Do you ever walk into a bathroom and exhaust fan is still running. Letting the fan running for too long consumes power and depend on the electric price in your area, this could be a costly mistake.
Also, let the fan run for too long can add wear and tear to your fan.
To avoid forgetting to turn off the fan, I opted to find a solution for this and I found the way to help is to replace the fan switch with a timer.
After searching around, I found a timer made by GE that will allow me to have a preset time of 5, 15, 30, 60 minutes up to 4 hours.
As you can see, the old switch is below. The switch on the left is for fan and on the right is the light switch.
Always, safety first, I left the light on and go to the breaker and turn off the power to these switches.
By leaving the light on, now when I go back, the light is off, I can be sure that there's no power to this switch.
Now, using a flat screw, remove the screws that hold the cover.
Next, remove the 2 screws that hold the switch and pull it out.
Use a small flat screw driver to insert into the hole next to the wires to remove the wires.
There should be one on top and one on bottom, in my case, I have 1 on top and 3 on bottom.
if you don't have a small screw to remove the wire, you can simple just cut the wires.
Next, open the new timer and follow the instruction to connect the new timer.
According to the instruction, the green wire should be connected to ground. Black wire should connect to power and the red wire should connect to the black wire that go to the fan.
Now insert the 2 screws to hold the new timer in place.
At this point, turn on power at the breaker.
Now press the button on the timer to turn on the fan.
If your fan is not on, please wait a few minutes for the timer to charge, this should be in the instruction.
Any problem, please refer to the instruction.
After installed the timer, I figured the light switch is also old so I decided to change to a new switch for the light so it look more modern.
There you have it, when you need to turn on the fan, just press the desired time and you can leave it there. The switch will keep your fan running and turn off itself. This will save you time and create a piece of mind
Again, thank you for reading and if you find this helpful, please click on the ads to support this blog.
See you in the next Weekend DIYer project.