine, but the mounting bracket holes didn't line up with the new fan at all, so I had to drill new ones. Has anyone else dealt with a seemingly simple swap turning into a ridiculous timeline?

2 comments

2 Comments

faith_perez7d ago

Undoing the previous owner's shortcuts" - man, that hits SO close to home at 3am when I finally gave up. I spent a full hour just staring at that flex duct going "what were they THINKING?" like it was gonna answer me. My personal favorite is when you find out they used drywall screws to hold the fan in place and then patched over them so you can't even tell until you yank it down. At that point I'm pretty sure my job is less about installing a fan and more about apologizing to the house for its past trauma. Honestly though I should have known it was gonna be a disaster when the old fan didn't even have a proper junction box, just wires twisted together with tape like it was a high school science project.

graytorres7d ago

Oh man, that is such a classic trap. I bet half the reason it took so long is because whoever did it before just went with whatever was easiest for them at the time, not thinking about the next person. What gets me is how often the mounting brackets are just a little off, like the industry can't agree on a standard hole pattern or something. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like half the battle with home stuff is just undoing the previous owner's shortcuts before you even get to do the new work.