Rain tests out the new stain job on the wooden wheelchair ramp

Rainwater beads up nicely on this freshly stained wood.

Nothing beats a trial by fire.  Or, in this case, rain.  We thought we did a good job of staining this wooden wheelchair ramp, but a nice little rainstorm early this morning really put it to the test.  The water beaded up and ran off just like it should. 

Even these handrails repelled water well.

We inspected the whole job and found that even the dryest and most weathered wood took the stain well and is repelling water as it now should.  It doesn't rain often in the desert, but when it does, it still does damage to wooden structures so this was worth doing.

Why stain your wooden hardscape? This picture tells the tale.

We had some stain left over after finishing the ramp (better too much material than not enough), so we stained a few other wooden hardscape objects as well.  It makes them all match and they all needed protection just as badly as the ramp did.  The puddles on this raised garden bed tell the tale of why staining wood outdoors is worthwhile. 

But how does water repellant wood stain work? I mean, it's liquid itself right? It soaks into the wood, especially this weathered wood, really well.  It didn't form a plastic like coating on the surface of the wood. Other than being a little darker, it looks and feels the same as before.  But now the rain water isn't soaking in.  I did some research.

The first thing I found out was that the stain we chose contains linseed oil. The oil fills the pores in the wood so that water cannot enter them.  It, like all oils, is naturally water repellant.  Everything is made from atoms which are incredibly tiny, electrically charged particles made up of negative electrons, positive protons and neutral neutrons and those atoms are combined to form molecules.  Some molecules are fundamentally stable enough to be considered elements, such as the oxygen and hydrogen that make up water. The hydrogen bonds that hold water molecules together are such that they leave some electrons still free to attract to other positively charged molecules, such as those that make up cotton fibers (which is why cotton clothes soak up water like a sponge).

Oil on the other hand, is made of chains of molecules that are bound together in ways that there aren't nearly as many electrons free to bond with other things, making a liquid oil nearly neutral in charge, thus the negatively charged water isn't attracted to it.  It get's quite complex, but that's about the most simple way to explain it. 

A great picture of the flax plant and its products by Handwerker on Wikimedia Commons.com

Water molecules. Note the positive charge of the hydrogen (H) is attracted to the negative charge of the oxygen (O)

A simple oil molecule. Hydrogen (H) electrons have filled all the available bonds with protons in the carbon (C) atoms, thus no space for the available electrons on the oxygen atoms of water to be attracted.

The stain we used also has what they call WaterGuard water repellants, which are trademarked and not disclosed, but are likely to be man-made polymers that are a lot like natural oils and that enhance the properties of the linseed oil. 


In addition to the raised bed, we also stained this wooden fence protecting a little patio area.

Water is running off this wooden fence now.

Stained this shade awning for the water system

And this shade awning.  Shade awnings like this are essential for protecting hoses, pipes, etc. of water systems for homes in the desert. Otherwise, the UV light from the sun will weaken the rubber and plastic they are made from. The awning also reduces the amount that the water gets heated during the summer so that water won't be so warm when it comes from the tap in the sinks.

Staining wood isn't terribly fun as it's difficult to keep the stain from getting on places where you don't want it and it's a sticky mess to get off your hands (rubbing alcohol on an old rag works about as well as anything), but it is important for having a sustainable landscape.  Being sustainable and environmentally friendly includes preventing materials in the landscape from becomming so damaged that they have to be thrown away and replaced.  By protecting these wooden structures, we're avoiding adding damaged wood to the landfill (or even the effort, time and money involved in getting it recycled before its useful life is truly over) and avoiding having to contribute to the demand for new lumber (and all the enviromental costs involved there), at least for the time being.  

Saving a wooden wheelchair ramp from an early demise.

This wooden wheelchair ramp is only about 6 years old.

Wood is a great mateial to build things with and has been since the dawn of human civilization.  It's one of the lightest yet strongest materials to work with; most flexible in terms of what you can build with it; easiest to work with without expensive tools and one of the most pleasing to the eye in a landscape.  However, it does have it's downside: it does'nt last as long as some other materials do, especially if it is not properly protected. 

This wooden wheelchair ramp is only about 6 or 7 years old, yet it looks much older.  It is still strucurally sound for the most part, but is showing signs of beginning to fall apart already. 

Wood on this handrail is seriously warped & is coming loose.

The wood was stained back when it was built, but they must have used a very low quality stain that lacked good UV and water protection.  In places, it is as grey as an old barn. Worse yet, it is really drying out in our hot, dry climate and is starting to splinter apart.  The handrail above will be unsafe to use soon if something isn't done. 

Wood rot on this siding.

The lower sides of the ramp are covered with wooden siding which is working well for the most part, but in the places where they piled dirt and crushed rock against it, it is starting to rot.  We dug the rocks back from it and will keep them away.  We don't get a lot of rain in Las Vegas, but enough to cause wood rot if the wood isn't allowed to dry out fast enough. 

Some sort of borer larva, possibly Flathead Borers, have been munching on this post.

This post shows signs of some species of wood borers, maybe Flatheads, tunneling in it.  It is still sound so far, but will have to be replaced if the damage gets any worse. We'll be keeping an eye on it now that we know about it.  Haven't seen any signs of damage in the other posts yet. 

We highly recommend looking over all of your wood structures on your property for damage like this.

We dug down as far as we could around posts to get them protected too.

A good quality stain with UV & water protection

We decided to start with a well applied coat of good quality stain first and see if that is enough to deal with the drying wood and hopefully, even retard further borer damage.  We don't endorse any products, so we won't show the brand, but the things to look for are ultraviolet light (UV) protection, water resistance and a moderate price.  Like many things, you get what you pay for and the really cheap stain isn't truly worth your time to use as it doesn't last. 

This project was done in the autumn in Octorber as it's a great time of year in the Desert Southwest to do outdoor hardscape projects.  Cooler weather makes it more pleasant to do physical work like this and the stain will cure better when it is neither too hot nor too cold. 

Before

 

After

Not only is the wood better protected from our harsh climate, it looks much better too. 

Rescued Butterfly Bush Finds A Home

Butterfly Bush Buddleia davidii

This Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii) was rescued from the discount rack at a local big box store that we call 'The Orange Store'.  It came in a tiny, flimsy plastic pot barely big enough for the roots, but only cost $2. It was wilty and sad looking at the time, but we saw promise in it because it had the best formed trunk and branches; no obvious evidence of girdling roots and several flower buds. 

When we brought it home, we put it in a spot under a California fan palm sapling (that will be transplanted too someday) and on the East side of the house to protect it from being blasted by the hot, setting sun each afternoon.  We transplanted it into two nested pots filled with a soil-less potting medium high in pearlite to ensure drainage and watered it until water began to drip from the bottom of the pot (it was sitting on a stand so that the water could drain out) every day.  

After it quit wilting, about two weeks later, it started to flower. The flowers sure are pretty! We are looking forward to seeing how it looks when the plant can support full inflorescences of blossoms.

Butterfly bush blossoms

The pink blossoms contrast nicely with the opposite leaves of this plant which are dark green on top (adaxial surface) and covered with fine, silvery white hair-like wax on the bottom (abaxial surface).  It may continue to produce pink blooms, or the next set might be a darker red, even almost purple as these plants have some variety in blossom color.  The flowers are quite small as seen above and are rather simple, yet elegant, in design with one row of petals, each with serrated edges, fused into a tube with a deep center that hides the pistil and stamens. 

Butterflies and hummingbirds possess tongues long enough to access the sweet nectar that these flowers produce.  We hope that this bush will become a natural feeder for them so that we'll get to enjoy watching them flit around the yard.  Since we never spray pesticides in our yard, we think we stand a better than average chance of attracting them now with this bush.


Once the bush flowered for a while (another couple of weeks) and even began growing new leaves (a very hopeful sign that it might survive after all), we decided to transplant it again.  The weather was cooperating too with highs in the 80's forecasted the whole week and a 40% chance of rain.  Cool, rainy weather is ideal for transplanting many species in the desert. 

To give the plant the best chance of success, we carefully planned its new location.  A well placed and well dug hole is the key to success when it comes to transplanting out here.

The ideal spot was between this wall

And this planter

We paced 7 ft from the wall to give the bush room to grow

This is a good spot because it will get morning sun, but afternoon shade from the house and it is close enough to my makeshift drip irrigation set up (someday, I'll install a proper irrigation system) that I can set a drip on it if I'm gone for an extended period.  It is also in a fairly level spot which will make controlling runoff much easier than planting on a slope.

Butterfly bush can grow to be about 15 feet wide and 12 feet tall, so we wanted a location where it would have plenty of room to grow without getting in the way of anything.  As you may have noticed from other blog posts, we are not big fans of needless pruning.  Had we planted this bush closer to the sidewalk or wall, it would need pruned almost annually.  Where it will be, it won't be too close to any of the traffic paths, and may even cast a little shade over the planter box someday. 

 

"Weed Barrier" is in the way!

Weed Barrier is a myth. It doesn't prevent weeds for more than a couple of years after installation.

Fine gravel under the plastic?

When we started digging, we discovered to our dismay, that the previous owners of this property had fallen for the myth that putting a layer of black plastic under your rocks would prevent weeds.  Apparently, they placed it over the entire yard.  We'd already removed some of it around the trees shortly after we moved in.  This plastic is going to have to go away if we can hope for healthy root systems for our plants.  It's preventing gas exchange between the soil and the air and is impeding water infiltration.

Good soil under the rocks

The soil profile of our yard. Note the compacted layer on the surface.

Now that we've gotten the rocks and plastic and compacted soil out of the way (please oh please dear reader, never cover your yard with rocks no matter what your water district says!), we've found actual soil.  We're blessed to have chosen a location in the Las Vegas Valley that has loamy sand soil with fine gravel! This is primo soil for the Mojave Desert. Very good drainage and just barely enough clay and loam in it to help hold moisture and nutrients.  Other places in the valley aren't so lucky and have layers of caliche 'clay' which is actually coral that was pulverized and buried when the volcanoes that are now the Black Mountains to the South erupted, burying what was once a huge lake as big or bigger than the Great Salt Lake to the North of us.  Where I am digging used to be part of the shoreline around that lake and is a bit more like digging in a beach than a lake bottom.  This is perfect for many desert native and adapted plants, including our little Butterfly bush.

I know this soil well, so I know what its physical and chemical properties are.  If I wasn't sure, I'd do a couple of tests before deciding to plop a plant in here.  First, I'd get a little vinegar and drip it in a shallow hole.  If it fizzed a lot, I'd know that the soil was very alkaline and may not be the best material to use for a plant species that is not adapted to the desert (such as roses or violets). Then, I'd dig a small hole down to my planned root zone depth and fill it with water, noting the time that I did so.  I'd come back every 10 minutes or so to check the water depth.  If the hole still had standing water in it after 30 minutes, I'd consider planting somewhere else or build a raised bed if there were no other good locations for the plant.  Never plant anything (other than maybe plants from swamps or marshes) in a place with poor drainage. Your plants will never be healthy there. 


We dug the hole down just as deep as the flower pot was and about four times as wide to be sure to get as much plastic and rock out of the way as possible.

Luckily, the pot happens to be as deep as a spade is tall....

Makes measuring hole depth easy

People used to think that digging a really deep hole was key, but research has found that most trees and shrubs do not grow a really long tap root that winds up being as deep as the tree is tall. Only a very short list of trees actually do that, most of which aren't even grown in the U.S.  Actually, the key to tree stability is lateral roots. A wide fan of lateral roots extending out beyond the drip line of the mature tree canopy is what keeps trees from falling over.  That's why one spade deep is deep enough for this bush, but we made it as wide as we could. Someday, we'll probably come back and dig up even more of the rocks and plastic and move them out of the way as the bush gets bigger. 

Gently tapping the rootball out of the pot...

keeps the roots from being damaged

 

Placing the rootball in the hole, ensuring that potting soil is under and on all sides of it

Since the Butterfly bush was grown in soil-less potting media, we chose to keep that around the roots and to line the inside of the hole with it.  Our soil is pretty good by desert standards, but it's good to keep as much of the original soil around the roots to avoid breaking off any more root hairs (the tiny, almost invisible parts of roots that do all of the water and nutrient uptake) than we have to.  Eventually, the roots will grow out of the potting media and into the native soil, so we made sure to avoid compacting the bottom and sides of the hole, even raking at the surfaces with our fingers to make sure the spade didn't compact the soil too much.  Smooth, firm holes just become underground pots, preventing future root growth.

The native soil was gently placed around and on top of the rootball and gradually sloping away from the trunk, leaving a gap about a finger's width around the trunk to help prevent stem rot.

Bare soil was then covered with wood chip mulch out to what will soon be the dripline

Now that the plant was in the hole, we gently placed native soil around the sides of the potting media pile and over the top of it up to about a finger's width of the trunk.  Then, we covered that with a two to three inch thick layer of wood chip mulch also within a finger's width of the trunk.  That will help reduce the chance of stem rot that sometimes happens when soil and mulch are piled up around the trunk.  The mulch will help keep the soil moist and reduce soil erosion.  We used such a thick layer to help prevent weeds and to keep the mulch in place better than a light scattering would have.  As the bush gets bigger, we will move more rock and plastic away from it and add more mulch in its place. 

We then irrigated the plant with about a gallon of water and will water it about every other day to prevent wilting.  Thanks to the good drainage of this soil, that won't water-log the roots.  In heavier clay soil or in caliche, we would have to wait longer between waterings to avoid drowning the roots.  If the soil was really tight, we would have just built a tall planting box full of potting medium on top of the ground with a reservoir hole filled with gravel underneath it and planted the bush in that.  Once the bush is established, a deep watering once a week will be all it needs, even in summer.   

  Now, if all goes well, no guarantees when it comes to growing things, we'll have a lovely Butterfly bush to enjoy for years to come. 
 

Mystery of the Chewed Up Pepper Plants Solved

Can you spot the culprit?

We've been noticing that our pepper plants in the raised flowerbed no longer have entire margins.  They've been 'redecorated' by some unseen agent for the past several weeks.  Now, many of them have margins that are beginning to look more like those of holly plants :). 


Up until now, we have only been able to guess who's behind this baroque design.  While we were harvesting some nearby onions for dinner, we finally spotted the culprit.  Can you see it in the picture above?


How about in the picture below?

Here he is!

He's huge! One of the biggest caterpillars we've seen in Las Vegas.  He's green with diagonal white stripes across his sides and a reddish 'horn' on the tail end.  What is he?  We compared him to pictures from several websites and found a 'mug shot' that fits him pretty well.....

This Tomato Hornworm picture looks a lot like our new friend

On the 'Green Caterpillar Identification' page at this link Green Caterpillar Identification, we found the above picture that looks very much like our little guy.  We think he's a Tomato Hornworm or Manduca quinquemaculata. 

An article from the University of Minnesota Extension Service found here: Tomato Hornworms says that they only eat plants related to nightshade (the Solanaceae family), so that explains why this guy is sticking to our pepper plants and not bothering the squash nor the corn. 
They say that common weeds such as jimsonweed and horsenettle are also in the Solanceae family and that the best way to reduce the chance of getting Tomato Hornworms is to pull such weeds in your garden. 


If we put him back in the garden, he may form a cocoon and turn into one of these......

Our caterpillar could turn into a Hummingbird Hawk Moth!

Live-Jar for the caterpillar

For now, he'll be educating Joani's students in his little jar we've set up for him.  Maybe he'll turn into a Hummingbird Hawk Moth for them.  We took a Mason jar and replaced the sealing disk with a rough woven cloth.  To keep him from drying out, we drip water on the cloth.  He'll have plenty of pepper leaves to live on as he seems to be the only surviving one in the bed and has left most of the pepper plants standing so far.  There are also sticks in the jar so that he can climb up and make his cocoon on the cloth. 

Update from original posting:  I learned from Holly, a member of Gardening Blogs, Videos and Websites community on G+ that we need to add 3-4 inches of potting medium to the jar if we want him to pupate. She says that hornworms actually put their cocoon in the ground rather than hanging it from a branch.  We missed that detail in the research we did.  We so love to learn new things! Please, feel free to comment on our blog so we can share, not only what we know, but what others have found out as well. 

 So the next time we see a caterpillar like this, we'll think twice about just smashing it.  Hummingbird Hawk Moths are good pollinators and will pollinate the same flowers that true hummingbirds do.  Other than redecorating the leaves on your tomatoes and peppers, they are actually beneficial.  We might 'thin them out' a bit if we start getting a bunch of them as we don't want them to annihilate our garden, but we do want some of the moths around to pollinate our salvia, butterfly bush, jasmine etc.    

Rescued Butterfly Bush

Freshly transplanted Butterfly Bush

One of the things we love to do when we visit the 'big box' home improvement stores towards the end of a season is to look for the bargains.  It's the best time to buy 'seasonal' stuff that you know you'll use next year anyway.  Most of my gardening tools that we've bought new (most of our tools are actually either my grandma's or are from thrift stores) were from sales like that.  It's part of making gardening financially sustainable. 

Even better is when we find plants languishing on the 'clearance' racks.  The poor things! We are sorely tempted to buy the whole rack of them, but usually manage to restrain ourselves to getting the ones that look like they are more likely to survive after a little TLC.  In this case, we found a shrub with very few broken branches, a well developed main stem, no signs of disease (such as weeping bark, weird growths or galls etc) and dry, but relatively well developed leaves.  This one also had only a couple of previous flowers on it which is good in this case as a profusion of flowers tends to indicate that the plant is really stressed and attempting to ensure the survival of its kind by throwing all of its remaining resources into seed production. This process of looking the plant over critically is kind of like triage for plants. 

This season, one of the plants we've rescued is this Butterfly bush Buddleia davidii.  It's a perennial that will die back to the root crown after a hard freeze and then grow back up the next spring to be about two or three feet tall, assuming of course that they have adequate root reserves.  If the plant is under-watered and stressed the growing season before it freezes, it will just die.  If we don't have any hard freezes during the winter (which sometimes happens here) it will continue to grow and get to be a bigger plant.  Though they start out small when we buy them, these are true shrubs and can get to be around 15 feet tall and about 10 feet wide if people don't prune them to death and if they are planted in a good spot with protection from North winds yet still enough room between the trunk and the nearest hard, immobile structure or walkway to grow.  With perennial plants, a good deal of thought put into where and how it is planted will give you a healthy plant. Lack of planning gives you either a dead plant in the near future or a headache of a plant that is always 'in the way'.  

This little gal that we've rescued has the start of a true trunk with a layer of grey, corkey, shredded bark, so she's probably two to three years old as it takes a while for the bark to develop.  She'll probably start sprouting new stems from the base at some point, which we'll let her do.  We hate to prune plants up to fit some preconceived idea of what they should be rather than what they naturally are.

This plant is developing a true trunk but may sprout from the base later

Butterfly bush has striking, dark green leaves with silvery bottoms, thanks to a thick coating of short wax 'hairs' on the abaxial side of the leaf blades. The leaves are small, thin, lanceolate and entire with slightly serrate margins.  They are one of those plants that are lovely to have around as they don't drop their leaves very often and when they do, the leaves are so small that they don't tempt people to rake them up.  It's namesake comes from the beautiful purple (sometimes white) clusters of tiny flowers.  The flowers are tubular with four tiny petals at the fringes of the tube.  Hummingbirds, butterflies and other flying, nectar sucking critters love these flowers, so hopefully, this plant will act as a natural humming bird and butterfly feeder and we'll start seeing more of those lovelies in our yard again.  At our previous residence, we had Salvia bush growing nearby which is also a great plant for these creatures to feed on. 

Remnants of a previous flower stalk

Hopefully, ours will have flowers like this on it someday

We found this plant in a tiny little pot that was barely big enough for it, as evidenced by all the roots that were starting to emerge from the soil in the top of the pot and to circle the bottom of the inside of the pot.  When we transplanted her, we gently broke those circling roots up and pruned the tips of them off to encourage them to start growing outwards into the soil-less media that we put in the current pot.  We chose soil-less media because that was what was in the pot that we bought.  It's best to try to minimize barriers created by sudden changes in soil texture and structure when transplanting as water doesn't travel very well from one type of soil into another type that is quite different from it.  When that happens, you wind up with lots of water in the pot, but a dry rootball.  The pot that we transplanted it into is large enough that it can stay in there until the bush is recovered from the shock of the poor treatment it was getting at the store and from being transplanted. She'll also benefit from being in the shade of a little palm tree Washingtonia filifera on the East side of the house until she's a bit bigger and stronger.

Later on, when the shrub begins to grow larger and the branches start hanging over the edge of the pot, we'll consider locations to plant it.  There's a good spot for it along the North end of the West facing wall where it will get partial shade from the house and nearby oleanders in the afternoon and it will get protection from the North wind in winter.  We'll never put planting stakes on her as we've learned that trees and shrubs actually grow stronger and more stable without them, especially if you don't prune all the lower branches off in a misguided attempt to 'train' it into being a miniature, mature looking tree.  We may build a raised bed for it at that time so that we can give it amended soil and plenty of rooting space more easily.  That will be an interesting adventure that we're looking forward to sharing with you on here.  

Noisy Vents Are 'Exhausting'

A dirty, noisy exhaust vent

When was the last time you turned on the exhaust vents in your ceilings?  "What exhaust vents?" you say.  Take a look at the ceiling of each room in your building.  Depending on how your HVAC system (heating, venting and air conditioning) was installed, you'll see anywhere from one to several little vents up there.  Unless your heating and air conditioning comes up from the floor (as ours does), you'll find all of the vents up there.  In the bathrooms and maybe even the laundry room or kitchen, you may also find another vent that doesn't blow air when the AC is on.  That's your exhaust vent. 

There should be a switch somewhere in that room that doesn't turn on a light when you flip it.  Go ahead and flip it on.  If you hear a gentle wooshing sound, that's good. That is the exhaust vent doing its job right.  On the other hand, if it sounds a bit more like your vacuum cleaner or worse yet, the garbage disposal in your sink, that's bad! The only thing worse is if it makes no sound at all. That means you need to call an electrician to come and see if the thing is even wired up properly and then if the thing works at all.  I have actually heard of people moving into a brand new home only to find out that some things, such as these vents or the exhaust vent over their stoves, weren't even wired up.  If you don't find a vent at all, you need to contact that electrician (maybe even a carpenter if there's no vent pipe at all) to install one.

"What do I need an exhaust for?" you ask.  Exhaust vents (sometimes known as 'fart fans') help to draw unpleasant odors out of a room. They are especially helpful in rooms without windows as bathrooms and laundry rooms often are.  If none of the windows in your building are open-able, there should be an exhaust vent in every room. 

Humidity isn't something that one thinks of worrying about when you live in the desert, but even here it can cause problems if it becomes excessive after everybody in the family has taken a shower especially.  Warm, sunless, humid environments, such as your bathroom, are great habitat for all sorts of fungi.  Mildew, that weird smell that damp stuff gets if it's been sitting around too long, is caused by fungi.  You can even get mold on the inside of your bathroom cabinets, bottom of your sink and surfaces of your toilette and tub/shower, even the back side of the wall board or 'sheet rock' in your bathroom over time if the room is never aired out.   

Exhaust vents also help to draw hot air out of rooms thus making them cooler.  As the warm air rises, it isn't trapped against the ceiling where it can then circulate back down to where people are if there is an exhaust vent to draw that hot air out.  Some designers call this concept a 'heat chimney' and are starting to install large ones in some of the more eco friendly buildings.  The buildings at the Springs Preserve in Las Vegas are a prime example of how heat chimneys, in concert with ceiling fans and great insulation of walls and ceilings can cool buildings without hardly ever having to run air conditioners at all.  Even in our little modular home, we find that we don't have to run the AC as often if the exhaust fans and ceiling fans (adjusted so that they draw air up rather than blow air down) are on all day.  Those little motors that run them use much less electricity than the compressor for the AC does that's for sure. 

Maybe you know where your exhaust vents are, but don't use them any more than you absolutely have to because the things are so noisy that the annoying sound is stressful, even mentally exhausting to listen to.  If that's the case, it's past time they were cleaned.  Let's look at how to do that.

Once the cover is off, you can get to the actual vent

 
The first thing you have to do is reach the ceiling safely.  Find a sturdy ladder (one that won't make you shake like a leaf once you get up there) that is tall enough that you can stand on the second, better yet third, step from the top and still reach the vent without having to stretch your arms to their extreme and position it so that you won't be leaning over backward or too far forward to reach the vent.  If you don't own such a ladder, borrow one from somebody or buy one. Don't risk your safety by cobbling something together or stacking stuff on top of each other. 

Now that you are up there, remove the decorative/protective plate that covers the vent. Each manufacturer seems to need to have their own way of doing it.  If you aren't sure how to get it off, look it up in the manufacturer's manual.  Most likely, you won't have the physical manual there, but you can usually look it up on their website by doing a search for the manufacturer adding in terms such as 'exhaust fan' and 'manual' along with it.  This Broan exhaust fan has a weird wire hanging system that took a bit to figure out without breaking it. 

 

Be sure to shut off the wall switch then unplug the fan unit before doing anything else!

As soon as you get the cover off, unplug the power cord to the fan!  Sure, the wall switch is in the 'off' position, but it never hurts to be absolutely sure when it comes to dealing with electricity and things that spin really really fast.  Not worth the risk of getting hurt.  Unexpected, bad things like accidents are just that: unexpected.  The exhaust fan can't hurt you though if it isn't getting any power.

Get the big stuff with a vacuum cleaner

Then, get the harder to reach stuff with a pipe cleaner

The tools of choice are a vacuum (the most powerful one you have) with all of its extensions, the crevice tool and the brush tool followed by a sturdy pipe cleaner.  Be gentle with these things and don't hit any part of the housing or fan too hard.  If it won't come off with the vacuum attachments without smacking the housing with it, switch to the pipe cleaner and use back and forth motions as if you were brushing your teeth.  We want this thing clean, but not broken. 

Get in all the crevices on the front and back

This Pipe Cleaner made short work of the vent cover

Now, use the pipe cleaner to get in all those little cracks and crevices on the vent cover. Be sure to do both the front and back of it.  Not only will it look nice, but most importantly, the air will flow more efficiently into the exhaust.  The fan can not work its magic if the vent slots are plugged. That goes for lots of things including floor fans, AC air return panels, even the cooling vents on TVs, computers and the ones in your car (don't forget under the hood!)

Now that it's all clean, make sure the wall switch is still in the off position and then plug the fan back in

Take one last look to make sure it's all clean.  Don't forget to get up in there with the pipe cleaner. Up in side the housing is where the air has to flow to get out of the house.  Then, make sure the wall switch is in the 'off' position.  Once you are sure, plug the fan cord back into the socket in the fan housing and put the cover back on. 

All done! Now it will look nice and do its job more quietly

To look at it, it may seem like we haven't done anything much, but when you flip the switch, you should now only hear a nice 'swoosh' of air.  Your room will now be cooler, less humid and less stinky.  It's not just the big, flashy things we do for our spaces, but also the little, rarely noticed things that make a big difference. The difference may even show up as lower utility bills. 


If it still makes an awful noise, now it's time to call in backup and get an electrician. You many have to replace the exhaust fan.  Letting it run in a plugged up, dirty condition for too long can ruin the motor.  Hopefully, though, these cleaning tips will be all you need to do and will keep your exhaust vent or 'fart fan' running for a long time yet.