Tried to save $50 fixing a bathroom fan myself and made everything worse

I was replacing a noisy bathroom fan in my 1920s Chicago apartment and thought I could handle the wiring myself. After three hours of messing with the old cloth wires, I accidentally knocked the fan loose and it fell into the ceiling cavity. Has anyone else had a simple DIY project snowball into calling a professional for help?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugobarnes26d ago

...and honestly that's the thing about old wiring in places like Chicago. I've seen those cloth wires in my own place and they're NOTORIOUS for being brittle. Once you start bending them around they just crumble. The REAL mistake here was probably thinking the fan was supported by the ceiling drywall alone. Those old fans are usually screwed into a joist or have a proper bracket and if you didn't have that then it was basically waiting to fall. You did the smart thing calling a pro because knocking a fan into the ceiling void could also mean you pulled on wires that are still live.

olivia_hernandez25d ago

Right? Those cloth wires are basically just dust held together by hope at this point.