Electrical question

[dabuddha]

Background. The room I'm working on has a light switch installed and currently it's wired to an outlet. The switch has 14/2 cable going to it (a pair of black and white and a ground wire). It looks like the White wire is the line wire and the black wire is the load wire?
I'm trying to install a ceiling fan in the room (there was nothing in there so I had to run a wire from the switch to the ceiling). I finally got that done (ran 14/2 wire up there. Was too lazy to run to the store to get 14/3). I'm having trouble figuring out the wiring. Here's what I was thinking

1) Take the two wires that are currently in the switch and wire nut them together (thereby making that outlet live?)
2) Take a small piece of wire and connect it to the bundled wires from the outlet. The other end will go to the switch.
3) The 14/2 coming from the ceiling will also connect to the switch? (this is where I'm getting lost)

I guess the issue is I'm thinking I need a neutral which I don't think I have. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[paperfist]

You're trying to keep the fan with constant power and the switch just control the light?

 

[Greenman]

You lost me. First, determine what is in the switch box. It sounds like you have two 14/2 romex going into it. If your lucky, one piece of romex goes to the outlet, the other is a feed. If that's the case, just switch the hot wire (black) that goes to the fan, the others just connect together (by color, not one big bunch).

 

[drnickriviera]

So you just have 1 romex wire going to the switch? Not a pair?

If that is the case then you need to do work in the outlet box. Is it just one outlet controlled by the switch?
What i'm thinking: There will be a hot and neutral in the outlet box. Connect 14/2 going to switch to that, black to black, white to white. You will need to pigtail off the hot with a 3rd wire to make the outlet always hot, Neutral is probably directly connected to outlet, so you will need to pigtail that as well. Now you have hot and neutral at the switch box. Hot into the switch, 14/2 to fan black to other side of switch, tie neutrals together.

 

[Paperdoc]

drnickriviera has it right. At the OUTLET box you have to change connections so the outlet is always hot, and power is fed through that box on to the switch. The outlet box should have TWO 14/2 cables entering - one from power source, the other going to the switch box. FIRST find the correct breaker and turn it OFF so there is no power at the box. Disconnect the connections to the actual outlet device. Create short pigtails (6-8" ), one black and one white. Connect all three blacks together with a wire nut, and then all three whites. Connect the pigtails to the outlet device. If you don't know which way, do this. The device should be mounted in the box with the round GROUND hole at the BOTTOM of the triangle of slots, and the larger straight slot to your left. The BLACK lead is HOT, and connects to the right side (smaller slot); White is Neutral and connects to the left side (larger slot). That gets your outlet constantly on. Close up there.

Go to the switch box. Now you have a power source cable coming in from that outlet box, and an output cable going to the fan. Using a wire nut, connect together the two WHITE (Neutral) wires. Connect one Black (Hot) wire to each screw terminal of the switch. Close up, turn the breaker back on, and check that the outlet works, that the switch does, and that the switch is mounted right-sway-up.