Hello,

I was trying to install a ceiling fan and had problems with the wiring colors.

The wiring that comes from my ceiling are colored: Red, Gray (I think its gray but might be blue), Brown and Orange. I'm wondering what colors are hot and which ones are ground and neutral? Is there any color codes that specify which ones can be used as hot?

The wiring from the fan are black, blue and white.

Your help is appreciated.

 

It is likely that the grey wire is the neutral. You will need a meter to test the other wires. One is probably hot. The other two are probably controlled by switches.
Standard fan wires are White = neutral, black=fan hot, blue=light hot.

 

It would be good to know what country you are in. It sounds like maybe you are in the U.S., probably in the greater Chicago area.

Light gray might be neutral (but not dark gray), but in the U.S., blue never is. White wires are neutral too, and sometimes white wire which has aged looks brown.

 

I connected the red and orange wire from the ceiling to the black and blue wires on the fan, the grey from the ceiling to the white on the fan.

There seems to be power as I hear the fan motor. However, it doesn't spin. I haven't connected the blades yet because I wanted to see if the connections are right. Do I have to connect the blades for it to work?

Also, when I connected the brown from the ceiling to the green on the fan, the lights in the room when out. Seems to be a short? I had to reset the fuse.

I'm in the U. S. Chicago area.

Thanks for the replies.

 

You're going to need to open up the switch box and find out the colors of the wires connect to the switch, and also any other connections in the switch box. Tell us what you find.

 

There are 2 switches on the box. One is for the on an off switch to one of the outlets.

The one that activates the ceiling, the colored wires are: red, orange and brown. The red and orange are secured by 2 seperate screws while the brown looks like it goes directly into the switch. Thanks for your patience. I'm truly a novice when it comes to this.

 

Does the brown wire go into a hole next to the screw with the red wire, or next to the screw with the orange wire?

 

You said that the ceiling has "Red, Gray (I think its gray but might be blue), Brown and Orange". Is there just one wire of each color?

 

The brown is connected close to the orange wire.

From the ceiling, its brown, red, orange and grey. Yes, just one of each colors.

 

And tell me the colors of the wires connected to the other switch in the box. Also tell me if there are any electrical connections between the two switches.

 

By the way, connecting green to brown is just plain crazy and stands a pretty good chance of killing somebody.

In the U.S., white and light gray are neutral. Green and bare are ground. Everything else is hot. Just to complete the picture for other readers (but this doesn't apply to the Chicago area), when cable assemblies are used, the white is sometimes hot.

I think you need to connect the blades to test this. If you want to test it before that time, spend a couple of bucks on a cheap naked bulb fixture to install temporarily in place of the fan.

I think your gray is neutral. Your brown and orange are probably unswitched hots. Your red is probably the switched hot. If you want the wall switch to control the fan, you'll probably need to connect red from the ceiling to black and blue from the fan. You probably also need to connect the orange and brown to each other at the ceiling.

 

The other switch has yellow and red wires connected to it. They only seem to only share the red wires. The grey is capped with another gray connection.

I thought the brown from ceiling was ground so I connected to green from fan. No wonder my fuse tripped? Thanks for informing me about my mistake..

So I should try the red from the ceiling to the blue and black from the fan then white from fan to grey from ceiling? What about the green from the fan? Can I just leave the orange and brown as they are, capped?

 

Your information seems a bit mysterious. Does it seem like this wiring was done by a professional, or could some hack have been in here?

What was where the fan was before the fan?

You're not going to be able to clear this up with certainty until you do some testing of the wires.