And am now under one sipping a mint julep.
I’d always wanted a ceiling fan in my bedroom, but I didn’t think it would work with my setup. Originally, the room had a ceiling light. Years ago, I installed two wall sconces. I removed the ceiling fixture and ran the wires from the wall lights up into the attic and down into the…the…the boxy thing where connections are made.
I figured if I wanted to install a ceiling fan there, it would be at the mercy of the wall lights; i.e., the only way to get power to the fan would be to turn the lights on, which isn’t pleasant when I’m trying to sleep.
But I finally decided that I wanted a fan, and so halfway through the project, I decided to do a google search to see how switches work. I’ve always noticed that wires to fixtures keep going. They don’t stop, so I thought that somehow the power obviously kept going even when the lights are turned off at the switch. And I noticed the lights connected to a red wire and ignored the black wires so I figured…and was right. The red wire goes to the switch. I connected the fan to the black wire and voila…the fan now runs independently of the wall switch. I also had to put in a block of 2 x 6 between the rafters for the fan to mount in. What a stud!
I love the fan so much I installed another one in here, my computer room. This one I did connect to the light switch. I bought a fan with a light kit, and in the winter when I don’t use a ceiling fan I’ll just use the switch to run the lights on the fan.
I dunno if it was luck that the first fan needed no balancing. It was perfect, although at top speed it makes a subtle helicopter noise.
The second fan was WAY out of balance. I was kinda pissed. But I used the balancing kit and actually read/followed the directions, and now it’s rock steady. And this one doesn’t helicopter at top speed. Again, the worst part was crawling around the filthy attic (term used charitably…I have a pyramid shaped roof, and it’s more a “crawl” space than an attic. And the house is tiny) to install the 2 x 6.
Total time to install two ceiling fans, including multiple trips to the hardware store: ten hours. At the least the second one went faster.