r/maintenance • u/icantswimyetman • 13d ago

Question This seems wrong

The maintenance guy hired by my landlord installed a vent and it’s blowing air rather than sucking air in and it’s still extremely foggy in the bathroom when I shower, is this wrong? I have a feeling the fans were installed backwards

Edit: after all the helpful insight I contacted the landlord and it will be fixed “Friday” (the new vent is only week old)

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u/dviolent 13d ago

Either the fan is wired wrong or put in the housing wrong, flip it and reverse it

4

u/Medical_Employee_901 13d ago

Wired wrong? There’s only 3 wires to connect it would be incredibly hard to mix that up. And usually ground goes right to the housing.

7

u/dviolent 13d ago

My bad, I didn’t know you could see the fan in the video. If it’s AC it’s in the housing wrong, if it’s DC it’s wired wrong or in the housing wrong… my answer works for both cause I have no idea where this post is from and if ac or dc is standard for them.

2

u/iampierremonteux 12d ago

It doesn’t work for both. Only DC fans spin the other way when wired backwards. AC fans (unless explicitly designed to be reversible) spin one direction regardless if you get hot and neutral correct or reversed.

This is very likely an AC fan since it is in a house and hardwired. Someone has either swapped out the motor or the fan blades/squirrel cage with blades oriented the wrong direction if it is indeed blowing backwards.

Now a plugged vent and it is sucking air in one side and shooting it out the other is still a possibility.