How to Know if I Need a Ceiling Fan Electrical Box

The popularity of ceiling fans continues to grow as more and more homeowners discover dramatic, year-round energy savings. In summer, ceiling fans make cooling breezes, which reduce the try on air conditioners. In winter, they circulate heated air to hold back the elbow room warm.

Instalmen a ceiling fan is comparatively simple, especially if the space above is accessible from an attic. Still, even when it isn't, the job is still quite doable. Hither, we'll show how to replace an long-ago light fixture with a new ceiling lover and light, in a room with no attic above. The advantage of this border on is that you wear't have to run new wiring. The fan connects to the existing cable from the old light.

However—and this is very important—you fundament't just bent the devotee from the existing electrical box. It's just not strong enough to support the added weighting and vibration of a fan. Presuming you don't take access to the cap fan from above, you must either use a specially rated hanger and box seat to mount the sports fan between joists or, better yet, screw a devotee-rated "pancake" box (so called because it's very thin) directly to a ceiling joist.

Optimal Sizing, Speed, and Placement

Expend this formula to find the best buff size for a way's occupied space (the part of the board where people gather the about): Occupied space (in square feet) mullioned by 4 equals the steel span (in inches). Step blade span shoot down a little for rooms with low ceilings, and go wider if the ceilings are high.

Other good find of hitch is to think back that brand spans of less than 36 inches are ideal for spaces smaller than 75 square feet, such as baths and breakfast nooks. Spans of 36 to 42 inches knead in suite of busy 225 square feet, like a dining room. Large living rooms and bedrooms can plow 50- to 54-inch blades.

Make predestined that the cubic feet of airwave that the fan moves per microscopical (cfm), measured at high speed, is near the top of its class. Some 52-inch fans, for instance, rate as low as 2,050 cfm, piece others reach 7,800. High-cfm fans not only allow for a better breeze, they usually have strong motors that will penultimate longer and run more quietly.

For optimal performance, the fan should be hung at least 1 1/2 feet from the wall or a slanting ceiling, 7- to 10-feet from the floor, and at least 8 inches from the cap. Steer make of hanging the lover too tightlipped to some lights, as rotating blades under a electric-light bulb will create an annoying flicker.

Ceiling Devotee Overview

Illustration of ceiling fan overview. Gregory XVI Nemec

How to Set up a Ceiling Fan

1. Remove the Existing Ablaze Fixture

  • Make sure electricity to circuit is turned off and carefully remove the glass shade or globe from the old light mending.
  • Unscrew the retaining nut or screws that hold the secureness to the cap.
  • Lour the fixture and disconnect the wires by twisting off the plastic connectors from the ends of the wires.

2. Remove Box and Cut New Hole

  • Remove the old electrical box from the ceiling. If information technology's nailed to a joist, pry it free with a flat bar. If it's suspended from a bar, you may take up to pack off a metal plate to unscrew the box; and then pry the bar from the joists.
  • Hold a 1/2-inch-thick pancake box against the ceiling, centered on a joist, and trace around it with a pencil.
  • Cut on the line with a drywall saw.

Tip: Concur a vacuum wand next to the saw to entrance the dust.

3. Attach New Electrical Box

  • Feed the electrical cable coming from the ceiling done the knockout hole in the griddlecake box. (Be steady on that point's a cable television connector attached to the knockout hole.)
  • Set the corner into the hole cut through the ceiling and press IT tight against the underside of the joist.
  • Attach the box to the joist with the two 1 1/2-edge in No. 10 hex-head screws provided. Drive in the screws with a drill/driver stocked with a 5/16-inch junky-driver tip.
  • Wrapper the cable's bare copper telegraph around the grounding make love internal the boxwood. Appropriate the wire close to hang down.

4. Mucilage on the Ceiling Medallion

  • Employ a small beading of urethane-based gum-like to the back of the ceiling medallion.
  • Pass the wires done the ribbon (above).
  • Center the medallion on the pancake box and press. Fasten it with four 6d finishing nails driven into the joist.
  • Set the nailheads and fill with caulk or spackle.

5. Mount the Ceiling Home base

  • Hold the fan's metal ceiling plate equal to the pancake box and attract the wires direct its gist muddle.
  • Attach the ceiling plate to the box with two 1 1/2-inch-long 10-32 machine screws.

Tip off: If you're exit to paint the ribbon, do information technology before installing the ceiling plate.

6. Assemble the Fan Components

  • With the fan on the stun, feed the wires coming from the motor through the center of the canopy. Specify the canopy on top of the causative.
  • Next, pass the wires through the hollow down-rod pipe.
  • Thread the Down-rod pipe into the top of the motor. Use a wrench to tighten the square-head locking screw along the side of the pipe.

Tip: The piping's threads suffer a factory-applied coating. Don't take away this covering; it keeps the pipe from unscrewing.

7. Make the Telegraph Connections

  • Thieve one side of meat of the canopy onto the cap plate.
  • Using twist-on wire connectors, join the two green wires to the bare copper electrify coming from the cable. (If your way is wired differently from the one shown Here, consult a licensed electrician.)
  • Join the deuce white wires.
  • Then connect the two sarcastic wires.
  • Swing the fan up into position against the medal and firm it with the two canopy screws.

8. Attach the Blades and Lights

  • Attach each fan blade to a blade iron (the bracket that holds the brand to the fan). And so, fasten the blade irons to the drive with the screws provided.
  • Plug the sports fan's light-fixture trapping into the wire dangling from the underside of the buff's motor.
  • Establis the shades and lightbulbs.
  • Screw the shaping holder for the remote control to the wall beside the wall switch.

Tools


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How to Know if I Need a Ceiling Fan Electrical Box

Source: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/ceilings/21016468/how-to-install-a-ceiling-fan

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