“Step aside!”

Our kitchen rangehood fan has been on-the-blink for some time. —It’s original to the house, so nearly 20 years old.
Our kitchen rangehood fan, Nutone®, is a special application. Unlike most kitchen rangehood fans, the fan is not in the rangehood.
The rangehood is just a rangehood housing with switches for the fan on the roof in a separate housing — plus overhead lights.
The fan switch is a rheostat for variable fan speed. We never used it.
Just turned the fan on full blast.
Unlike most of our vent fans, it vents directly to the outside. As does the dryer.
Our bathroom vents are ducted into our air-to-air heat exchanger.
—Which also draws air out of the kitchen.
Our air-to-air heat exchanger gets switched on by the bathroom vents, although there also is a humidistat switch, but we set it so high it stays on all day.
Our house is so air-tight I noticed our dryer was back-venting when I had the kitchen rangehood fan on.
So we called old “Kernon,” Certified Appliance Service, our beloved appliance repair-man.
He came out and determined our switch had failed.
That was last February or so.
“I don’t need the correct switch,” I told him.
“Just an on-off switch.
I don’t care what it looks like. I don’t wanna replace the entire system just because of a failed switch.”
Kernon set about trying the order “a part;” I suppose the original rheostat switch.
Around-and-around we went.
At least five follow-up phonecalls over the past four months.
Profuse apologies, followed by “we’ll check on it, and call back tomorrow.”
Never any call-backs.
Finally I’d had enough. “They had their chance. We gotta get off dead center. No rangehood for five months, and a gas stove is going unvented.”
So Linda called an electrical service.
A guy came out yesterday (Tuesday, June 2, 2009) who apparently worked for the electrical service.
The guy was a bloated old geezer, all fumble-fisted.
I’m up the street walking the dog when he came.
“How do you get it apart?” he asked my wife.
“I think this panel unscrews.”
Panel removed, the switch gets removed, and old geezer tests the fan-motor by screwing the hot wire directly to the motor.
Circuit reenergized from the breaker-box in the cellar, the fan-motor works.
“Yep; ya need a new switch!”
By then I’m back from walking the dog, and I crash into his HUGE sweaty belly.
I didn’t know I had to allow so much clearance.
“Yeah, well I don’t need the original switch; just somethin’ that fits that switch-hole,” I say.
“Like maybe a toggle switch?” he asks.
Okay, reassemble rangehood housing.
“Doesn’t this lip go under here?” my wife asks.
Housing gets slopped back together incorrectly, and I bite my tongue. “Don’t say anything; just sit quietly with your hands folded. Ya can fix his mess after he leaves.”
“This is where I hafta be careful I don’t drop the screws behind the stove,” he says.
Crash; slam; bang!
He finally leaves and I set about fixing his mess.
“I had to bite my tongue,” I say. “I was tempted to say ‘STEP ASIDE; obviously ya weren’t a History-major.”

Shoulda fixed the sucker myself. Could have, but I don’t like working with electricity. (I been zapped before — it’s like not liking to work with gasoline.)

Our “air-to-air heat exchanger” is part of a forced-air ventilation system to ventilate our house. Outside air brought into the house is warmed by inside air being ducted out of the house with an “air-to-air heat exchanger.” —A house as tight as ours needs ventilation; so an “air-to-air heat exchanger” retains some of the inside heat.

A “humidistat switch” is an off-on switch triggered by a humidity sensor.

“Linda” is my wife of 41+ years.

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s almost four, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. —I walk her up the street to Michael Prouty park. (“Michael Prouty Park” is a town park near where we live. The land for it was donated by the Prouty family in honor of their deceased son [“Michael”] who used to play in that area. —It is mostly athletic fields, but has an open picnic pavilion. It’s maintained by the town.)

RE: “Obviously ya weren’t a History-major.......” —My loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston was trained as an engineer, and noisily claims superiority. I majored in History, so am therefore vastly inferior.