Another fan disintegrates (and rant)

[SMan]

Yeah my bathroom fan disintegrated last weekend. No big surprise.

The pain was that Trail Wagons didn't cut out the fiberglass near enough to remove the bezel. They must have installed the fan / light assembly from the top. had to take my dremel tool to the opening. Man I hate fiberglass dust. I itch looking at it. Looks like they originally did it with some sort of router.

[68camaro]

That stinks.

I bought mine in July, got home - turned on fan and blade disintegrated as well. Bought new motor and fan blade, went to install couple weeks ago and realized I lost both, or a least misplaced since putting it somewhere. Rivet the motor was attached to metal bracket broke as well so I am going to try JB Weld.

[Chinnin-about]

I'm planning a fan upgrade to a max fan. I'll jump off the 12 volt leads to add a light. I'm done with the cheap noisy bath fan.

[Blue~Go]

The pain was that Trail Wagons didn't cut out the fiberglass near enough to remove the bezel. They must have installed the fan / light assembly from the top. had to take my dremel tool to the opening.

I'm curious about what you are describing. I had the typical vent/fan/built in light and I've had both the top unit out and the bottom garnish out. The top unit came out fine (from the roof - I was rebedding it), and the garnish (trim piece in bathroom) actually came out TOO easily. In other words, if fell off a few times because the screw holes were too close to the edge of the shower fiberglass. I epoxied in a couple of small plywood bits above the holes to catch the screws in future. I did also note (by holding up the garnish) that a Fantastic Vent garnish would have the screw holes well into the fiberglass away from the edge.

Anyway, just trying to visualize how yours was?

BTW, I just gave up and broke the fan blades off (took just a light tap on each one ). Now I have just an opening vent with no annoying half broken fan blades (but of course no fan). I have an extra low-profile Fantastic vent, so I'll probably switch over to that.

[SMan]

I didn't describe it well I suppose. The trim ring came out fine but the light fan assembly would not come out through the bottom without cutting 3/8" of the fiberglass on one side. I am still going to trim a bit more before reinstalling. The hole they cut out (with a router by the looks of it) wasn't close to being square or straight. (The worst piece of craftsmanship I've seen in my Chinook) The holes that held the bottom trim piece on were very close to the edge as you describe however. I am having computer issues or I would have posted a picture.

Because we are now in the rainy season I will just be replacing the fan blade for now but plan on replacing both vents in the spring. Not sure with what units yet.

[Scott]

Router? High-end, man! Mine looked like it was done with a chainsaw by a ten-year-old who needed a juice box. My aircon hole wasn't much better. Anyway, that's what trim is for!

As Blue mentioned, in my assembly the garnish came out the bottom and all the rest came out the top (unless you have something completely different?).

In the shower, I use the vent constantly and the fan almost never, so a Fantastic or similar wasn't considered. I almost wish I had installed just a plain vent in this location (but I understand that's not for everyone).

Did this a couple years ago:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=338&p=2536&hilit=shower#p2531

[Blue~Go]

Scott: Great LOL description. The juice box was the crowning touch

I guess I'm more like you: I have the vent open often, but rarely used the fan even before the blades broke off. Maybe that's why the Fantastic Fan has been sitting in a box....

On the other hand, when I put in the low-profile Fantastic Vent in the "living room" place, I left out the fan unit for now (you can put it in anytime from the inside with a few screws) and just used the plain no-fan interior. I do like having just the plain round "porthole" to look out of without having to look through ten fan blades. But now I have no fan. I did like having one. So, my current idea (subject to the whims of time) is to put the Fantastic Fan in the bathroom, and keep the open porthole version of the FF in the living room. That way I could still do the (basically) one thing I use the fan for, which is to quickly pull in vast volumes of outside air if it's been a hot day and the evening has cooled way down outside but the Chinook hasn't.

We'll see how I feel this winter when I do some projects. Some ideas don't survive to that point!

[Astrodokk]

Been there, done that guys!
That was one of the first things I did when I bought the RV. Not that I use it often, but my OCD makes me fix things the way they're supposed to be.
I got the replacement fan blade on ebay for 5 bucks I believe. Pretty generic.
Since I was lazy and did NOT want to take it out from the top, I had to cut some fiberglass to give it enough room to slip out from below, but I did it!
Now everything works fine.