As we published that article we came to the realization that the majority of our readers are woodworkers and crafts persons. And as such may not have the skill sets or knowledge on subjects like how to install a ceiling fan. A couple of years ago we started a category on this blog called “How Do I…’” that contains several articles that are written to provide the reader with the additional information they may need to accomplish some additional household tasks. Somewhere along the time that our daughter began looking for and then buying her home, we got side tracked from the how to articles.  With “Installing a Ceiling Fan” we are getting back to adding more information about projects you may be tackling around your home.

We hope that this added information will be helpful to you. We will publish these how to articles as they relate to the projects we undertake.

If there are any projects you would like to see information about, add a comment to the ceiling fan or basement articles with a suggestion or send us an email at  jerseywoodworker@sawdustonthefloor.com

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• Ladder
  Screw Drivers
  Diagonal Cutters
  Level
  Adjustable Wrench (new install)

         Parts Needed

• Fan
  Electrical Box suited for Fan Mounting
  Electrical Wire
  Electrical Tape
  Wire Nuts
  Romex Connector 

 Skill Level:       Intermediate if Replacing  Existing Fan

                                      Advanced if installing New Fan

 The task of replacing an old, or defective ceiling fan, with a new one is normally a very simple task.  I know over the years we have replaced several fans in our home, either because the fan developed problems, or we could not longer understand why we liked the design in the first place.  If you are comfortable working off of a ladder, then installing a replacement fan shouldn’t be that hard.  It’s a simple matter of making the electrical hook ups, and securing the fan to ceiling.  

If you are not comfortable working on a ladder, or with making any electrical connections, then please hire a licensed electrician to install or replace your fan. 

Replacing an Existing Ceiling Fan 

The task begins with removing the old fan. If your old fan has a light kit, begin with removing the globes and the bulbs.  Then comes the removal of the blades.  There are two ways that the blades are attached to the fan motor. The first is  like the method in the picture at the right where the blades are attached to blade holders and then the holders are attached to the motor assembly.  In the other method, the blade holders are permanently attached to the fan motor.  The blades on that type of assembly are not held on with screws, but use clips.  To remove these, depress the clips, and remove the blades. 

Removal of the motor assembly comes next.  Each manufacturer has a unique method to mount the motor to the ceiling plate.  As shown in the manual for a Hunter Fan, ( at the left) there are 3 screws in the ceiling plate that allow you to lock the motor assembly in place. Loosening these screws partially will allow you to rotate the motor assembly counter clockwise, freeing the motor assembly from the ceiling plate.  Once the motor is free from the ceiling plate, disconnect the wires to the fan.  Remember to verify that the power is off, Don’t assume that it is. Check that the power is off. It’s best to turn off the circuit breaker that provides the power for the fan, Don’t trust that the wall mounted switch to isolate the circuit, the switch could be bad.  When I work on an electric circuit at work, we also lock out the circuit so that it can’t unintentionally be re energized. This is practical in most home environments, due to the design of the circuit breaker panels.  A piece of electrical tape over the de energized circuit breaker  normally serves as an indicator to other family members, not to turn it back on. 

To install your new fan in the same spot, reverse the operation.  Again, each manufacturer uses slightly different hardware, but once you have seen one, they all are about the same.  The only changes you may find is when it comes to connecting the electrical wires.  And that change has to do with the lights that may come with your new fan. 

Your new fan may come with four wires instead of the conventional three wires.  You still have the standard, black, white and ground wires, the additional wire normally is blue.  This blue wire provides power to the lighting kit that comes with the fan.  In most applications you would simply connect the blue wire with the black wires.  I have also seen a few fans that have a fifth wire, this one is a white wire with blue stripes. This wire provides a separate  return for the lights. Again conventional wiring is to connect this white/blue wire with the other white wires. 

Your new fan may not cover the same space as the old one, one solution is to repaint the ceiling( just kidding).  If this is your case, you may want to consider installing a ceiling medallion  along with your new fan.  The medallion serves two purposes, covers any discolored ceiling and adds a decorative feature to the room. 

New Installation 

The biggest problems when you install a new ceiling fan, are how do you get electrical power to the fan, and how do you secure it to the ceiling.  In a lot of older homes, it was common to find a ceiling light fixture in almost every room, and in some cases, these lights were controlled from a wall mounted electrical switch. This would solve the power problem, but not the issue of how to mount the fan to the ceiling.  Electrical boxes normally used for lighting fixtures are light weight, and there sides are spot welded together.  These are NOT compatible with ceiling fans. Installing a ceiling fan in a standard electrical box would be a serious safety risk. 

A spinning ceiling fan will generate large amounts of centrifugal force, this force can and will fatigue the welded joints in the standard box.  When the joints in the box fail, the fan will either come off the ceiling, or the fan will become unbalanced and destroy itself.   Neither of these are a desirable thing to have happen. 

Another concern about using an existing electrical box is how the box was mounted.  There are several different configurations of boxes designed for lighting fixtures, some of these were actually bolted to the ceiling joists, while other were suspended between the joists. A ceiling fan must be secured directly to the joists for obvious reasons.

 Ok, so how do we get the correct box installed?  Assuming that you don’t have access to the ceiling from above such as from an attic, you will have to work from the mounting hole of the old light fixture.  After ensuring that you have removed the power from the electrical box, remove the old box.  Be careful not to damage the sheet rock, when you remove the old box. 

One of the best ways to work from the bottom is to use a product like the “Westinghouse Saf-T_Brace”, pictured here.  The two arms pictured will fit together and are used to span the distance between the joists.  There is an adjustment on the arms that increases or decreases the overall length of the arms.  Insert them thru the hole as one piece, and adjust the length until the arms are secured to both joists. A wrench is required to achieve a tight fit.  The next step is to connect the electrical box to the bracket.  The kit comes with a special “U” bolt that fits over the arms of the bracket, and then into the electrical box.  Locking  nuts are then used to secure the electrical box to the support arms  and the “U” bolt. 

A very important step here is the ensure that the bottom of the electrical box is level and even with the bottom edge of the sheet rock.  If the box is not level, you may later have problems with the fan “wobbling” as it turns. 

One of the other things I have learned the hard way is to make sure that you install your electrical wires into the box, before you mount it to the arms.  There is no way to do this once the box is installed.  Be sure that you use the proper electrical connections to the electrical box. For this style box, use a 3/8” Romex connector.  Remember that the outer shield on the wire goes through the Romex connector, and extends no more then ½” inside the electrical box.    Never allow the wires themselves to make contact with the Romex connector. 

Once you have the electrical box installed and the wires ran to the box, it’s time to install the actual fan.  Having installed fans from several different manufacturers, I can tell you that none of them use exactly the same hardware.  But the idea is the same. 

There is always some kind of mounting bracket that is attached to the ceiling and your electrical box. In the center of this mounting bracket, is a concaved recess that will receive the “ball” that is at the top of the down rod for the fan.  Down rods come in many different lengths, for different ceiling heights. Most fan kits contain at least two rod lengths. Select the one appropriate for your ceiling height.  The down rod is attached to the fan motor assembly with a dowel rod and cotter pin. The wires from the fan motor are then ran through the center of the down rod. The wires are shipped longer than needed for most installations.  

The fan motor and down rods are then inserted into the recess of the mounting bracket.  You will find that if you rotate the entire assembly, the ball will drop into a locking groove.  This keeps the fan motor housing from turning.  The weight of the motor assembly keeps it seated into this groove. 

Installation of the remaining parts of the fan goes like this. We next attach the electrical wires.  These are pushed up into the electrical box, after which they are secured and taped.  Remember black to black, white to white, and green to the ground wire. Also remember to use proper size wire nuts and add a wrap of tape on the outside of wire nuts. 

Once the electrical wiring is done, all that remains is to attach the fan blades and the trim rings that came with the fan. Again each and every manufacturer seems to have a special way to attach the blades. I prefer those that use screws and lock washers to secure the blades to the fan, over those that have “quick attachment kits” for the blades. The quick attach kits don’t give me that warm feeling of being 100% secure that good screws and lock washers do.  However, I don’t know of any incidents where the quick attach kits failed. 

If your fan kits came with a light kit, it is installed on the bottom of the fan motor.  Most of the units I have seen lately will require that the light kit be installed before the fan will work.  I prefer not to add the bulbs, or the lamp shades until I have ran the fan, to ensure that it is stable. 

Ok, so now it’s time to check out your handy work.  I would recommend that you run the fan on its slowest speed at first.  Look for any wobble or vibration, there shouldn’t be any.  If there is, most manufacturers provide add on weights that can be added to each blade, in a trial and error method, to help reduce the vibration. From my point of view, if you need to add any weight at all, you might want to consider taking the fan back to the vendor.  If your installation is sound, and the fan is balanced, why would it vibrate?   

If everything checks out, add the light bulbs and lamp shades, and enjoy.  Oh yeah. Check the rotation of the fan, you want it to pull heat off of the ceiling in the winter, and pull cool air from the floor in the summer.  The only thing left to so is put your tools away, and sit back and enjoy your work. 

FAQ’s 

Q:  There are four and five bladed fans , Which is better?

A:   The five bladed fans tend to be more stable then the four bladed fans.  Five bladed fans also are more efficient in  moving air. 

Q:    I would like to add a remote control to my existing fan, Can I do It? 

A:     Yes, there are several after market remote controls that can be added to the fan. There are two parts, the transmitter and the remote.  The transmitter is installed in the canopy for the fan motor.  Electrically, the house      power and ground wires are connected to the input side  of the transmitter, and the power and ground for the fan are connected to the output side of the transmitter.   The only other thing you have to do is set the address  of both the transmitter and remote to the same setting, and add batteries. 

Q:    We really like a particular fan and light kit, however the  globes for the light kit do not work for us, what can we  do?

A:     Not a problem.  Most  of the lighting globes are the same size.  Look at you locale DIY store, there you will  find many different and exciting globes that can change the appearance of the light fixture so that it complements your decor.

Q:    Can I install a fan on a sloped ceiling?

A:     Yes, You will have to install a longer down rod than you  would on a flat ceiling. The length of the down rod will depend on the size of the fan and the slope of the  ceiling.  You could try to remember all of the trigonometry that we learned in school, or  you could  drop a plumb bob, from the center of the fan.  Measure  down this line, to a point where you would have the  horizontal clearance for the blades to swing.  This is the minimum length of the down rod.

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While both boys built cars for the race, only Jake, the youngest one, was actually allowed to race his car. Big brother, Joey isn’t a member of the scouts, so they didn’t allow him to enter the race.  He had made his car just for the experience of making it, which was just fine with me.

Jakes car didn’t do too well. He finished third in a group of four.  I was concerned that he would feel bad about where his car had placed, but he didn’t.  As I talked to him to make sure that he wasn’t too down, he reminded me in the way that only an eight year old can do, that he had fun making the car, and spending time in my shop, and oh yeah the race was fun.  This was followed up with, “When can we go back to the shop and make something”.

Building something new with the boys wasn’t in my immediate game plan.  In fact my shop time currently is consumed with building a cabinet for the boy’s basement.  But, and this is a big but,  since I had invited the boys into the shop and helped plant the woodworking seed in them, I can’t really tell them no, can I? Didn’t really think so.

The hard part of this whole adventure was keeping my hands off of their cars.  The lines were not cut as smooth as I would like them to be, nor were the cars sanded enough, and the paint jobs left a lot to be desired, but the looks on the boys’ faces when they showed Mom and Grandma what they had made, told me that I had made the right decision when I let them do the work, only offering advice when they were in danger of hurting themselves or my tools.

So I want to thank the cub scouts and the Pine Wood derby for proving me with an opportunity to spend time with my two favorite new woodworkers.

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1. An Unexpected Woodworking Pleasure

Over the past year or so we have worked on the enclosed porch, replacing some dated, leaky doors and windows.  With the help of a fellow woodworker/plumber we added a new bathroom to the basement of the house.  This year we want to tackle updating the rest of the basement.

One of the selling points of the home was what the realtor called a recreation room.  A rather old term, but none the less an apt description. This room is huge, it measures 24 feet by 30 feet.   It came with the ubiquitous dark paneling that was so in vogue in the 1950′s.  Also included in this “Rec” room, was another staple of the 50′s, a built in bar.  The floor was covered with an unidentifiable colored carpet.  Best bet was that at some point it was yellow.  Now it was a color someplace between dirty yellow and brown.  Despite the paneling and questionable colored carpeting, this room was a gem.  It has so much potential.  The question however, was what would be the best use of the space.  The pictures below are of the room as it was when my daughter and her kids moved in.  As the lighting was terrible, the pictures are dark but you get the idea.  The pictures pan from left to right around the room.

Doing what many professional designers suggest, we did nothing with this room for the first year that she was in the house. This allowed for everyone to come to grips with exactly how the room was really used, not what everyone thought it would be used for. It’s real easy to sit there and pontificate on how you think a space will be used, it’s entirely another thing to actually know how it’s used. To understand how best to use the room we looked at several areas of the room. 

We needed to determine if there was enough lighting in the room. This one was a no brainer, NO there wasn’t enough lighting.  Being a child of the 50′s, yes I’m really that old, I don’t recall the world being dark and dreary, but based on the lighting in this house and many others of the era, it must of been.  In this entire room, all 720 square feet of it, was light from a total of 4 single bulb ceiling fixtures, and two single bulb wall sconces. Considering how humid it gets down in the basement in the summers, I’m surprised that there were not mushrooms growing down there.

The same types of lighting were present or maybe a better word would be missing,  throughout the house. Each of the bedrooms had an “updated” ceiling fixtures.  These ” builder grade” fixtures were installed in the house as part of the  ”let’s sell the house upgrades”.  It didn’t take much imagination to see those 12″ square ceiling fixtures that many homes of this era had. The upgraded fixtures were better looking than their predecessors, but really didn’t provide much more illumination.   During the move in stage, these were all removed and replaced with ceiling fans that included lighting packages.   

The initial game plan for the recreation room, also known as the family room, involved removing the bar and the wall behind it.  We weren’t 100% sure what we wanted to do with the rest of the room, but the past year had proven that the “bar” was not needed, nor was it used.  In fact most of the time, the bar did nothing more that act as holding area for things that couldn’t find their way back where they belonged. Funny how that happens when you have kids in a house.

We are sure that if this old bar could talk, it would have plenty of tales of good times and family fun it witnessed.  But now it was  large unused piece of architecture, and it had to go.  As we started to disassemble the bar, we soon found a couple of surprises.  We knew that there was electrical power in the wall behind the bar, and I had made plans to disconnect it before we took the wall down, but we hadn’t counted on their being power inside the bar itself.  

The work of tearing out the old bar was halted temporarily while I traced the electrical wiring down and then safely removed it.  Most of the wiring went back into junction boxes that were located inside the adjacent utility room.  While in most jurisdictions the use of electrical junction boxes is allowed, I prefer not use them.  The person or persons who did the initial wiring in this basement apparently felt otherwise, or the cost of junction boxes were a LOT less than the cost of wire back when this was installed. When I traced one of the circuit from behind the bar back into the utility room, I ran into a junction box, no problem, except that this junction box was connected to another junction box located 12″ away. One junction box made sense, but the second one, who knows.   I removed the wiring all the way back the second junction box, the first box and all of its associated wiring were removed and put aside for recycling.

The national wiring code Stipulates the number of wires that are allowed in any electrical box.  For detailed information on the this subject, please go to our electrical reference page. Local jurisdictions may amend the national code, by adding further requirements, so it is advised that you contact your local electrical inspector or codes enforcement bureau if you have questions. 

The national code allows a total of 10, 14 gauge conductors in the size electrical boxes that I removed.  Each of these boxes held a maximum of 6 conductors, so I have no idea why there were so many.  Unless the electrical got a good price on the boxes. 

To dissemble the bar itself, I used a special tool, Kid power. I never realized how much fun two young boys could have with a sledge hammer.  After equipping them with gloves and safety glasses, I turned them loose on knocking the bar apart. 20 minutes and a lot of laughter later the bar, was a pile of broken lumber on the floor of the basement. As part of the deal to allowing them to tear the bar apart, they helped carry the debris out to my trailer.  

The wall behind the bar, was removed using the same tools. Ok, I did use a couple of pry bars, and a reciprocating saw, but most of the wall was knocked down with the sledge hammer and some well placed karate  kicks. The boys had so much fun with the bar and wall, that they were disappointed when I stopped them from tearing anything else out.

So now with the bar and supporting wall removed and the area cleaned up, it was time to set back and really decide how best to use this large open space. After a lot of discussion, some serious, some ridiculous like an indoor pool, we came up with a master plan on to use this space.  More on that later.   

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The only other fascination my shop has held for them so far has been my dust collector system. For some reason that I can’t even begin to fathom, the large collection of sawdust is like Mecca to them.  They have spent countless hours dumping the sawdust out of the bag, and then vacuuming it back up again. I don’t understand or question the wisdom in this, for me it’s cheap entertainment.

Recently the purpose of those visits has changed. The youngest grandson has joined the Cub Scouts.  It’s his first year in the scouting program, and so far he appears to really enjoy it.   The scouts have help bring him out of his shell, while Jake never has been shy, he has always been more reserved then his older brother, Joey. At a recent Pack meeting, the scouts were visited by Saint Nick, and as a gift each of the scouts were presented  with a “Pine Box Derby Kit”.

The boys were delighted. However, some of the other parents stood there with looks of horror on their faces, as they had no idea on how to transfer the blocks of wood into a race car.  Me, I thought cool, something I finally understand, woodworking.

If you’re not familiar with the pine box derby, it’s an annual event that the scouts hold.  Each scout is given the same kit, that includes a small block of clear pine, 4 wheels and 4 nails that will act as the axils for the car, and told to go home, make a car and of course have fun.  As many of the scouts are quite young, this is a project that is intended to be done with the assistance of  an adult.  In our case, that privilege falls upon me, the family woodworker.

And that brings me to my unexpected pleasure.  Over the past two weekends Jake, Joey and I have been working on their cars. Joey isn’t a member of the scouts, but he got very excited when Jake and I talked about how we would build his car, so I made a trip to the local scout store and purchased a car kit for him.  He won’t be allowed to race his car, but he didn’t want to be left out of the fun.

When I took these young guys into my shop and turned them loose to use my tools, it was like I turned them loose in a candy store. Using some basic hand tools like the coping saw, they cut out the shapes of their cars.  Then they used files, rasps and sand paper to smooth out the surface of their cars.  They also used a Dremel tool to add some details to their individual cars.

Will their cars win any awards for beauty, not really.  Nor will they win any awards for the most detailed cars.  That’s not what’s important here. What’s important is the sense of accomplishment that both boys felt.  It’s also very cool that they were able to use their hands to build something.  Both were constantly beaming as they showed their handy work to me, their grandma and mom.  Their workmanship was crude, needed more sanding and more detail work was needed, But in all honesty I think that their cars are some of the most beautiful pieces of work I have ever seen.

Watching these two young guys having fun, doing something that I dearly love to do was priceless.  Being able to share my shop and its tools with them was another priceless event.  This wasn’t what I expected when I agreed to help make their cars. But I am so happy that it turned out as nice as it did.

In closing I want to thank you for letting me ramble. I also want to thank the scouts for giving me the opportunity to spend time in my shop with grandsons.  And of course I want to thank Jake and Joey for an unexpected pleasure.

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