There I was merrily cooking away when there was a loud BANG and the hood stopped working. I’ve unplugged it and the fuse in the plug looks fine. But the fan doesn’t work, nor does the light. I didn’t notice any smell, but I was cooking at the time.
There’s no name or model on the hood and it was here when I moved in, which is a truly great start. It’s a built-in model which has a pull-out extractor hood, and vents back into the kitchen. It has a light switch and a fan speed control, neither of which now work. It is almost certainly the cheapest POS the then owner could pick up. So where do I start?
If you’re at all handy, you might be able to buy a replacement and install it yourself, although before you do, I would recommend using a circuit tester to make sure that the fan is getting power.
And if, as you said, the existing one is a cheap one, you could upgrade. (If possible, I’d recommend installing the type that exhausts to the outside.)
My fan in my bathroom just recently stopped. I cut the power, took it all apart, and found the motor wasn’t turning freely anymore. It was installed decades ago, and the motor wasn’t readily available, but I searched on Google and various places and found a motor that was the exact match but under a generic name for $25 or so. In fact, that motor is currently used in kitchen exhaust fans. I bought it, hooked everything up without issue, and it’s been running great ever since. It was a rare win for me in the home repair world. Heck, I have an 8 hour changing the lightbulb story (the story isn’t 8 hours long, but the experience was). You may be able to just replace the motor and move on with life.
By far the most common models are Broan. Usually range hoods aren’t all that built in so as an electrician it was rare to chase down replacement motors. By the time the motor goes it’s time for a complete update anyway. The cheap ones are in the $60-70 range, not really worth saving.
Bathroom fans were a different story, we’d chase down motors for them, complete replacement could be time consuming aND requine we cut drywall. A lot of the time on those they are Nutones we could just pick up a complete new one and swap the motor and cover leaving the old box.
The quick and dirty version is that my wife went to work and I had the day off. I went to change a light bulb in the fixture in her bath above the mirror. The bulb broke off. I tried trick after trick to get it out and the metal base just kept breaking off and refused to turn. So I decided that I’d surprise her with a new, modern fixture. I took the old one down and realized that the new one didn’t mount the same. I can’t remember what the issue was, but it took me a while to modify everything to get the new one up there. It had five light fixtures and I had everything working, BUT the very last glass cover that I had to put up had either the holes drilled incorrectly or the screws were threaded incorrectly. I got all of the way through the project to the last possible part and the fixture was defective. I could not complete the install. My wife arrived home to find me broken and defeated, literally picking metal out of her original fixture little bit by little bit with needlenose pliers to clear the old bulb base, and a brand new fixture sitting next to me. She was confused, and all I could manage to squeak out at that point was to please return the new fixture. I eventually picked out the last vestiges of the original bulb in the original fixture, and I hung it back up as it originally was. I then replaced the bulb as I had started out to at the beginning of the day.
It is many years later, and she still has that fixture. I’ve since done many projects here and there, but that one broke me for a bit, lol.
Would it be threadshitting of me to ask, What is the point of an extractor hood that vents back into the kitchen?
I’ve lived in apartments that had these, and I don’t see the point of them. (Yes, I know there’s some sort of coarse filter in them, but how much does that actually catch? I still think a lot of grease fumes just circulate back into the kitchen.)
Well, mostly you’re right Senegoid I hate 'em too. I think the point of them though is to merely get steam or smoke:eek: out of the way so you can see what you’re cooking/burning or where to pour the salt to smother the fire.
Pouring salt will smother a fire? I hadn’t heard that before. I learned, you pour baking soda on a fire to smother it. (Lots of it.) This produces carbon dioxide, which smothers the fire.
CO[sub]2[/sub] is heavier than air, so it will tend to pool in a frying pan and just sit there, displacing whatever oxygen may be floating around.
I opened the thing up after some judicious guesswork and it seems the bang was from an exploding lightbulb. The filters - both the hood filter and the extractor fan filter - were in need of a clean so I’ve left them soaking in detergent and hot water.
I’ve replaced the lightbulb and it’s still not working. Totally dead. I also took the opportunity to replace the fan filter. The power socket is live (tested) and I’ve changed the fuse with a known good fuse. The wiring in the plug looks fine. The front of the controller board looks fine. I’ve tried putting the case of the controller board back on just in case (and it keeps bits from getting lost) with no success.
[QUOTE=Quartz]
I’ve replaced the lightbulb and it’s still not working. Totally dead. I also took the opportunity to replace the fan filter. The power socket is live (tested) and I’ve changed the fuse with a known good fuse. The wiring in the plug looks fine. The front of the controller board looks fine. I’ve tried putting the case of the controller board back on just in case (and it keeps bits from getting lost) with no success.
How can I safely test further?
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You probably can’t, unless you have test equipment and know how to use it. If you’re asking, it’s always a safe bet around here that the answer is no.
[QUOTE=Quartz]
I’ve unplugged it and the fuse in the plug looks fine.
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That (and the haggis) seems to place you in the UK, so any comments about universal replacements from Broan or Nutone are unlikely to help you as they’re popular American brands.
well, that may be the correct way to do it, but when you and your wife are 20 year old [del]idiots[/del] newlyweds who barely know enough about cooking to be able to burn the water…well, yanno. Besides, it worked.
