A Better Configuration

Our bathroom has a total of 6 switches. Two of them are at the door when you walk in and control the mirror and overhead lights.

The other 4 are on the side of the shower and control the shower light, the fan light, the fan, and the heater.

The fan light, fan, and heater are on a 3 rocker switch. That’s 4 switches in the space of 2.

But that’s not the problem. The problem is that the fan (mostly) doesn’t have a timer of any kind to properly run as it should. More often than not, we end up leaving it on all day when it only needs to be left on about an hour after a shower.

Voila!

Now it’s a double rocker for the shower light and fan light, then a timer each for the fan and heater. The timer for the heater is overkill. If it was heated tile, that would be perfect, but the previous owners weren’t that savvy. Personally I don’t get the ceiling fan heater concept. Ideally you should run it before your shower, turn it off, turn on the shower, turn on the fan, suck all that heat out… Maybe that’s not how it actually works. Maybe it puts out enough heat while the fan is running to make it worth while on cold winter mornings, but I have my doubts. We’ll know soon enough.

BTW. That job took three hours to:

• remove the old switches
• identify all the wires
• cut out the old box
• install the new box
• repair any damaged wires in the previous box removal
• wire in new switches – find HUGE wire nuts to do so
• install cover
• clean up the mess on the floor

– b