Ceiling fan wiring

[hoyaguru]

I'm hooking up a ceiling fan, and need some help with the wiring. No, I don't have the instructions that came with the fan. I have wires coming from a light switch to power the light, and seperate wires to hook up to the fan so it will run from the pull chain. So, I have 4 wires, hot and neutral from the light switch, and hot and neutral for the fan. The ceiling fan itself has 3 wires, one marked Fan, one marked Lights, and one marked Neutral. How can I hook this thing up so that the light works from the light switch and the fan works from the pull chain? Any electricians in the house?

 

[shekondar]

Connect the hot from the light switch to the "Lights" wire, the hot for the fan to the "Fan" wire, and all of the neutrals together.

 

[hoyaguru]

Thans, I'll give that a try.

 

[Toasthead]

Originally posted by: shekondar
Connect the hot from the light switch to the "Lights" wire, the hot for the fan to the "Fan" wire, and all of the neutrals together.

bingo..the three neutrals go together ( light switch, fan switch ,and from the actual unit)
I have hooked up about 4 of these in the past 3 days

 

[mrrman]

I am doing this to...hanging 3 remote control ceiling fans in all my bedrooms

 

[hoyaguru]

OK, no joy here. I've tried hooking this damn thing up 20 times, and it either pops the circuit breaker, or the fan and light will not work at the same time. Here's what I have:

Power from the light switch: Two wires, one white, one black. I'll call this light wires.

Power from the attic: Totally independant from the light wires, one white and one black. I'll call this fan wires.

So, a total of 4 wires to go into the fan, two white and two black. I know tha tthe white wires are "hot".

In the fan, I have three wires. One says Light, one says Motor, and one says Neutral.

I tried connecting the fan black and light black wires to the neutral, hooked up the white light wire to the light wire in the fan, and the fan white wire to the motor wire in the fan. As soon as I turn on the light, it pops the circuit breaker.

Since then, I've been trying all kinds of combinations, and everything I try either pops the circuit breaker or either the fan doesn't work, the light doesn't work, or both don't work.

I looked at another fan that is already hooked up. It had the wires in the electric hooked up so that the black (neutral) wire is hooked to the motor wire, and the white (hot) wire is hooked up to nothing. The light is hooked up normally to the light switch. It works fine, so I tried hooking up this new fan the same way. I turned on the fan with the light switch off, it worked. I turned off the fan, tried the light switch, it worked. Turned on the fan and got it going, then turned on the light switch, the fan started going at double speed, and it burned out the dimmer switch.

Note: The house I am working on was built in the 30's, so it does have some old wiring, don't know if this would make a difference. I spent two hours online last night trying to find a wireing diagram that would show me how to do this, apparently I am the first person in history who has tried to hook up a fan this way...

Anyone have some experience with this stuff, or know where I can find some help without having to pay $100 an hour to have an electrician come and do it?

 

[aircooled]

If you are going to use the pull chain for the fan, then don't use the second set of wires, just use the ones from the switch. You would only want to separate the fan and light if you had a duel switch on the wall.

 

[hoyaguru]

Originally posted by: aircooled
If you are going to use the pull chain for the fan, then don't use the second set of wires, just use the ones from the switch. You would only want to separate the fan and light if you had a duel switch on the wall.

Not sure what you mean. If I just hook up the light switch wires to the fan and the light, then the light switch has to be turned on for the fan to work. I'm trying to get them to work independantly from each other, so I can have the fan on by pulling the chain. The reason for this is, the light switch is a dimmer switch. If I have them both hooked up together, when I turn the light down, the fan slows down.

 

[Armitage]

The black wires are HOT not neutral. You have to hot wires on the fan unit so that you could control the fan and the light independently if you had two wall switches.

You should have two pull chains on the unit rights? That's how you operate the fan & light independently if you only have one wall switch.

You don't, so connect the two black wires in the fan to the black wire coming from the box. Connect the white, neutral wires together, and then the ground.

And having a fan motor hooked up to a dimmer switc is a bad idea - you can burn out the motor. If you want to run the lights on the dimmer switch you need to get another set of wires in there to run the fan.

 

[hoyaguru]

Got it! OK, here's the answer:

Hot wire from light switch to neutral wire in fan.
Netral wire from light switch to "light" wire in fan.

Netral wire from attic to "motor" wire in fan.
Hot wire from attic: terminated, it's not hooked up to anything.

I don't understand it, but it works. I didn't think to look at the light wires from the other fan that is working correctly, I'm guessing that it is hooked up the same way.

 

[Armitage]

I don't know how it works either because it doesn't sound right to me

 

[Armitage]

Ok, re-read the first post. You say you have 4 wires coming out of the ceiling box, right? I assume you aren't counting the bare ground wires? You should simply hook it up black to black, taking care to get the black from the switch connected to the light black, and tie all the neutrals to each other, and tie the grounds together, with a pigtail to the box itself. You shouldn't have anything capped off if I'm understanding things right.

This way the lights will be controlled from the switch, and the fan will always have power to it to be controlled by the pull chain.

 

[Zee]

::sniff:: ::sniff::

Does anyone else smell something burning? I was in the next thread over but I thought I smelled smoke.

 

[hoyaguru]

Originally posted by: Armitage
Ok, re-read the first post. You say you have 4 wires coming out of the ceiling box, right? I assume you aren't counting the bare ground wires? You should simply hook it up black to black, taking care to get the black from the switch connected to the light black, and tie all the neutrals to each other, and tie the grounds together, with a pigtail to the box itself. You shouldn't have anything capped off if I'm understanding things right.

This way the lights will be controlled from the switch, and the fan will always have power to it to be controlled by the pull chain.

Tried that, but when I turned the fan and the lights on at the same time, the circuit breakers would flip off.

 

[hoyaguru]

Originally posted by: Zee
::sniff:: ::sniff::

Does anyone else smell something burning? I was in the next thread over but I thought I smelled smoke.

Well, the other fans and lights have been hooked up and running OK for about 7 or 8 years, and it looks like they are hooked up the same way, so I haope this will be OK too.

 

[Zee]

Originally posted by: hoyaguru

Originally posted by: Zee
::sniff:: ::sniff::

Does anyone else smell something burning? I was in the next thread over but I thought I smelled smoke.

Well, the other fans and lights have been hooked up and running OK for about 7 or 8 years, and it looks like they are hooked up the same way, so I haope this will be OK too.

I'm hoping the same too :light:

 

[dartworth]

no ground...?

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: hoyaguru

Originally posted by: Armitage
Ok, re-read the first post. You say you have 4 wires coming out of the ceiling box, right? I assume you aren't counting the bare ground wires? You should simply hook it up black to black, taking care to get the black from the switch connected to the light black, and tie all the neutrals to each other, and tie the grounds together, with a pigtail to the box itself. You shouldn't have anything capped off if I'm understanding things right.

This way the lights will be controlled from the switch, and the fan will always have power to it to be controlled by the pull chain.

Tried that, but when I turned the fan and the lights on at the same time, the circuit breakers would flip off.

So the fan is on, and you flip the wall switch to turn on the light and it trips the breaker?? That's not right.

You should only be tripping the breaker if you have hot connected directly to neutral or ground. If you wired it as I described, that shouldn't happen. So either your wiring is screwed up somehwere else, or you don't have it connected right. I'm not comfortable doing any further diagnosis online, but it really doesn't sound right to me. I'd suggest you flip the breaker(s) and get somebody in to look at it that knows what they are talking about.

You could get a multimeter and *carefully* test each of the wires in your box against ground - you should only get a reading out of the black wires.

 

[Pepsi90919]

the switches were probably wired backwards (unsafe) and that's why it works.

 

[aircooled]

unless you have an independent switch for each already installed, you should just run them off of the same switch and use the pull chain to control fan and lights.
I'm not comfortable with the live wire that you speak of that runs the fan. If you are planning on using the pull chain anyways, then just use the same power source for both from the switch.
You coluld also buy some modern Romex and install a second switch for the fan. I just dont like the idea of the fan having a live wire all the time.

 

[hoyaguru]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
the switches were probably wired backwards (unsafe) and that's why it works.

Possibly, it is old wiring. I'm no electrician, isn't the white wire the hot wire?

 

[aircooled]

household wire standards

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: hoyaguru

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
the switches were probably wired backwards (unsafe) and that's why it works.

Possibly, it is old wiring. I'm no electrician, isn't the white wire the hot wire?

No - the hot wire is always black or red.

 

[hoyaguru]

Originally posted by: Armitage

Originally posted by: hoyaguru

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
the switches were probably wired backwards (unsafe) and that's why it works.

Possibly, it is old wiring. I'm no electrician, isn't the white wire the hot wire?

No - the hot wire is always black or red.

Well, that explains it then, I guess. The power is coming into the fan through the black wire from the attic, and exiting through the white wire from the light switch. The power is coming into the light from the black wire from the light switch, and exiting through the white wire from the light switch. The black wire must be the one in the light switch that is broken/connected by turning on and off the switch.

This would have been much easier had a friend (who does a lot of electrical work) not told me that the white wire is the hot wire...