I recenlty moved into a house that had a ceiling fan in one room -- the fan had a cord that ran down through the ceiling and plugged in to an electrical socket that was controlled by a switch.
Well, this looked horrible, and I MUCH prefer a light on my fan -- so I bought a fan/light kit, and set to work re-wiring.
I already know I wired it wrong -- I assumed the fan would use a common "hot" wire, (black?), when it usues a common neutral wire (white?). Wiring it up under this assumption, I ran a source wire down to a pair of switches, and ran two pairs of wires down to the switches as well (I didn't have any 3 wire cable, so I ran two two wire sets) I tied all the black together, and split the white from the source and attached it to the switches. On the fan side, I again tied all the black together, and put one white to the blue wire on the light, and one white to the wite wire on the fan.
Nothing happens. Now, as I said, I realized just now that I should have all the white wires tied together, NOT black. However, from the standpoint of the fan, with the switch closed, shouldn't this work? Ignoring the light, it has a hot black to black, and white to white -- shouldn't it run, even if the light doesn't?
I want to fully understand what I did wrong before I try to fix it. . . advice?
COMMUNITY FORUM
- Forum >
- Electrical & Lighting >
- Fan/Light wiring changes
OK. If I read you correctly, you have caused the white (neutral) wires to be switched, instead of the black (hot) wires.
That creates an impossible situation because there is only one neutral wire in the fan/light unit. You can't use two switches to control one neutral. The blue wire is meant to be a hot wire, and you have used it as a neutral, so both sides of that circuit are connected to neutral (when the switch is ON).
You must start over. First, verify that the house wiring is correct -- the black wires are really hot and the white are really neutral. Second, use only one of the white wires and do not "switch" it. Connect it directly to the white wire in the fan/light unit. Third, run a black wire from EACH of the 2 switches to the unit, and attach one of them to the blue wire and one to the black wire.
Be sure to attach the ground wires to the connections provided. Do all this with power OFF.
Done.
ps. The way you have it now, both switches must be ON for one of the two devices (fan or light) to work. The other will not work at all.)
That creates an impossible situation because there is only one neutral wire in the fan/light unit. You can't use two switches to control one neutral. The blue wire is meant to be a hot wire, and you have used it as a neutral, so both sides of that circuit are connected to neutral (when the switch is ON).
You must start over. First, verify that the house wiring is correct -- the black wires are really hot and the white are really neutral. Second, use only one of the white wires and do not "switch" it. Connect it directly to the white wire in the fan/light unit. Third, run a black wire from EACH of the 2 switches to the unit, and attach one of them to the blue wire and one to the black wire.
Be sure to attach the ground wires to the connections provided. Do all this with power OFF.
Done.
ps. The way you have it now, both switches must be ON for one of the two devices (fan or light) to work. The other will not work at all.)
