I recently bought a house with no existing ceiling outlets. Installed a ceiling fan and ran wiring to an existing light switch that controls an outlet in the room. I connected black to black, white to white and grnd to grnd. When I turn the switch on the receptacle is hot but neither the fan nor fan light operate. While measuring voltage I found between black and ground 0 volts and when I measured between white and ground 120v. The house is 30 years old, does this perhaps indicate that they ran white as the hot and black as the common or do I have other problems I am not aware of?

Further information. The light toggel switch control one half of a duplex receptacle. The top receptacle has a black wire from cable 1 and white wire from cable 2in different slots. The bottom receptacle has a black wire from cable 2 and white wire from cable 1 in the same slot. There is a ground wire attached. There are two cables that feed in to the outlet box.

 

You do not have a neutral in the light switch. It is a switch loop only. If you want to eliminate the switch control of the receptacle and use the switch to control the fan this is what to do.
Buy a new receptacle. The old one will have the tab removed on the gold side.
On the new recptacle.
Connect the two black wires to the two gold screws. Connect the two white wires to the silver screws.
At the switch.
Connect the two black wires to the screws on the switch.
Connect the two white wires to each other.

 

Thanks, I will give that a try. Sounds much simpler than having to run new wiring with a new breaker.

 

I tried this solution, now I get no current at the receptacle nor at the switch. I put the black wires together on the gold side of the receptacle, the white wires on the silver side of the receptacle. The receptacle is new. I put the black wires on the screws at the switch and put the two white wires together at the switch. Other receptacles in the room still work so I am not sure where I went wrong.

 

So this is a brand new receptacle right out of the box? And you didn't break off any tabs? And you reset the breaker? And there are no red wires in the switch or receptacle box? This should have worked. Double-check your connections.

 

Even stranger, the power to other receptacles in two other bedroom's are now dead. I'm not quite sure what wiring system has been applied in this house. Perhaps I should resort to wiring the fans separate from the existing network and run a new wire to the breaker panel and have the ceiling fans go into a junction box serviced by that breaker only bypassing any existing wiring plan.

 

As the saga continues, I replaced the old duplex receptacle into the circuit rewiring it as before except using the screw slots this time. One bedroom came back on line. One bedroom is still dead as is the receptacle. The switch no longer turns on even the top receptacle. I checked all circuit breakers and none are tripped. Now I 'm even more confused as to what wiring plan exists in this house.

 

I'm even more confused than you are. I thought you said that you already replaced the receptacle. Did you replace the first brand new receptacle with a second brand new receptacle? How many receptacles exactly are in this story?

By the way, my bet is that this is going to turn out to be a "tab" problem. Do you know what the tab on the side of a receptacle is for?

 

John, thanks for your patience.
First, as I understand tabs based on my reading, it allows you to wire the top receptacle in this case separately from the bottom thus allowing the bottom to have a constant power source and the top to have a switched power source in this instance.
As for the repectacles. I replaced the original receptacle with a brand new one. The on I replaced did in fact have the tab removed on the gold side. After replacing the receptacle, I took the black wire and white wire from cable 1 and wired them to the top of the receptacle and the black and white wire from cable 2. I pigtailed the grounds to the ground screw. At the switch, I put black wires at the two screws (the fan/fan light was the second set of wires here) and wired the white wires together. I then pigtailed the grounds to the ground screw. After all that I turned the circuit breaker back on and determined I no longer had power to the hall lights, the master bathroom, the outlets in the master bathroom, the outlets in bedroom #2, the switch I had just rewired and the outlet in bedroom #3 that I had just rewired. A different outlet in bedroom #3 had power. I removed no tabs from the new receptacle.
After that, I tripped the circuit breaker, rewired the old receptacle back in to the circuit as previously wired before inserting the new receptacle into the circuit, set the switch back with a black and white wire as before (removed the fan/fan light wire entirely out of the circuit this time). I now have hall lights, master bath and bedroom outlets have power, bedroom #3 receptacles are still dead as is the switch and reinstalled old receptacle.
Hope this information helps clarify where I stand at this point. Thanks

 

One additional note to the answer just provided, I just determined that the closet light and one other light in the master bedroom don't come on now (still) even though the receptacles in the master bedroom work now as does the master bath lights.

 

jacpa
I lost you at "After replacing the receptacle, I took the black wire and white wire from cable 1 and wired them to the top of the receptacle and the black and white wire from cable 2. I pigtailed the grounds to the ground screw."

You aren't real specific about where cable 2 is attached. If you are not using pigtails on the black and white wires, then the both black wire should attached to the gold screws and both white wires should attached to the silver screws so you have power sent to the switch (hot and neutral).

But some other things don't make since. If you only have 2 cables (with only blk and white - no red wire) in the box that houses the "switched receptacle," and originally only had one cable in the box with the switch, then changing things here should not affect other things on the circuit (unless you loose power because you through a breaker).

If you have been blowing the breaker during your wiring attempts, you may have caused problems with a connection elsewhere in the circuit (might be the straw that broke the camels back on a marginal connection)

 

Sorry, I'm completely lost.

 

Okay, a red herring. Another breaker had tripped that I didn't find last night. By running my hand down the switches this morning I found the one that had tripped that I didn't see last night and that restored the power to the master bedroom circuits and bedroom #3. Everything is now working as it did before I started the fan installation with the old receptacle in the circuit.
I am going to replace the duplex recetacle with the tab removed with the new one that has the tab still in place and start this process over. I think things will work after this since I now know which breaker tripped that didn't look tripped.
Thanks for you help and patience, I will update to let you know how it goes.

 

Put new duplex receptacle in, attached black wire to gold side and white to silver. All circuits in the house work and the switch box is now hot. All I have to do now is wire the fan back in to the switch box. Will update to let you if successful or not. Thanks for the troubleshooting tips.

 

Ceiling fan and light working now, no other issues. Thanks for the help

 

ya gotta love it.