Welcome to The Maintenance Ear. A place to gather news and insight related to maintenance. This blog post is a pregame introduction of The Maintenance Ear on ceiling fans. The more developed page article “The 411 on Ceiling Fans” is where I will continue to add more depth to the discussion through continually adding the best videos, blogs, questions, comments, suggestions, and favorites I can dig up for you on the subject of ceiling fans.
Artwork From the Kung Fu Maintenance book Chapter 13
Ceiling fans have many shapes and sizes yet they have much in common. The most basic common parts of ceiling fans are the down rod, fan motor, light kit, fan blades, wiring, pull switches, directional switch, and fan pulls.
Electrical wiring for a ceiling fan is most often black for the “hot” to the fan motor, a blue wire for the wiring to a fan light kit if it has one, white for the neutral, and green for the ground. Your particular place may have totally different arrangements so as in any writing verify by reading the instructions for your ceiling fan and proper testing and proving of your circuits.
Specially reinforced junction boxes are used for ceiling fans due to the extra weight and movement of ceiling fans. These are usually mounted to the ceiling studs with a reinforced support arm and ceiling box. Electrical wiring to the junction box in the USA is usually black for the “hot” either always “hot” switched on and off “hot”, red or blue for the “hot” from a second light switch to an optional ceiling fan light kit, white for the “neutral”, and green or bare copper wire for the ground.
If your electrical setup does not have a red or blue wire for a light switch than you can hook up the black and blue wire from the ceiling fan to the black “hot” wire at the junction box. For this arrangement a light kit will be controlled by the fan light pull switch or with the fan by a wall switch.
Please post your comments, thoughts, questions, ideas suggestions, and favorite brand and models of ceiling fans in the comment box.
The question of this blog post, if you choose to answer it, is:
“What is your favorite ceiling fan and/or ceiling fan pull chains?”
My second question is, ” If money was no option what ceiling fan would you buy?”
Please leave your clean and clear answers in the comment box below. Thank You.