Hi,
Me and my dad recently replaced a faulty extractor fan in the bathroom of the flat my girlfriend and I've owned for 4 years. In doing so we encountered a couple of issues that had us scratching our heads:
1) We couldn't locate an isolator switch for the fan (unless it was very well hidden up in the dropped ceiling of the bathroom). The only way we could work on the fan safely was to remove the breaker for the flat's lighting circuit. It was our understanding that for a bathroom with no natural lighting an isolator on a fan is a requirement?
2) The previous extractor fan was timed, connected to a permanent live, a switched live, and a neutral. The replacement extractor fan isn't timed and only requires a switched live and neutral. However, the previous owners of the flat had for some reason decided to fit a dimmer on the bathroom lights. We put the spare permanent live into a screw terminal, taped it up, and parked it where it can't contact any other wires, but this still leaves the fan running off a dimmer switch, meaning the fan speed ramps up and down according to the brightness of the lights. We never actually have the lights dimmed, they're either fully on or off, but it still doesn't feel quite right. Is this something I should look to get rectified i.e. fitting a timed fan, or replacing the dimmer with a regular switch? What might be the consequences if it's left as is?
Thanks in advance for any assistance!
Me and my dad recently replaced a faulty extractor fan in the bathroom of the flat my girlfriend and I've owned for 4 years. In doing so we encountered a couple of issues that had us scratching our heads:
1) We couldn't locate an isolator switch for the fan (unless it was very well hidden up in the dropped ceiling of the bathroom). The only way we could work on the fan safely was to remove the breaker for the flat's lighting circuit. It was our understanding that for a bathroom with no natural lighting an isolator on a fan is a requirement?
2) The previous extractor fan was timed, connected to a permanent live, a switched live, and a neutral. The replacement extractor fan isn't timed and only requires a switched live and neutral. However, the previous owners of the flat had for some reason decided to fit a dimmer on the bathroom lights. We put the spare permanent live into a screw terminal, taped it up, and parked it where it can't contact any other wires, but this still leaves the fan running off a dimmer switch, meaning the fan speed ramps up and down according to the brightness of the lights. We never actually have the lights dimmed, they're either fully on or off, but it still doesn't feel quite right. Is this something I should look to get rectified i.e. fitting a timed fan, or replacing the dimmer with a regular switch? What might be the consequences if it's left as is?
Thanks in advance for any assistance!