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The upstairs washroom has had a really loud exhaust fan since we moved in. It's mostly due to how it was installed - there're supposed to be two cross-beams for attachment, on opposite sides, and instead there's only the one. That causes the far side of the housing to rest on the ceiling drywall, making the ceiling into a sound-amplifying resonance body, or soundboard.
The extra-confusing thing is that the opposite side of the box appears to be screwed to something - in that there are screws which support nothing - but damned if I can tell what, at least, not without getting into the attic again. Whatever it might be, it's certainly not anchored to anything supportive, and if it weighs anything, it's not much.
I'd tried shimming the whole assembly back to level a couple of times with various materials in the past. That'd helped a little, but honestly not all that much. But since then, we made another noisy fixture much quieter by replacing the fan! So I thought I'd try that here, too.
First step on that project was to make sure the replacement fan I wanted to order was correct for the box, which meant getting up into the fixture. And while I was there, I just decided on the spot to deal with the whole situation in some better way if I could.
And being me, of course I could.
First thing I noticed was that the few structural attachments that it had were along the bottom of the cabinet, giving the housing a lot of options to distort, and sag, which is part of how the opposite side ended upon the ceiling wallboard. So I decided to add a couple of bolts to the very highest points in the box I could, which would keep it nice and stop the sagging, right? Keep the whole side nice and flat against the one crossbeam holding it up, the whole thing will straighten out.
Except the wood beam to which it's attached didn't go that high. They used a 2x4 rather than a 2x6 or anything else - like the framing - so I had fairly limited attachment height, and nowhere near the entire height of the box.
But! Because I'm me, I also had some metal bars - very thick strapping, basically, 3mm or 4mm thick - that were long enough to be useful as reinforcement. They even already had screw holes. So I could bolt the bottoms of these bars to the wood, letting the other ends extend well past the top of the wood, keeping the side of the housing nice and vertical and rigid - much moreso than I could just by bolting directly to the existing lumber, such as it is. And since the housing is pretty thick metal - drilling through it for extra bolts was work - the sides should stay plenty rigid enough to keep it from sagging.
For bonus points I could use industrial tape adhesive, the good kind used for outdoor applications which stands up to weather, as reinforcement. (I keep some of this around, never know when it could come in handy.) I could even use more tape up higher up the bar, making the bars thicker at the top, which would provide addition back pressure to the plate, pushing it a little past vertical, in anticipation of any sag later.
Anyway, this all worked great. I overshot true horizontal a bit, but that's okay, the weight of the light and the fan and so on will want to bring it back down a little over time, and with everything back in place it's already a lot - I mean, a lot - quieter.
While doing all this I confirmed that the blower assembly is shaking in ways it really shouldn't, and that's the other source of noise. It still has a bad startup and shutdown rumble, due to either a dead bearing or a bent shaft or who knows what. The motor had got to the point where it wasn't even always starting - mostly it starts, occasionally it makes that I'm Unhappy electrical motor noise and won't turn. So even though I think I've sorted that out just by cleaning out an abundance of lint and re-squaring the box, I've nonetheless ordered a replacement. It'll only take undoing two screws to swap the new part in, easy-peasy.
And now I know it'll actually finish the job.
Seriously, it's so much quieter. When the new blower comes in, the remaining rumble should go away, and it'll be even better. By which I mean quieter. Can't wait.
I've always hated that noise. Should've done this years ago.
The extra-confusing thing is that the opposite side of the box appears to be screwed to something - in that there are screws which support nothing - but damned if I can tell what, at least, not without getting into the attic again. Whatever it might be, it's certainly not anchored to anything supportive, and if it weighs anything, it's not much.
I'd tried shimming the whole assembly back to level a couple of times with various materials in the past. That'd helped a little, but honestly not all that much. But since then, we made another noisy fixture much quieter by replacing the fan! So I thought I'd try that here, too.
First step on that project was to make sure the replacement fan I wanted to order was correct for the box, which meant getting up into the fixture. And while I was there, I just decided on the spot to deal with the whole situation in some better way if I could.
And being me, of course I could.
First thing I noticed was that the few structural attachments that it had were along the bottom of the cabinet, giving the housing a lot of options to distort, and sag, which is part of how the opposite side ended upon the ceiling wallboard. So I decided to add a couple of bolts to the very highest points in the box I could, which would keep it nice and stop the sagging, right? Keep the whole side nice and flat against the one crossbeam holding it up, the whole thing will straighten out.
Except the wood beam to which it's attached didn't go that high. They used a 2x4 rather than a 2x6 or anything else - like the framing - so I had fairly limited attachment height, and nowhere near the entire height of the box.
But! Because I'm me, I also had some metal bars - very thick strapping, basically, 3mm or 4mm thick - that were long enough to be useful as reinforcement. They even already had screw holes. So I could bolt the bottoms of these bars to the wood, letting the other ends extend well past the top of the wood, keeping the side of the housing nice and vertical and rigid - much moreso than I could just by bolting directly to the existing lumber, such as it is. And since the housing is pretty thick metal - drilling through it for extra bolts was work - the sides should stay plenty rigid enough to keep it from sagging.
For bonus points I could use industrial tape adhesive, the good kind used for outdoor applications which stands up to weather, as reinforcement. (I keep some of this around, never know when it could come in handy.) I could even use more tape up higher up the bar, making the bars thicker at the top, which would provide addition back pressure to the plate, pushing it a little past vertical, in anticipation of any sag later.
Anyway, this all worked great. I overshot true horizontal a bit, but that's okay, the weight of the light and the fan and so on will want to bring it back down a little over time, and with everything back in place it's already a lot - I mean, a lot - quieter.
While doing all this I confirmed that the blower assembly is shaking in ways it really shouldn't, and that's the other source of noise. It still has a bad startup and shutdown rumble, due to either a dead bearing or a bent shaft or who knows what. The motor had got to the point where it wasn't even always starting - mostly it starts, occasionally it makes that I'm Unhappy electrical motor noise and won't turn. So even though I think I've sorted that out just by cleaning out an abundance of lint and re-squaring the box, I've nonetheless ordered a replacement. It'll only take undoing two screws to swap the new part in, easy-peasy.
And now I know it'll actually finish the job.
Seriously, it's so much quieter. When the new blower comes in, the remaining rumble should go away, and it'll be even better. By which I mean quieter. Can't wait.
I've always hated that noise. Should've done this years ago.
