I have an Expelair 9 inch extractor fan fitted in my kitchen. It has a time delay on opening of 30 to 50 seconds, It now takes about 10 minutes. Understand this is due to a faulty wax actuator, Thinking of replacing the fan with one that fits flush with the wall ie. The Expelair WX 9 which costs about £230 plus fitting. Is there any other make (9 ") that would come a bit cheaper and be efficient ? Peter.
Er - you sure about that?
We've had an Xpelair in our kitchen for, oh, 15 years. Every year or two the time it takes to open the vents (after the fan has started) gets up to a few seconds. So I take it apart and clean all the accumulated gunge off the slats of the vents -- there's one hell of a lot of grease accumulates on these things you know.
It's extremely easy to take off each vent assembly (inside and outside, though only the inner has moveable slats on ours). I use turps to clean the grease off - works like magic. Then the slats open instantly when the fan is switched on.
Sorry if this is all barking up the wrong tree ... I've never heard of a "wax actuator" ... perhaps it's something that XPelair added in more recent years as a sales booster. You know - the kind of the thing that the marketing people insist that the engineers add to their previously flawless design :-P
John
I don't know about Xpelair, but wax actuators are commonly used on bathroom fans with operated vent flaps. They look like a small solenoid, but are actually a heater operating a plunger (don't know exactly how the wax bit works inside). They don't operate with a loud bang on switch-on, which is useful if you need to use the loo at 3am without waking up half the street. There's typically 30-60 seconds delayed operation as the heater heats and cools.
"Andrew Gabriel" wrote | I don't know about Xpelair, but wax actuators are commonly used | on bathroom fans with operated vent flaps. They look like a small | solenoid, but are actually a heater operating a plunger (don't | know exactly how the wax bit works inside).
The wax expands when it gets hot, pushing out a piston. The same things are used (without the electric heater) to open/close greenhouse vents automatically.
Owain
I have an Expelair 9 inch extractor fan fitted in my kitchen. It has a
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