I made a feeble attempt to wire a ceiling fan last week to operate on two separate switches. What I did was to run a four strand wire (black, red, white, copper ground) from a junction box in the attic to the switches in the wall and from the switches to the ceiling fan. Red and Black where the hot wires coming from the junction box to the switches. I connected the one hot red wire to the top of the rocker switch and the red wire to the ceiling fan to the bottom of the switch. I connected the black wires the same way to the other switch. In the box for the switches I also separately wired the white and round wires together. On the ceiling fan I connected the red wire to the blue (ceiling fan light) wire, the black wire to the black ceiling fan wire, the white to the white wire and ground to ground. Now the problem when I turn on the ceiling fan switch (black wire) the fan comes on, when I turn on the light switch (red wire) the circuit breaker trips. I tried to turn on the light switch without the ceiling fan switch on and the circuit still trips. I double checked to ensure no wires are crossed and connections are good. For now I have the ceiling fan/light connected to the same wires but using only black, white and ground and the fan and lights work but we have to use the pull chains. Do you have any suggestions on why the 4 wire system is not working for me?
Post Reply
Watch this Post
