The Cool House: It blows

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

It blows

Q) How many trips to X-pooh does it take to buy a bathroom fan?
A) Three.
Trip One: because the contractor wants to start on the electrics tomorrow and then sheetrock the ceiling and I haven't ordered one online yet. I arrived at the "luxury" big box store and asked the Customer Service Rep where they were located. "Oh, I think they are all special order. But you could try through the arch at In-store pick-up". Through the arch there are faucets and hardware and pillows but no ventilation units. An employee asks what I need and it turns out they do have them, just installed last week and hidden behind the faucets with no sign at all. There is one brand, Nutone, six models and they are all ugly. I leave and try three other stores, only one of which carries bathroom fans and that is Hopeless Desperation and they only sell Nutone, but even uglier, less powerful models.
Trip Two: Back to Exasperating to purchase the most energy friendly, least ugly, and most expensive, model.
Trip Three: To return that model and purchase the second most expensive model because that has 4" diameter ducting and the one I had taken home was only suitable for 6" ducting.
Three trips, starting at 2:30 and finishing at 8 pm. I need to go stand under the fan to cool off and in future I must learn to read the box properly before I leave the store.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh, I feel your pain with regard to both multiple trips for what *should* be a simple purchase, and ugly exhaust fans. We had also looked at "Hopeless Desperation" and cringed at all the Ugly (and for all the $$$!), but then we just about fell over ourselves when we found these Hunter fans at Lowes:
http://i6.ebayimg.com/01/i/06/e2/87/c6_2.JPG
http://i5.ebayimg.com/03/i/07/ca/da/2e_2.JPG

They had a bunch of other styles that proved to the world that bathroom exhaust fans aren't legally required to be plug ugly, but these two worked best with our bathrooms.

Installing them as replacement fixtures in an old house was quite the adventure, though... maybe that's why we only have one installed so far!