TLDR:

1. Realise fan is broken
2. Call electrician expecting big bill
3. Get kitchen chair and put into shower cubicle
4. Break plastic shroud of old fan trying to elegantly get it off
5. Undo 3 screws. 
6. Catch old fan is it falls on head
7. Reach into ceiling and unplug old fan
8. Get down off chair
9. Go to hardware store with old fan
10. Get new fan (or two to be safe) 
11. Get back home somehow
12. Open box of fan, disregard instructions
13. Put chair back in shower cubicle
14. Get back on chair
15. Forget screw driver
16. Go get screw driver
17. Get ceiling dust in eyes
18. Put new fan in roof, plug in
19. Screw in the brackets
20. Realise the vent was not put in
21. Unscrew the brackets
22. Put vent back in
23. Do it all again, but better

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/holoz0r/23xKvhtPiHWQcaBRxpzako3atJiWCkyuVepPNZnotty23ta8k7XD5hPVXxQfLqk4jqtQN.png)


I go to the gym every second day. After the gym, I come home, I make a protein shake, I consume it, and I then go to the shower. 

In my ensuite, where my shower is (and like many other areas of my house) - I have a temperature and humidity sensor. Only the ensuite is different. Behind the switch that turns on the ceiling fan, there's a relay, that is a *smart*. Well, it is a dumb relay, but it allows the switch to be operated remotely, or to be triggered by certain conditions. 

I also have motion sensors in other parts of the house that automatically turn on lights in dark rooms at different times of the day, using different colour temperatures, depending on the *time* and a bunch of other automations. 

Anyway, it was Monday. I did my gym routine, and came home. I put the grocery shopping away, I went to have my shower. The fan wasn't running, which meant the humidity in the ensuite was lower than my set threshold. I had my shower, while listening to an audio book on a blue tooth speaker that is in the ensuite. 

I stepped out of the shower and realised the mirror was foggy. It shouldn't have been, the fan has an automation. I flicked the switch. Nope. The fan was dead. 

I called an electrician, thinking this was about to be an expensive exercise. He spent about ten minutes on the phone with me, educating me on how to change the fan myself, and so that he wouldn't charge me $200, plus the cost of the fan. 

He also warned me that the ceiling cut out would be a different size, based on the age of the house, the location it was in, and other work he had done in the area. 

The guy was a fucking legend. 

Anyway, one short trek to the annoying, monopolistic green shed later, and I had not one, but two, (Actually three, because I took the old one with me to make sure the cut out in the ceiling was the same size)  ceiling fans, incase one of them was defective. 

He told me to call back if there was any real electrical work that I need to get done.

It was easy enough to put the new one in - and I didn't even use YouTube, the supplied instruction manual, or any other tutorial. I sort of just reverse engineered it from the one that I had removed earlier. 

A really simple task, and one that saved me a few hundred dollars, and probably a whole lot of mess. 

But I know that there's a better tidier way to install it, because instead of using my ladder, I used a kitchen chair and couldn't see in the ceiling space very well. 

I have since installed it *properly*. The box gave me a papercut as I ripped it to shreds to put in the recycling bin. I will be keeping the receipt, and fully intend to claim on the warranty when it dies, not if it dies. 

I am very glad that I didn't need to use the supplied "template" to a cut a new hole in the plasterboard, because the supplied template is more akin to a bookmark and using a primary school compass than it is a template. 

The fun thing about installing this myself is that I got to see the ethernet cables that run through my ceiling first hand :) 

That, and this cool photo of me being responsible with safety goggles. 


![20250728_233531.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/holoz0r/23vsLKBvcwKzRK1iB82sjNCQz1Nre6HLtHeCTcofgoL52ra33trBeGrKsuEH97MxKQcsA.jpg)


The only upsetting thing is that I spent more time in the line at Bunnings than I did walking to the back corner of the store where these bloody things were stored, and back to the counter to buy them. 

I didn't buy nuthin' else. I also spilled Tea in my best friend's car. To be fair, it was her tea, and I cleaned it up... and left her car cleaner than what it was before my butt sat in it.

There you have it! How to fix a ceiling fan!