Ceiling Fan installation


  #1  
Old 04-14-04, 05:28 PM
rjburns
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Ceiling Fan installation

am installing a new ceiling fan with light and remote into a new home with a prewired ceiling fan outlet. The fan has three wires (Ground, white and black). The outlet box has four wires (ground, white, black and red) The ceiling fan wall switch has two switches.

I wired the red and black from the outlet box to the black in the ceiling fan. (and the ground to ground and white to white) The fan and light works as advertised if you use the remote to control it. If you use the wall swtiches, both switches turn the light on/off but neither switch operates the fan. Obviously, something is not right here. Clue?
 
  #2  
Old 04-14-04, 06:05 PM
S
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You're lucky to still have switches and an arm - Black and Red are BOTH hot. Disconnect one or the other immediately.

What you have is 14/3 with one switch operating the fan and one operating the light - if connected properly!!!

You need to connect either the Black or the Red to the Black for the fan, and disconnect and cap off the other wire.

Good luck!
 
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Old 04-14-04, 07:00 PM
J
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I'm going to disagree with SafeWatch. Your connections at the ceiling are fine. The red is controlled by one switch and the black by the other. It was not necessary to connect both to the fan, but it does not do any harm either. In fact, it covers you if you flip the wrong switch.

The unit is working as designed. The fan cannot be turned on by the wall switch. Only the remote control transmitter can do that. If you want to use the wall switches, remove the remote receiver from the fan. You can't have it both ways. You are not forced to install the remote receiver. I'm personally not too fond of them for exactly the reasons you have discovered.
 
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Old 04-14-04, 07:32 PM
S
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Ah, John is correct - since they are both on the same circuit, no harm done. I didn't even think about that.

Still, I don't like having 2 hots on one wire, you really never know unless you wired it yourself.
 
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Old 04-18-04, 10:34 AM
R
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Brandon,

rjburns stated in the beginning that there only were a red wire, a black wire, a white wire, and a ground wire (nothing else) in the ceiling.

The only way that this wiring arrangement could have been done (and to have been correct from the beginning) would be for the red and black to be on the same circuit.

If I were going to use the remote, I would eliminate one of the switchs. If a duplex switch, I would replace with a single switch. If two single switches I would eliminate one or simply disconnect it (which can be done by capping the red or black wire at the ceiling box).
 
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Old 04-18-04, 11:05 AM
J
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I'd be inclined to leave everything as is. It'll make it easier to convert when you lose the remote transmitter, when the remote receiver fails, or when you just get fed up the the whole idea of a remote.
 
  #7  
Old 04-19-04, 02:08 PM
rjburns
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follow up - ceiling fan

Outcome - When I took off the plate covering the original ceiling fan pre-wire in my new home, I saw that the red and black wires were capped off together with one wire nut so I did not think that it would be improper to wire both hot wires to the black wire on the ceiling fan.

I've left the wiring as is. We use the remote to control the fan. I'm not sure why the fan does not have a separate wire to control the fan and light. All the other fans I've installed have a balck white, blue and ground. This was not a particularly cheap fan ($200+ Hampton Bay St. Regis) I would not recommend Hampton Bay. No customer service help line, no service at Home Depot.
 
  #8  
Old 04-19-04, 02:12 PM
J
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It's not the brand. It's the remote control. All ceiling fans with remote controls work this way.
 
 

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