Today I saw something I’ve never seen before. This is a two story townhome. The laundry closet is on the 2nd floor, back to back with the bathroom. I found when I went into the bath that the fan was on, and no switch would turn it off. I approached the homeowner and mentioned it and she said “oh, yes, when you want to turn it off you have to balance the switch in the middle” (!!??) which was true. I said “well, in that case you have a broken switch, I’ll be happy to replace it.”
So I pull the plate, and it’s a 3-way switch (??) and now it’s working properly. And I hear this constant grating-gravelly-humming like a bath fan running but I can’t find it. Open the laundry closet, and there’s a 24 hour timer mounted on the wall (on the other side of the bath wall with the wall switch) and it’s making a G*d-awful racket. It’s set to turn on for 2 hrs at 6AM, two hrs at noon, and 3 hrs at 6PM. It turns out, when the timer is ON, the bath fan (and laundry closet fan) are both ON, and the switch in the bath will NOT turn it off. When the timer is OFF, the switch will turn the fan on or off.
So I’m wondering:
1. Is this normal to have the fans controlled by a timer?
2. Is this thing wired right?
3. Why would they do this? I mean, I guess I could see getting some ventilation in there on a regular basis, but I’ve never seen it done THIS way.
Place was built about 9 yrs ago, and is located in the Seattle area.
Replies
Do the fans exhaust through an HRV?
What you describe is not unknow. But it might be a home brew version.
Here is a control for an HRV that runs it on slow speed all of the time and then boost it for 15 minutes to clear out a bathroom.
http://www.energyfederation.org/consumer/default.php/cPath/39_892_893
Not knowing the details of the wiring it might be wired right.
First all of the all of this timer (the power that the timer is switching, not neseccarly the timer clock), and power to the 3 way need to be on the same circuits.
Theree might be several different ways that this could be wired and there might be relays.
But here is a simple basic way.
Power to the timer. From the timer run 2 conductor to the closet fan so that it only runs on the timer.
Then 3 conductor to the 3 way switch. Hot, neutral, and timer switched.
Connect the hot to one traveler connection on the 3-way and the timer switched to the other. Then run a 2 wire cable to the bath fan. Neutral and the hot on the 3-way common.
We had a "super good cents" home in Sequim, WA several years ago. The house was so tight the bathroom fan was on a timer and set to run several hours a day to exchange the air in the home. You might look in any closet that's on an outside wall for an air intake vent. They look like a small smoke detector with a pull chain to open and close them.
Bonneville Power was giving some pretty healthy rebates to homeowners and builders back then to do that.
That could be it, a Super Good Cents home. The funny thing is, the fan is running to exchange air and get rid of moisture... and I was there to do the follow-on painting from some mold repair in the bathroom! (to be fair, the mold was from a roof leak and not interior moisture).
I think I need to talk to her and at the least, get her a new timer. That one in there has been running for 9 yrs and is really annoying.
Sounds like you've got it. It's a "normal" bathroom fan with an auxillary timer, we had set the timer on ours to run from 10 AM to 3 PM (while we were at work) for the air exchange. As I recall, the little timer just had an on-off switch built into it for normal bathroom fan usage.Ray