OK, over the last year I have installed 5 ceiling fans as part of replacing many of the builder grade fixtures in the house with better stuff. Most recently, I removed the fan/light from one bedroom and replaced it, then moved the old one to another bedroom. The fixture in this room is operated on one switch, so the pull cords should turn on fan and light assuming the power is turned on.
The old fan I installed first would not work. The light would work, but the fan would simply "hum" at varying levels depending on fan speed. I figured I broke it moving it around. I always hated it, must have been subconscious. The out coming wires were bare, black (hot), red (hot with switch on) and white (neutral).
I got a new fan. Installed it and it works. I put black to black (fan), red to blue (light), white to white (neutral) and green to green to bare (ground). Here's the weird thing, the fan will work independent of the wall switch, its always "on" as the black is always hot. I don't really understand this. All the other fans I've installed, most of which were connected to one switch, required the switch to be on for either fan or the light to work. Whats up with this one? Nothing different in the wiring or the box form any other...
Thanks,
According to your description, the black is always hot and the white is always neutral, so the fan should always be "on" and only cut by the pull cords. The light should be operated by both the switch AND the pull cords. I suppose you could cap the black and pigtail the red to both fan and light?
Yes, I suppose that would work. I just don't understand why this particular switch/wiring is this way and none other in the house is like that.
Sure you don't have a three way switch there?
Or the direction of wiring. Usual is from wall to switch to fan which would make the fan only work with the switch on. If wired from ceiling to fan to switch then power is constant to the fan. Depending on where the source is the branched off from. Switch breaks circuit to turn on/off. AC can get interesting on ways to route and still work. Not saying it right though.
Something makes me uneasy about this set up. Direction makes sense. The light fixture AFAIR that was there before had the black and the red on one wire to the light, and the white on the other. Worked with the switch. If I connect the fan and the light to the red coming out of the box, would I just cap the black?
Does the power go to the fan and then the switch or to the switch and then to the fan? Electricity can be weird sometimes.
I really suggest you open up the switch box and see what is in there. A lot of the mystery is probably living in that box. Someone may have been clever previously and replaced a fancy fan & light combination switch with a conventional single switch, and bypassed the black line to feed continuously.
I'd also suggest looking/thinking about a second switch location that you may not be aware of. Especially if you've a mysterious third wire wandering off from the switch.
The fact that you have a red wire tells me you have a 3 wire setup (technically 4), most house wiring is 2 wire (technically 3). I usually see this setup up on switched wall outlets. The purpose is to have one of the outlets in the wall plate always hot and the other switched to use for a light. Can also be used for a bathroom fan/light setup going to a dual switch panel but only one length of wire feeding it.
Having the fan always hot actually seems useful to me. That way you can leave the fan on at night and still have the convenience of the light being operated by the switch.
pull the plate off the switch and take a picture and give a description of what's going on in there.
OK so I pulled the plate and it does indeed look like the hot black coming into the switch was spliced, with one coming to the switch and one going to the fixture. Interesting.
There's some shenanigans going on there. Is the wire going to the light/fan the one with black/white/red in it? Is that the only one in the bundle with a red wire? Is there another switch that controls the fan too?
Now I'm wondering what's at the light/fan end.
The wires out at the ceiling are red (hot with switch), black (hot all the time) white (neutral) and bare ground. There is not other switch other than the pull cords on the fixture. This is a fairly new house, and the condition of the wires with the overspray makes me thing this was done this way at the beginning for some reason?
Probably intended for exactly what you're doing; the fan is wired to black / hot all the time so you can control it with the pull cord and the light is wired to the red / switch controlled so you can turn it on and off with the light switch. Just remove or shorten the pull chain on the light so people don't accidentally pull it.
The wire with a red in it is for a three way switch. That looks like a regular switch. If you don't have another switch on the circuit the red wire shouldn't be used at all. You should have hot into the switch, and hot out. Neutral for the fan should connect tomall the other neutrals. Then you ignore red all together and just hook up hot neutral like normal.
Now, I THINK they were trying to give you full time power to the fan and switched power to the lights by doing it this way, which I guess you could do, but I've never done it that way.
Edit: the good Mr. Culberson beat me to it. Knowing what you know now, you can hook it it however you want. With knowledge is power!
Let me make sure I'm understanding things here.
The line going to the fan/light unit has black/red/white/ground. Correct? If so, that's to allow separate switch control of the fan and the light at a wall switch.
There is only one other wire coming into the switch box, with black/white ground, and this line goes to the panel box. Correct?
If so, the wrong switch is in place, and it is miswired. A regular single pole light switch was used, not a fan control switch. A fan control switch will have the lines black line come into the switch, and then the fan's red and black lines will be connected to both sides of the fan control switch, giving independent control of both the fan speed and the light, at the wall switch.
If there is a third line in that switch box, especially if it's connected, that's a strong indicator there is a second switch somewhere in the house that you have not found or identified. The most common are in rooms with two entry ways, and a switch at both. But sometimes there is a weird location, like down at the entry door or the bottom of the stairs.
Conventional single pole light switches: http://www.homedepot.com/b/Electrical-Dimmers-Switches-Outlets-Switches/Single-Pole/N-5yc1vZc33wZ1z11a2e
Fan control switches: http://www.homedepot.com/b/Electrical-Dimmers-Switches-Outlets-Fan-Controls/N-5yc1vZc32s
It is certainly unusual. My only real concern is safety and whether or not a live connection to the fan poses a risk.
It's safe. The pull switch in the fan is rated to do what it's doing. You just need to decide if this is how you want it wired or not. Now that you understand it you get to do what you want.
Good job trying to figure it out by the way. Most people just button it back up and call it weird without understanding why something is the way it is.
If you want to be able to control the light and fan from the wall switch location, you could install a double switch or a fan control switch like Foxtrapper linked to. You would switch the black wire to control the fan and the red wire to control the light.
But the way you have it wired now is safe, if my understanding of the situation is correct.
i'd get a double switch and wire one to light and one to fan, the wiring is set up for that. just need to pull the black that goes to the fan box out of the wire nut and hook it up to the second switch output. it's much handier to flip the wall switch to get the fan on than it is to pull the cord.
the 14/3 or 12/3 wire does not mean it's wired for a 3 way switch. it just means you're taking 2 hot wires to whatever it is going to. it can also be used for a 3 way switch, but it is commonly used in this situation to take 2 hots. for instance in a bathroom with a fan/light combo, you run the 3 wire to it with your common and one hot for the fan/one for the light with 2 switches. same principle here that you could control the fan and light separately from the wall.
