Installing a new exhaust fan

The existing exhaust fan, while quite retro, needed to go. We had decided to go with a range hood and therefore I needed to remove this old fan and create a new spot for the hood exhaust. To do this I needed to 1.) Remove the existing fan, 2.) plug up the existing hole in the exterior wall, 3.) cut a new hole in the exterior wall to fit the hood exhaust.

Removing the existing fan

This was a much easier task than I anticipated. Two screws was all that was holding the onto the wall. Once the fan was was removed I was left with the existing duct work, which proved a bit more difficult to get rid of. The duct work ran up behind the wall cabinets and out of the house. To remove it I had to work from the outside in. I first took off the vinyl siding on the exterior of the house where the exhaust was located. I then needed to remove some shingles so I could get to the nails holding the exhaust to the house (to my surprise I noticed that my house was once painted pink). Once I removed the exhaust from the exterior, the interior duct work came right off. Not so bad.

Plugging up the existing hole

To plug up the hole left from the exhaust that I just removed, I needed 1.) a piece of wood the size of the hole (3" x 10"), 2.) a piece of rigid foam insulation to cover the plugged hole. 3.) A new piece of vinyl siding to cover the bare spot. The only real difficult thing here was finding a piece of vinyl siding to match my existing siding. I was able to find a really close match at Home Depot. Because it wasn't an exact match, and this was a very visible part of the house, I decided to remove a piece of siding off of the back side of the house to use here, and I replaced the back side with the new siding from Home Depot.

Cutting a new hole for the range hood exhaust

This was a bit daunting at first...it was wierd to be cutting a hole from the inside of my house to the outside. A sawzall makes this job quite easy. Milwaukee makes an excellent sawzall and is well worth the price. To start, I measured the dimensions of the hole and drew the cutout on bare wall board. To start the cut I drilled 4 holes in the four corners of the cutout so my sawzall blade could fit into the cutout (this allowed me to start the cut). It was then a peice of cake to cut out the hole for the exhaust. I then installed the vent and was done (not the best pic of the new vent, but it is looking at the exhaust from the inside of the kitchen).