NuTone exhaust fan upgrade kit.

[Cole D]

So at work, there are four of those NuTone exhaust fans with the white plastic grille like here: www.nutone.com/products/product/90974cfe-5d12-4258-b3ef-5878b2342d57

There one in each bathroom and one in the kitchen. Although, one of the bathroom ones has a more rounded grille. Well, recently one of the fans stopped working. So now they replaced the grille and motor/blade with an upgrade kit. I was impressed, because it does seem to be quieter like they claim, and I could actually feel the air movement, where the others I don't feel anything. I think the grille helps because the regular grilles seem really restrictive.

The new grille reminds me of those Aubrey exhaust fans from the 80s. You can see the motor through the opening.

Here's the kit they used. And you can see it uses a blower wheel instead of the regular one that uses an impeller. www.nutone.com/products/product/0f95404d-4347-4d78-876b-57ff82992173
I think they should just sell these as the standard units since they perform better it seems with this upgrade kit.

[Jordan U]

The grill probably does restrict a lot of air, but my guess would be the real difference comes from the blower-style fan over the 8 fin or whatever it is impeller.. Those are very cheap and have no aerodynamics to them whatsoever..

[Cole D]

I agree. My bathroom has a NuTone that's also a light and has the round glass shade that's a dome shape. It has that impeller wheel and it is indeed noisy and not much air movement. It's from 2007 and by 2009 or 2010 the bearings started screeching, so I stopped using it. Oil may have helped, dunno.

I thought about getting one of those upgrade kits if it would fit... but the grille openings are rather restrictive so I don't know if it would help much. And in this case there's no way to replace the grille since it's part of the light itself.