Tips on Installing a Ceiling Fan in Your Home

Ceiling fans are not too difficult to install so long as you go about it in a methodical manner. Installation is made much easier if there is already a ceiling light in the spot on the ceiling where you wish the fan to be placed. The reason for this is because not only is the wiring you will need already in place but there is usually a junction box there as well and it can be used to mount and support the weight of the fan.

To get things moving unpack the fan and all the parts that go to it. Read through the installation manual and determine what you are going to be doing and to insure all of the parts you will need are present and that you know what they are used for.

As soon as you are ready to go, shut off the power to that particular circuit at the breaker box or fuse panel. As a note here, it is usually perfectly fine to simply turn off the wall switch that provides power to that particular light, but disabling the entire circuit is even better and you do not run the risk of falling into the trap of trusting some else's wiring to be correct.

Remove the ceiling light fixture entirely including the base plate if present. This will expose the junction box beneath it and allow you to disconnect the wiring attached to that fixture.

Having looked through your parts list you will know that there is a bracket included along with some sturdy screws that will allow you to fix that bracket to that junction box. This bracket will support the fan motor and allow it to sway back and forth a bit as it revolves. The end of the fan motor assembly has a ball shaped fixture, and this fixture fits into a socket on the bracket. This ball and socket allow for this swaying to and fro motion. This is important as most fan motor assemblies are not perfectly balanced and they need some range of motion in order to run quietly and not transmit vibration to the junction box and perhaps eventually working loose and falling.

Now you want to separate your wires and find the wire nut connectors which will tie all the wires together making a firm connection. Next look for the shroud that will hide the wiring once the fan motor is mounted and drop it over the ball on the fan. It will pass over it and settle down near he bottom. We will come back to this particular part a bit later.

Lift the entire fan motor assembly and fit the ball into the socket on the bracket. This socket has a slot on one side and the fan will fit easily through this slot. Gently allow the fan to settle into the bottom of the socket and release it. The fan is now mounted.

Look over the wiring diagram in your installation manual and determine which wire goes where and connect them using the wire nuts. As an extra precaution after the wire nuts have been tightened, I will take a length of electrical tape and wrap the individual wire nut connections tightly in the tape. I believe this will prevent the wire nuts from eventually working loose and creating a potentially disastrous situation of a hot wire shorting across a ground/return wire in a highly flammable enviroment like a ceiling. Also be sure and attach the bare grounding/bonding wire to the junction box. This is usually called the third wire and is important from a safety stand point.

With the wiring connected and the fan mounted you will want to briefly apply power and test the fan to see it is functioning as it should. Once that is done remove power once again and then lift that shroud we put on earlier and using the attachment screws, fix it into place and this will hide and protect the wiring and connectors.

Attaching the blades is just a matter of placing the three screws into each blade and then into the fan motor blade flange. You will also find that the fan comes with balancing weights. These are placed at various positions on the fan blades to counteract any imbalance in the fan as an overall unit.

Put on the bulb shells and install the bulbs and apply power. You should have a very efficient fan that will last for years. Some fans these days come with a remote control for turning the lights on and off and for operating the fan speeds. These are handy but in my experience they dont seem to last very long. And when the internal remote control unit fails, one must once again rewire the fan to bypass the remote unit and thus returning the fan to it's original configuration.