Wiring Replacement Bathroom Exhaust fan

wkend3

I installed a replacement bathroom exhaust fan in my second story hall bath. Directions that came with the fan specified that after connecting wires, all wiring should be pushed into the corner of the fan housing.

My problem is that the wires from power source are about 5 inches too short (they were fine for original fan, but replacement fan wires are on the far side of the fan box and wire from power source won't reach). I am able to connect the wires from the power source to the fan, but I do not have enough slack to push the connected wires back into the fan box. I connected the wires, and fan works fine.

My connected wires are now suspended a few inches above the fan unit (in effect, they are suspended a few inches above the floor of my attic since my second floor ceiling = floor of my attic). I made the connections with wire nuts for white to white and black to black (I used electrical tape to connect ground to green b/c I ran out of wire nuts). I moved insulation 12" away from the unit.

I want this to be safe. Should I go get a length of wire, splice enough wire onto the power line so I can push the spliced power line to power line connections and the power line to fan connections into the unit? Or is the connection I made now ok? Thanks.

tripflex

Technically no, that is not safe. You also need to buy a box of wire nuts and wire nut the grounds. Its like 4 bucks for like 75 at home depot.

What i would do, buy a new work box, nail it to one of the rafters, run the existing wire into the box, wire nut it, then buy like 5 ft of 14-2 wire and run that from the box to the fan.

These parts will cost you like 10 bucks, if you just say f it the rest of your house will end up being "rigged up"

Do things right...the first time.

I'm dealing with my house right now and the previous homeowner thought he was some kind of an electrician, when really he did everything half-ass and now i have to go back through and rewire most of my house because of how bad everything was done....and the things is...if he had just done it right the first time it would have only taken him like 10 more minutes to do it.

Do it right.

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jbfan

Buy what ever the size of wire you have now. It may be 12/2 or 14/2.

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wkend3

Great responses. Thanks, will do.