I’m helping him with a kitchen remodel, and after I got an electrician to wire and install a ceiling fan, he told me that at his last house his fan light was controlled by the wall switch, but the fan worked independently of it, and was only controlled by the pull chain. IOW, even if the wall switch was in the off position, the fan still worked.
Is this possible? Can you hardwire a ceiling fan? And do so without affecting the light kit?
Sure. Why not?
The fan and light can absolutely work independently of each other, from different power sources. I’m not an electrician, but I had a cieling fan/light combo just like your brother’s.
If I there a was why not, and I knew what it was, I wouldn’t have asked the question.
So, is the power to the fan from a different line than the power to the light? Can you give me a brief explanation of how to wire it that way?
Was there one wall switch, or two?
The one in my living room is set up like that. Wall switch off. Fan still on. Only the chain affects the fan.
It all depends on how your house is wired. There needs to be separate wires leading from the fan and light down to the switches on the wall in order to control them independently. Not all houses are wired that way, and certainly not ones where an existing light was replaced by a fan/light combo.
In a bedroom a couple houses back, my father-in-law connected our ceiling fan/light to a two-switch plate, with one switch working the light and the other working the fan (not the fan speed, though). There are separate wires for each component inside the fan case, and you can connect them however you want.
That’s what this situatuation is.
Would there need to be two wall switches, or can the fan be hardwired?
(Another reason I think he’s crazy is that he swears that before the remodel, the two switches on either side of the room that controlled the overhead light were always up when on, and down when off, no matter operation the other switch had performed last.)
There was one switch, and it affected only the light. The fan behaved as if it were plugged into a socket that has no switch connected, like what most people plug their alarm clocks and telephones into.
So it was hardwired, like a dishwasher or garbage disposal. Does anyone know if such a procedure is up to code? Is it safe?
You can wire the fan so that both the fan and light are powered by the wall switch, and then you use the pull chains on the fan to turn the fan/light on/off.
Also, there are now some very reasonably priced fans that have remote controls, which solve this problem nicely.
If you’re talking about a properly wired 3-way switch, where two switches operate the same light, you’d have two different scenarios.
Down, Down = Off
Down, Up = On
Up, Down = On
Up, Up = Off
or
Down, Up = Off
UP, Down = Off
Down, Down = On
Up, Up = On
The way it’s supposed to work is, you walk into a room through one door, you flip the switch to turn the light on, and then at the other end of the room, you walk out and flip the switch to turn the light back off.
I think the first way is the correct way and if you have it the second way, one of the switches is upside down.
I suggested that to him. He doesn’t want to use the chain for the light. (I didn’t ask if he was picky. I already knew that. 
)
This is almost mindlessly easy to do with how most homes seem to be wired these days.
The wiring box in the ceiling has an always-on supply cable coming in. (It could be nonmetallic Romex, spiral metal “BX” or wires inside conduit, but I’ll call it cable just to be easy.) Hanging off the bottom of the box is the light fixture or fan. Hook the light to the supply cable, and the light stays on. Not so good when you want to go to sleep, so you run a cable off to a wall switch in a configuration called a “switch loop” so you can turn the light on and off.
Now, in your wiring box, you’ve got a wire that’s always on, and a wire that can be switched on and off. Your fan is connected to the always-on wire, and the light is connected to the switched wire.
Most fans I’ve worked with have a black wire for the motor and a blue wire for the light, in addition to the white neutral and the green or bare ground. The manufacturers provide all these wires to make it easy to control the light separately from the fan.
Thanks, gotpasswords!
It’s safe, normal and expected.
The opposite of “hardwired” is plug-connected. Other than one horribly unsafe job I’d seen where someone wired a fan to an extension cord and plugged the other end into an outlet, ceiling fans aren’t meant to be plugged in.
Of course, this means you need to turn the fan on with the pull-chain…
There is nothing against code about hardwiring a fan per se. It can be done so it conforms to code and is safe. However, in the wrong hands it can also be done so it does not conform to code and may not be safe. An electrician could certainly do it for you.
The kitchen is one of the few rooms in 1 and 2 family dwelling units which require a lighting outlet controlled by a wall switch, and there’s no reason a fan/light combination appliance cannot serve that code mandated purpose.
This is exactly how my the ceiling fan in my dining room is wired. It has two pull chains, one for the light and one for the fan, but the light won’t work unless the wall switch is flipped.
I didn’t even realize it until one night when I switched it off at the wall, and noticed the fan was still running a short time later.