Hello, this morning I woke up and found about 1 inch of water on the floor of my bathroom leaking through my bathroom exhaust fan/light fixture after a particulaly heavy rain. My question is regarding the safety of using this exhaust fan/light fixture due to the amount of water that it was exposed to. Does anyone know if the water could have damaged the wiring/ in the light fixture or the motor of the exhaust fan itself? or would the best bet be to simply call an electrical professional to make sure there is no negative damage from the exposure of the internal components to liquid water?
Thanks
As an electrician I can tell you it’s fairly common for water to find it’s way through the ceiling around fixtures. It’s rare that the water impacts the fixture.
I can’t know if it’s safe without looking at it. When I was doing service, people see water coming out of an electricall fixture, they’d call us first. Generally we’d confirm the water hasn’t impacted the fixture and refer them to a plumber or roofer to fix the actual source of the problem.
It’s not a huge safety issue as you aren’t touching it and it is breaker protected in the event of a short. However a short could cause damage that’s time consuming to find (thus expensive) so it’s best not to chance it.
Any competent tradesman should be able to figure out if the fixture got water in it.