How do I keep electricians from running out of my house? (Cleveland, OH)

October 18, 2016 7:13 AM

My Mom, who is recovering from leukemia, needs an exhaust fan put in our bathroom before she can come home. We've tried getting estimates from five highly rated electricians, and each time they've said they need to "crunch some numbers" - then they leave and never call back, even when we give a follow-up call/email. How can we get one to actually want the job without us getting ripped off? (Details inside).

Our house is admittedly cluttered, and probably smells like cat urine and mildew to a first-timer (my Mom's a cat lover and hoarder extraordinaire). I'm wondering if these are the reasons, but I'm not sure how we can fix that before my Mom gets home. I've tried febreezing, candles, etc. in hopes that this would ameliorate the situation. In any case, I'm sure there are houses far more dilapidated than ours that are getting serviced.

Ours is a 1960s house with a Federal Pacific panel, which all of the electricians said needs to be replaced sooner or later. Each of them proposed different solutions to the exhaust fan issue as the wiring in our house is funky - some of them seemed like they wanted the job, one I could tell wanted to run out of the house screaming. They all left without leaving a written estimate, which I've come to realize is probably a bad sign.

Another issue is the fact that they're all proposing wildly differing solutions and price ranges - I have no clue which one to trust. One says the bathroom is wired to the bedroom and needs to be on its own circuit, the next guy says the panel needs to be replaced ASAP, another says it'd be fine just putting the exhaust panel in, and yet another says that'd be dangerous - you get the idea. I suppose this isn't a big deal at this point as we're not getting any calls back, but I don't want my Mom to get suckered or be living in a house that is unsafe.

Fixing up the wiring along with the exhaust fan would run at least a grand so I would assume it's easy money for them - could the smell (as I'm suspecting) really be turning them away? What else could we be doing to make them not want the job? Let me know if you need any more details. We live in Northeast Ohio on the west side.

posted by CottonCandyCapers to Home & Garden (18 answers total)

Could you give them a heads up?

I think some of this is just...skilled trades. I cannot get anyone to commit to a porch rebuild quote, over on the east side, and I don't think our brick porch smells like pee.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 7:16 AM on October 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

Could you try finding someone from Habitat for Humanity or a local church to install it? They would probably be more willing to, and as a bonus it would be free.
posted by Beethoven's Sith at 7:25 AM on October 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you chesty, that's good to know. I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to home improvement. Also, I'm very interested in the Habitat for Humanity/church idea if that's a possibility as my Mom is financially strapped. If anyone has any other info or ideas please let me know.
posted by CottonCandyCapers at 7:45 AM on October 18, 2016

I think you should look for a handyman type person. There's a local company to me that actually advertises this – they have a staff of folks who kind of do all sorts of things. If the bathroom has never had an exhaust fan, it actually needs a person that can do a few different things and your electrician may not want to add drywall work, venting, roofing to his/her list of job duties. You may need a creative generalist to do the work and an electrician that just runs the power to the appropriate place.

So, look for a general contractor or handperson. Let's talk about the fan – where can it be located? If you are putting it in the ceiling then you need a way to exhaust the air out of the home which means you need a roof vent of some sort. A cheaper and more accessible way to get a fan would be to put one in the wall. Then you don't have to mess with the roof or a duct and you can just directly vent it outside and nobody needs to be up in the likely cramped attic space. Is an in-wall vent an option?

Secondly, you need to look at your electrical system. Again, I think someone who is a general contractor might actually be better here – or someone who is a home inspector. What's the current system, what is its capacity? Is it time for a new panel? If not, when is it time for a new panel? If you can make the job bigger and more attractive then maybe you can get some bites. I just think that you're starting with the wrong professional for this job which is actually multi-faceted and not just electrical.

Lastly, what is your mother's situation? If she is eligible for state aid or services, it might be time to put together those resources. I don't really understand how she can live in a cat-pee home but the exhaust fan is for livability. Yes, all bathrooms should have an exhaust fan to prevent mildew but it seems to me that there's just as pertinent issues around the home. Maybe marshalling some resources and at the same time asking for someone who can install an exhaust fan might get you the kind of person who can do such a thing.
posted by amanda at 7:46 AM on October 18, 2016 [10 favorites]

"...but I don't want my Mom to get suckered or be living in a house that is unsafe."

Very gently. Your mom is already living in a house that is unsafe. Cat urine, mold, mildew, hoarding, and funky wiring are all unsafe.

Let me give you some insight into what these guys are thinking: likely they don't want to open the walls because based on the condition of the rooms inside, they don't know what they will find and they do not want to be liable if they ignore something or argue with you about costs once expensive problems are confirmed.

Based on how detrimental cat urine is to the lungs, I'm guessing they know an exhaust in the bathroom will not solve the problem, and again, they simply do not want to guarantee the work or deal with your (possibly mistaken) complaints down the road.

It's possible they would not want to be involved even if the house were tidy, due to people complaining or blaming health concerns on their work. Specifically, I'm assuming there are mold problems you don't see as significant. Even if there are not problems in this house, I'm alerting you that folks blame "mold" and therefore service professional for all sorts of symptoms and problems often not related to any work they have done. It's a giant can of worms.

That aside, the cat urine and hoarding are an urgent health hazard. So, it's kinda a similar thing to folks and mold issues - an exhaust fan will do zero to improve your mom's health. I suspect these guys all don't want to get involved.

I've dealt with electrical in old buildings. Someone previously may have diy'd some dodgy electrical, and they want to leave well enough alone instead of explaining why whatever needs fixing. It's possible your mom's house is a tear-down in their view, and having you spend hundreds or thousands to remediate the bathroom exhaust is unethical considering the overall condition of the house...


You might want to consider specialty cleaning service to fix the place, or look online for best practices to do it yourself. You'll want to wear a respirator or breathing mask + look up safe ways to dispose of cat fecal matter and remediate mold and mildew before dealing with the bathroom. I think you can install the fan after the deep cleaning. Stay strong, this is worth doing correctly.
posted by jbenben at 7:51 AM on October 18, 2016 [52 favorites]

I wanted to add, once you have identified someone to come in, have the fan there and ready to install. Look for quietness and a high CFM rating. Pay a little more than you want and the fan will last and be easier to install. If it needs to go in a spot where there is already a light then get a combination fan with integrated light. My bathroom has a three-switch light switch, one switch controls the lights over the sink, the next the fan light and the third the fan. Maybe that's the setup that works for you, the bonus to something like that is the wiring all needs to go to one place and you likely have a switch already in a spot so utilizing that for the new wiring is better. So, buy the fan and have the switch ready and then when you talk to someone, tell them that you'd like to schedule the work and that you have the fan ready.

Also, talk to everyone you know about a contractor or handperson and even if you can get someone to guide you through the process of selecting the right things to buy to have at the ready, you'll be more prepared to get the job going and done. You can return anything to Home Depot so buy extra if you're unsure of exactly what switch/fan does the right job.
posted by amanda at 7:53 AM on October 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

If it's a small job it may not be worth their time and you may be underestimating how badly the house smells if you're used to it. Some people, myself included, could not work comfortably in such an environment, not because we think it's gross but because it makes breathing difficult.


Are you replacing a fan that doesn't work? If so, you might be able to find a neighborhood handyperson who could do it.

Or are you installing a whole new fan, and does it require cutting a hole in the roof? Maybe you need to call in a general contractor to see what it would take to make the whole house safe and mildew-free for your mom. Is the mildew confined to the bathroom, or is it all over the house?

Have you tried running a dehumidifier, or two, or three? If the house has carpeting you might need to get rid of it if it's old and full of mold/mildew.

Good luck!
posted by mareli at 7:57 AM on October 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

What jbenben said. It sounds like you currently living in the house, which would make you pretty desensitized to the sights and smells. The exhaust fan solution is a bandaid on a hemorrhage.

Also, masking the smells with febreeze and candles (more respiratory irritants) is not a good solution.

I suggest THOROUGHLY cleaning the house and moving the clutter into a storage room. Then call a contractor to deal with existing mold problems and install the fan.
posted by pintapicasso at 8:41 AM on October 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

No matter what, get that unsafe breaker box fixed.
Here's an Angie's List article about Federal Pacific. There was a giant recall and the company was accused of fraud in testing and all of these panels are generally considered hazardous.

Some electricians don't agree with this stance, but I would not keep one of these in my house.

In my area, replacing this box alone will be $2,000. I would guess the fan will be another $1000.

As far as keeping them engaged, you might want to tell them about conditions upfront and offer a bonus right away. Or call your current electricians back and offer a bonus.
Or, try to call a big company that has lots of workers and they have little choice about the work they are assigned.
posted by littlewater at 8:59 AM on October 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

Seconding jbenben. There are more issues than the smell here. The fan may only aid in masking the problem. The real issue is mold and mildew. These are harmful to your lungs, let alone your mother's fragile ones. A dehumidifier would be more useful. These can be plugged into any outlet and you don't have to spring for a large capacity if it has a hose connector. Just elevate the dehumidifier and run the hose to a drain. I use one in my bedroom because our house is not well insulated. We used to have a mold problem in the air conditioning vents and in the walls. We are working on insulating the house, but in the meantime I don't wake up with an allergic reaction to mold every day. Get some mold killer, put some music on, and have a big cleaning day. Plug in the dehumidifier to prevent the smells from coming back.
posted by domo at 9:01 AM on October 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

The issue here I think is that you are looking for an electrician, but a bathroom fan install isn't just the work of an electrician.

The fan DOES need to be on its own circuit (at least that is code where I live), so new wire would need to be run, and the breakerbox would need to be current for this. So, that right there would be the electrician: new breakerbox, associated wiring, and everything in the between. This could be a HUGE, HUGE job for someone who is going to do it right and follow codes, and would most likely involve pulling permits and everything.

Once that is set, the fan can go in. It needs an HVAC person as the fan needs a vent.

The fan needs a drywall person to cut the hole and "finish" it off once installed.

These are the reasons people are suggesting a "handyman" or G.C. type person, NOT an electrician. An electrician could replace an existing fan, however. Anyone who gives you an estimate that this is a simple job, though, I would be wary of. This job is bigger than you realize and bigger than other posters are letting on here.
posted by TinWhistle at 9:18 AM on October 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Installing a bath fan can be tricky to arrange. (I'm sorry, I know from personal experience how frustrating the process of getting work done on one's house is.)

Many electricians will want you to hire someone else (a carpenter or roofer) to do the carpentry aspects: the exterior vent, the duct between the vent and fixture, and the physical installation of the new fan fixture in the ceiling (which often involves cutting or expanding the hole in the ceiling and light carpentry in the attic) - so that the electrician then just does the electrical hook up and installation of additional wall switch.

And based on my experience with electricians and installation of fixtures, they would expect you to shop for and purchase the fan or fan/light fixture yourself ahead of time, which sucks when you feel like you know next to nothing about exhaust fans, or exhaust fan/light combinations. A big box hardware store (if you have one nearby) probably has a section for bathroom exhaust fans that might at least give you a sense of what is available.

Do you have any home owner friends or acquaintances who might give a recommendation for a reliable electrician? Sometimes being able to name drop someone will make the difference between a contractor taking you seriously or not. Many of these folks have more work than they can handle already.

Good luck!
posted by aught at 9:22 AM on October 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

For what it's worth: we have none of the issues you are describing and the electrician looked at our bathroom and where she would have to vent (outside wall of house) and passed. It was a big pain in the ass and she didn't need the money or the hassle.

We bought a dehumidifier on Amazon. It seems to be working fine.
posted by cairnoflore at 11:58 AM on October 18, 2016

In your last question, you said: "Our basement recently flooded and we've been ransacked with mildew/mold." Now you say that the house "probably smells like cat urine and mildew to a first-timer".

Has the flood damage been repaired? If not, I can imagine that it would be a huge turn-off (and that many people might feel that accepting the job would mean accepting unsafe working conditions). I would almost certainly not choose to work in a house ransacked with mold, regardless of the cat urine situation.

Good luck. This sounds very difficult. And best wishes to your mother during her recovery.
posted by MangoNews at 12:37 PM on October 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

Another issue is the fact that they're all proposing wildly differing solutions and price ranges - I have no clue which one to trust. One says the bathroom is wired to the bedroom and needs to be on its own circuit, the next guy says the panel needs to be replaced ASAP, another says it'd be fine just putting the exhaust panel in, and yet another says that'd be dangerous - you get the idea. I suppose this isn't a big deal at this point as we're not getting any calls back, but I don't want my Mom to get suckered or be living in a house that is unsafe.

Speaking as someone who just had an ungodly amount of electrical work done on an old house, you should start from the assumption that the moment they open the walls, they're going to find things that are out of code. Possibly wildly out of code. 60-year-old wiring is likely ungrounded, and the bathroom is probably not ground-faulted. You very likely don't meet the (seemingly-arbitrary) requirements for where the outlets are on the walls. If your bathroom is on the same circuit as another room, that's probably a violation. This doesn't seem like it would necessarily matter to you, since you're already living there and it's been fine up until now, but an electrician who's doing things by the book will have to pull a permit, which means an inspector is going to have to sign off on his work. If he's done anything in the bathroom, you won't pass inspection until everything in the bathroom is up to code, which means you're potentially looking at thousands of dollars worth of work.

My suspicion is that you're running into a combination of three things. One, contractors are flakey as a general rule. Two, what jbenben said about hesitation to work in a house in this kind of condition. Three, they strongly suspect that this is going to be a really expensive project by the time you get everything up to code, and they are worried that they will get partway through it and you will not want to spend all that money just to get back to status quo.

Problem #1 is intractable, which is why you talk to lots of contractors and pick the least flakey one. I think the only way you solve problems 2 and 3 is to get the house professionally cleaned, so that it doesn't set off giant warning bells to every contractor who sets foot inside it.
posted by Mayor West at 12:37 PM on October 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Our house is admittedly cluttered, and probably smells like cat urine and mildew to a first-timer (my Mom's a cat lover and hoarder extraordinaire)

This is one reason they're passing on the job. Why suffer?

Fixing up the wiring along with the exhaust fan would run at least a grand so I would assume it's easy money for them

This isn't really easy money. Installing an exhaust fan in an old bathroom requires, new wiring, drywall cutting, crawling in the attic, installing some sort of a roof vent, etc.
posted by LoveHam at 1:02 PM on October 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Two points:

1. the job may be too small. It may be a $200 job, and many contractors can't be bothered.

2. Window - if your bathroom has one, you can buy a window-mounted exhaust fan, plug it into an outlet, and you are done: Holmes window exhaust fan
posted by soylent00FF00 at 5:35 PM on October 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

If the bathroom window is not in the shower, go with the window exhaust fan!

It sounds like your panel 100% is considered unsafe going by other commenters, and if you had a significant flood in the basement, I believe no one is willing to open the walls up thanks to mold.

You can buy or rent powerful dehumidifiers, and I suggest you go that route after cleaning the home completely. There's a non-zero chance the air in this home is not effecting your mom's health.
posted by jbenben at 5:51 PM on October 18, 2016