bathroom extractor fan not working properly

This won't be why it's not working though, without seeing the new unit it's hard to advise too much but I'd say that the new unit should only require Live Neutral Earth, same as the previous one.

The bare copper wire is the earth cable, this should be marked up with green and yellow sleeping and connected to the earth connection in the fan unit, if there isn't one then pop it in a connector block. This work comes under part P of the building regulations and is notifiable to local building control and therefore must be certificated in order to comply with the law and prevent any complications or prosecution from LABC should you sell the property in the future. Under normal circumstances the bare copper wire should be sleeved with a green and yellow covering as it is the earth wire, even though the fans are class 2 and do not need an earth connection, the bare copper wire should be curled up and left safely inside the fan not touching any of the other terminals.įrom what you describe it's very likely that a cowboy or ill informed DIY-er has put in a standard two core and earth cable and may have been using the bare earth wire as the second live! (This is extremely dangerous).įor your own safety and piece of mind, its probably best to get a Part P registered electrician round to look at this and if need be rewire the section of cable from the light to the isolator switch outside the bathroom (assuming there is one, if not an isolator switch must be fitted) and then rewire from the isolator switch onto the fan itself. So you should have four wires at the fan position, three coloured and one bare copper, so the wrong cable appears to have been used in the past. One of the live wires is a 'permanently on live' and the other one a 'switched live' that comes on and off with the lights as they are switched. T10:10:01+00:00Īs you have bought a fan with and integral timer it needs three wires a neutral and two lives in order to operate.

The pullcord can be used to manually switch on the extractor which would then run for a duration set on the timer (usually adjustable). The humidity set points are usually adjustable. This would start to run as soon as the humidity rises to a set point, and would switch off when the humidity falls below another set point. it's permanently live) AND you don't want to rewire, then you could use a humidistat-and-timer controlled extractor, ideally with a pullcord too. Not very satisfactory, but may be acceptable to you.Ģ) IF the feed to the extractor does NOT come from the light switch (i.e. Leaving the pullcord switched on will mean that the extractor will operate when the light is switched on. Notwithstanding all the previous replies - all of which are sound - and that you may not have fully described what's happening (as you may not have the equipment to test the circuit), I just want to add a couple of points.ġ) IF the feed to the extractor comes via the light switch AND you don't want to rewire as has been suggested, then you can use a pullcord-only type extractor (i.e.

Bathroom extractor fan not working properly