Pristine Clean Vents & Fans

I have looked at my vent fans with angst for a while.  I’ve vacuumed them and wiped them with a wet cloth more times than I can count and still they snicker back at me with the remaining dirt.  The screen in the bathroom fan holds one pesky pine needle that I swear is laughing at me every time I turn the fan on.  It dances around in a mocking tone, “I’m still here.”  There had to be an easy way to clean those darn screens.

Then, BAM!

Yesterday a miracle fell from the sky.  Not really, it came from the computer.   There was a question as to how to properly clean these vent things.  I scrolled through the answers and there it was.  THE answer to my dirty problem.  I ran into the coach as fast as lightning, grabbed a butter knife from the drawer and set out trying to find the space in between the round screen frame and the housing that nice man with all the answers talked about. The butter knife method was not to be as my screen frame didn’t have this mysterious space he talked about.  Back to the post I went.  Whew, someone else asked about this imaginary space. He answered with “look for the lip.”

You will be shocked at how easy it is, and perhaps like me, a little embarrassed that you never noticed the one key part before.

Look up at your vent, focus on the circle screen housing.  Follow it around until you see a small raised area, the lip.  Now get your fingers under it and gently release the frame all the way around.  Don’t pull too hard because you might break the little holdy things.  Such scientific words.  Mark says the proper word for them is TABS.

After you’ve shaken your head and marveled out how you missed seeing that lip for so long, remove the remaining screens from the rest of your coach.

You’ll need some soapy water or spray cleaner, a sponge, paper towels, cleaning wipes and maybe a magic eraser.  For me, this is a job to be done in the shower.  I wanted the screens to lay flat while I cleaned them and I also didn’t want to scrub too hard and push the screen completely out.

Hold the dirty screen up against the shower wall so you can see just how dirty it is.  No judgement.  My front one, in the main part of the coach was disgusting.  As I was scrubbing away I kept telling myself this wasn’t all our dirt and grime.  I convinced myself that the previous owners of our coach never cleaned them.  Yep, I’ll keep telling myself that.  I needed the magic eraser on this one only to get the frame completely clean.

The handheld shower nozzle is perfect for rinsing.  I tapped the screen a couple times on the shower bench to get rid of the excess water then dried it with a paper towel.  I followed with the other two screens and voila! Three sparkling clean, looking like new screens emerged from where the yucky once stood.

Next up was cleaning the fan blades.  Nothing fancy here, just me on a step stool with cleaning wipes. Wipe each blade then run the cleaning wipe along the frame.  I needed the magic eraser on the top side of the blades in the front fan.

After that we snapped the round screen back into place and wowzer they look good.  But, now the need to clean the vent lid and and outside housing was glaringly evident.

Mark handled this part like a pro.  Up on the roof he went with a large roll of paper towels and the spray cleaner.  I know that some of you might not be comfortable getting on the roof.  Next time someone is cleaning your coach, ask them to help you out and take care of it.  Have some freshly baked cookies on hand and I bet they do it in a snap; maybe even just for the cost of those cookies.

In less than thirty minutes we went from embarrassingly dirty vents, screens and covers to pristine clean ones that I seriously stared at the rest of the day.  Yes, I know that looking up at them and smiling is kinda weird, but I own it.