Broan-NuTone Bathroom Exhaust Fan – Retrofit Design Replaces Existing Fan Without Attic Access, Quiet 1.0 Sones, 110 CFM, Powerful Ventilation with 4 Selectable CCT Light Settings for a Modern Look

Super nice fan / light. The fan is quiet and the light is bright. They are 3 light settings, the setting are done by flicking the light switch off/on in a certain pattern. As with all exhaust fans, the installation could be tricky, due to exhaust hose placement, access to the rafters, etc. But as far as the fan goes, I doubt if it will disappoint.

This fan is super modern looking, not intrusive and quiet. I you tubed the installation process, it was not as difficult as others I have replaced but it did require some reworking of the brackets, it depends on the space it's going into. Overall, we are very happy with the visual and functionality of the fan. Dont forget to turn it off, it's really quiet. Thanks.

First let me say this fan is so so so quiet!! I went from a 3.5 sone Broan fan that was a smaller CFM to this larger Broan one. It is whisper quiet. You barely know it’s on. With the door closed you can’t hear it at all. My former fan you could hear it plainly through the solid wood door. The light is really very bright. It’s nice that you can switch the type of lighting. Mine is currently in the brightest setting. And it’s really brightened up that side of the bathroom. The shower area will be brighter now. Whether I will leave it that way or not I am not sure. I ordered this knowing some reviews said the clips were not a good design. And sometimes I will see things like that in a review and think well I didn’t have that problem wonder why they did? Let me tell you that is not the case with this! My fan box is perfectly flush with the drywall. The cover is not just a plastic cover with the grill holes. The light bar clicks into the middle of it. So there is a little bit of added weight there. There is one “clip” on each side of the cover. The clip is one curved piece of wire. The wire is looped into a circle in the center which is over a plastic piece on the cover. It can come off that piece, mine didn’t but the instructions said if it fell off to reattach it. From that center circle, the wire comes out about 3 inches on each side. There is a slight bend/curve to the wires and then at the end points they curled into a small circle. To attach the cover you are to squeeze the wire ends together and push them up into part of the plastic fan housing, right where the screw goes in to secure it to the metal box. The idea is to get the wires squeezed and slid up into the house where they will open up again and hold. But you squeeze them and once you get so close to the ceiling it’s very difficult to see if you have them in the right place. It’s hard to do them at the same time and also hard to do one side then the other for about the same reason. You can get one side in and then as you try to guide the other side in, you have to be careful the first side doesn’t pop out. Then once the cover gets closer to the ceiling it blocks your view of whether your in the right place with both ends of the wire. Once you finally (and to the point of exasperation) have the clips in the right place, you are to push the cover straight up flush to the ceiling. The clips are to open back out and hold the cover on. But they don’t do it well. I pushed my cover up and it fell off after two seconds. Which I was watching for from the other reviews. I did it two more times before it finally stayed. It is a MAJOR design flaw. Why they couldn’t make tabs like all the other Broan fan covers I have seen is beyond me. I am waiting to see if this fan clears the humidity out of the bathroom quickly. It’s why I upgraded to this fan. Our bathroom was at the very top end of the old fan’s range. It was not clearing humidity very well. I have the same old model in both of my other bathrooms which are a little smaller, and it works fine. But not in this slightly larger bathroom. It also gets more use. So I felt the upgrade was necessary. The verdict is out on that but I think it should considering the fans rating is for an even larger bathroom than this. The cover is nice and plain in its appearance. I don’t have any issue with that at all. The install was fairly easy. There was a template on the side of the box to use for cutting the drywall. The template was labeled with where the electric and duct connect so you could orient it correctly. It made cutting the hole larger easier for me. As far as it not having to go into the attic to retrofit this, I think maybe it’s possible but it would make it so much more difficult to do. We had to go into the attic to remove the old box there was no way around that. And putting in the new box, we needed to be in the attic to secure the box to the joist with screws. And attaching the vent tubing was not going to work for me because my vent tubing is insulated. There was no way for me to pull that down through hole like the directions say to do for retrofit. They suggest pulling the tubing through the hole on the metal box and attaching it to the black plastic piece, then slide that back out the hole and click the right side of the plastic into place and screw the left side in with a screw. That would not have worked at all for me. All in all it seems good for now. Whether the clips give me more trouble down the road and I will need to figure out a way to somehow keep it attached better, I don’t know. But I suspect I probably will.

So, overall, this was easy to install & was pretty self-explanatory. If you don’t know what you’re doing, then look up a YouTube video, it’s not hard. However, I will say that I have two small issues that could’ve been done better by Broan engineers & one that was an issue of assembly. 1) Make the wire harness plugs both easily removable for installation flexibility. Having only one removable w/ the other held in w/ the ground via a rivet & bracket-like setup is totally a shit design. 2) There are two nubs on the blower exhaust orifice that mates up w/ the exhaust adapter. It’s not clear why these are there because they prevent proper alignment & sealing of the blower & the adapter. I used duct tape to cover the gap & it works fine, but in retrospect I’d probably file off these nubs. I thought they may be to hold the blower in the exhaust adapter, but there isn’t enough room in the chassis to make that happen & the nubs are on the mating edge, not on the interior side of the port. 3) The wire springs to hold the face cover up were initially installed where they were rotated the wrong way & wouldn’t work. The instructions you get w/ the unit are very vague, pretty much just half-assed because they felt they had to include something. After rotating the springs they hold just fine. Aside from the small oversights by Broan, it’s a nice unit. This exhaust fan works twice as well & is at least twice as quiet or more than the $55 Broan models (Literally the lowest cost model at Home Depot) our builder installed in 2020. My wife says she sees it work, but can’t believe how efficient it works compared to its loudness or lack there of. Side note: The cheaper model this fan replaced use a 3” to 4” step-up adapter, meaning the blower exhaust was 3” & the exhaust pipe is 4”. This cheaper model having that reducer in there causes a ton of unnecessary noise due to turbulence, so get a exhaust fan that matches your pipe size, which is typically 4”, maybe 6” if you have a large bathroom. 1 sonne(s) or less is whisper quiet & totally worth it if you’re not trying to cover up sounds you make while on the toilet.

Really happy with this fan! Quite a bit quieter than the 20 year old one it was replacing and does a good job of pulling the humid air out of our large bathroom. Was a bit worried that the LED light would be too harsh, but it's fine. Being able to adjust the white warmth is very nice. Install was pretty straightforward. I had attic access, which made the install more straightforward. I was able to get an Amazon Warehouse unit at quite a discount. Not sure I'd pay full price.

It's kind of crazy to go through the process of removing an old fan and retrofitting a new one, only to have the most annoying part being the installation of the plastic cover. But that's what you get with this NuTone. The cover and clips are as flimsy and irritating as mentioned in myriad other reviews. My only bit of advice: make sure the mounting box is flush with the ceiling. Initially, I had it about 1/4 inch too high and no matter what I did, the cover clips wouldn't completely engage, leaving me with a limp and disappointing cover situation. Once I brought the box down flush to the ceiling, I could get the clips to attach in a way that kept the cover tight. Other than that, the fan seems alright...and kind of disappointing for the currently elevated price point. It's not quiet, especially if you have to reduce from the 4" connector to 3" duct. Also, there's some vibration noise as well, which might be unavoidable given that the only attachment points are on a single joist (three sides are loose and unsecured). No matter how securely you mount it, it's going to sag and vibrate a bit. It's fine for our second bathroom but I'm glad we went with a Panasonic WhisperQuiet in our master bath. Much quieter, better airflow, better cover, and it even comes with a 4" to 3" adapter if you need it (not included with the NuTone).

Replaced a 24 year old 50 CFM bathroom fan with this. This fan sucks. But that's good, because it is supposed to do that and it does so very quietly. Once the shower is running, I cannot hear the fan at all and more than once I had to double check that I turned it on. The light is the right level of brightness for the bathroom. It is supposed to have 4 levels of 'warmth' (in color, not heat), but either I cannot get it to adjust, or the adjustment is so subtle that I can't tell. But I am not really worried about it, the light seems fine. Installation was not as hard as I thought it might be.

I installed two bathroom fans today. This Broan was to replace another contractor grade Broan that sounded like a bicycle with a playing card on the wheel. The other was a new install in a master bath remodel, a Panasonic Whispergreen. The Broan build quality, ease of install and over all instructions and design is poor. It is engineered by people who do not install fans. The configuration for a retrofit is inflexible, that is to say the orientation is rigid and may not work as the fasteners are on two sides. the hardware is small and in effective. The fan outlet to the vent hose is one size and not stepped to make it easier on the installer. There is no internal cfm or led setting, The cover springs are weak and the led light cable is too short to make the install easy. Aesthically, the very large cover seems out of place. The fan noise measured onsite is closer to 2 sones. The Led light is comically cold and bright that makes you look aged with the shadow it creates. I unplugged it and left it off. I fitted a switch with a timer to support auto off. From a industry name brand this is shoddy and not good value for money. For an additional $90 the Panasonic is a Rolls Royce beside this GMC Gremlin of a fan. I recommend avoiding this as Broan has de-contented and used the lowest possible thickness of material, engineered to reduce cost past the point of value. it deserves less than 1 star.

Missing pieces