I remodeled an old dining room in my "new to me" home into a bedroom for my 14 year old son. I removed the existing chandelier and replaced with a ceiling fan/light with remote following the instructions provided. (Incidentally, I replaced a basic ceiling light fixture in my other son's bedroom with the exact same ceiling fan/light with remote and it works perfectly.)

I have not been able to get the ceiling fan or the light to come on with the remote nor with the existing wall switch (slider dimmer switch). The dimmer switch is located in a double wall switch. The second switch is a single pole switch that operates the closet light . After googling a little, I believed the dimmer switch was the problem so I purchased another single-pole switch and attached the wires to it exactly as they were to the sliding dimmer switch. Still no power to light or fan. Then, I googled some more and attempted to rewire according to diagrams. The closet light stopped working. Again with the googling...pulled both switches out, disconnected all wires and this is what I am left with: three feeds coming into the box from the top and one from the bottom, all with one black, one white and one neutral (see photos). Thank you in advance for any help!

 

Welcome to the forums.

You're going to need a meter or a two wire voltage probe.
Do you have something like that ?

You have four cables there.....
Feed in/hot
Feed out/other areas
Ceiling fan
Closet light.

If the fan/light has an internal wireless remote control..... there can't be a dimmer feeding it.
It's all on or all off.

 

Wow, fast reply. Thank you! I do not have a two wire voltage probe, nor a meter. I will run to home depot and purchase one.

Regarding the fan/light - I thought that was the case about not being able to use the existing dimmer that was used on the chandelier. I do have two new single pole switches now for this double switch, one for the closet and one for the fan/light.

I will get the voltage probe and get back to you. Thanks again!

 

You can get a basic analog meter for around $15.
They have two probe testers that will also work.
A non contact tester is not a good choice for this repair.

 

Hello again. Sorry for the long delay. I had a family emergency and had to put this project on hold for a few days. I purchased a Klein Tools electronic ac/dc voltage tester (ET60) and am ready for further direction. Thanks again for your help!

 

Here is a photo of the voltage tester I purchased if that helps.

 

My compliments. A very worthy investment.



Since we are working with AC there is no probe polarity.
Touch one probe to the ground.
Touch the other probe to black A, B, C and D.
One will show 120vAC. Mark that so you know which one is hot.
Now connect that hot wire to one of the other black wires.
Do that to each wire until you ID what each one is for. The closet light will be one and the power in the other area will be another. Nothing will happen when the fan wire is connected with no fan.

 

Okay, here is what I found...

A: closet light
B: hot
C: ceiling fan/light
D: plugs, etc.
I was able to get everything working, including the ceiling fan/light. I decided to just use the remote control for this light so connected the black C wire directly to the hot and did not hook it back to the switch, I did, however, reinstall the switch in the wall along with the other one that operates the closet light (A) so there would not be a hole there. Thank you so much for your help. Your step by step instructions really helped me get this sorted out and my son is ecstatic to finally have the use of his new ceiling fan.