How to Install a Ceiling Fan
Before you do anything, make sure that you cut the power to the circuit breaker that runs the light. If you do not do this, then you run the risk of lighting yourself up like a Christmas tree. When you complete this, you can get to work on removing the light. Chances are that you are going to be installing a new ceiling fan in the place of an old one.
Before you do anything you need to go ahead and disconnect the old lighting fixture and all of the associated wiring. Take down the support for old ceiling fan put a new mounting up in its place. If you are smart, you will hang onto the old nuts and assorted things in order to reuse them for putting the new ceiling fan in place.
Obviously you are going to want to put your ceiling fan in the middle of whatever room you are looking to illuminate. Sometimes, the direct center of the room will fall under a ceiling joist. If this is the case with your room, then simply move to the side of the ceiling joists and connect the ceiling fan’s junction box to the middle of ceiling joist.
From here, you are going to have to get your hands a little dirty. You will want to make a hole that is big enough so that you put the new junction box in place. Like I mentioned earlier, you are going to probably have to use screws to connect the box to the ceiling joist. You will want to use a 2×4 heading that you can slip through the hole in the junction box. It is imperative that the only kind of junction box that you use is a metal one.
This will provide much greater support for the ceiling fan. Generally, you will want to use a four inch junction box because many electrical codes do not allow for the use of the popular three inch variety. As far as weight goes, look for a box that is somewhere around thirty pounds as this will be plenty of support for your ceiling fan. You will need to remember that the heavy ceiling fan will put a lot of pressure on the junction box, so it needs to be able to withstand the vibrations and other things.
Whenever you go to put the fan together, you will need to follow all of the instructions provided with your product. The normal fan will have two-pronged blades and you will be able to attach them using simple screws. Be careful to always screw these into the fan very tightly in order to prevent a bad accident. You might also notice that the fan includes some prongs that should be mounted to the motor. It is always easier to mount these to the motor before you mount them to the fan blades.
The next step of the process is to put the hanger bracket into place. The hanger bracket is very important and should be fastened tightly to the heavy box with screws and washers. This will keep hanger bracket connected to the box even when the fan starts with its heavy vibrations. From there, you will need to install a fan canopy which should be included. You attach this to the motor using screws and a mounting ring.
After this step, you should be pretty close to finished. Remember those wires that you disconnected earlier? Now it is time to reconnect them, starting first with a ground wire. Generally, you will notice that the wires are color coordinated to where they connect. All of the wires should be put snugly into the fan canopy so that they are not exposed.
Lastly, you should make sure to connect the motor of the fan to the important mounting bracket. This should be done with the given screws. After that, flip back on the power and make sure that your fan is ready to go.
It might sound complicated, but in the end, attaching a ceiling fan is all about following the directions and taking great care to do things right. It is much easier to get the things right the first time and not have to worry about going back and fixing them.
