How To Install A Ceiling Fan Without Electrical Box

The popularity of ceiling fans continues to grow as more than and more homeowners discover dramatic, twelvemonth-circular energy savings. In summertime, ceiling fans create cooling breezes, which reduce the strain on air conditioners. In winter, they broadcast heated air to go along the room warm.

Installing a ceiling fan is relatively uncomplicated, particularly if the space above is accessible from an cranium. All the same, fifty-fifty when it isn't, the task is still quite doable. Hither, we'll bear witness how to replace an old calorie-free fixture with a new ceiling fan and low-cal, in a room with no attic above. The reward of this approach is that you lot don't have to run new wiring. The fan connects to the existing cable from the one-time low-cal.

Withal—and this is very important—you lot can't just hang the fan from the existing electrical box. It'due south simply not potent enough to support the added weight and vibration of a fan. Presuming yous don't have access to the ceiling fan from above, y'all must either use a specially rated hanger and box to mount the fan between joists or, improve still, screw a fan-rated "pancake" box (and so called because it's very thin) direct to a ceiling joist.

Optimal Sizing, Speed, and Placement

Apply this formula to find the all-time fan size for a room'south occupied infinite (the part of the room where people gather the nigh): Occupied space (in square anxiety) divided past 4 equals the bract span (in inches). Step blade span down a bit for rooms with depression ceilings, and go wider if the ceilings are loftier.

Another good rule of thumb is to recall that blade spans of less than 36 inches are ideal for spaces smaller than 75 foursquare feet, such equally baths and breakfast nooks. Spans of 36 to 42 inches piece of work in rooms of up to 225 square feet, like a dining room. Larger living rooms and bedrooms tin can handle 50- to 54-inch blades.

Make certain that the cubic feet of air that the fan moves per minute (cfm), measured at high speed, is near the top of its class. Some 52-inch fans, for case, charge per unit as depression equally ii,050 cfm, while others achieve 7,800. High-cfm fans not only provide a better cakewalk, they unremarkably have robust motors that volition last longer and run more quietly.

For optimal functioning, the fan should be hung at least 1 ane/2 feet from the wall or a sloped ceiling, 7- to 10-feet from the floor, and at least eight inches from the ceiling. Steer articulate of hanging the fan too shut to any lights, every bit rotating blades under a bulb will create an annoying flicker.

Ceiling Fan Overview

Gregory Nemec

How to Install a Ceiling Fan

1. Remove the Existing Light Fixture

• Make certain electricity to circuit is turned off and advisedly remove the glass shade or earth from the old lite fixture.
• Unscrew the retaining nut or screws that concur the fixture to the ceiling.
• Lower the fixture and disconnect the wires by twisting off the plastic connectors from the ends of the wires.

2. Remove Box and Cut New Pigsty

• Remove the old electrical box from the ceiling. If information technology's nailed to a joist, pry it costless with a apartment bar. If information technology'due south suspended from a bar, you lot may have to accept off a metal plate to unscrew the box; then pry the bar from the joists.
• Hold a 1/ii-inch-thick pancake box confronting the ceiling, centered on a joist, and trace effectually it with a pencil.
• Cut along the line with a drywall saw.

Tip: Hold a vacuum cleaner wand next to the saw to take hold of the dust.

3. Adhere New Electrical Box

• Feed the electrical cable coming from the ceiling through the knockout hole in the pancake box. (Exist sure there's a cablevision connector attached to the knockout pigsty.)
• Set up the box into the hole cutting through the ceiling and press it tight against the underside of the joist.
• Attach the box to the joist with the two one 1/two-inch No. ten hex-head screws provided. Drive in the screws with a drill/driver equipped with a v/16-inch nut-driver tip.
• Wrap the cable's blank copper wire around the grounding screw inside the box. Let the wire end to hang down.

4. Glue on the Ceiling Medallion

• Apply a small bead of urethane-based agglutinative to the dorsum of the ceiling medallion.
• Pass the wires through the medallion (to a higher place).
• Center the medallion on the pancake box and press. Spike it with 4 6d finishing nails driven into the joist.
• Ready the nailheads and fill up with caulk or spackle.

5. Mount the Ceiling Plate

• Hold the fan's metallic ceiling plate up to the pancake box and pull the wires through its center hole.
• Attach the ceiling plate to the box with two 1 1/2-inch-long ten-32 automobile screws.

Tip: If yous're going to paint the medallion, practise it before installing the ceiling plate.

6. Assemble the Fan Components

• With the fan on the floor, feed the wires coming from the motor through the center of the canopy. Fix the canopy on top of the motor.
• 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 on the side of the piping.

Tip: The pipe's threads have a manufactory-applied coating. Don't remove this coating; information technology keeps the piping from unscrewing.

seven. Make the Wire Connections

• Claw one side of the awning onto the ceiling plate.
• Using twist-on wire connectors, join the two light-green wires to the bare copper wire coming from the cable. (If your room is wired differently from the i shown here, consult a licensed electrician.)
• Bring together the ii white wires.
• Then connect the two black wires.
• Swing the fan upward into position against the medallion and secure it with the two canopy screws.

viii. Attach the Blades and Lights

• Attach each fan blade to a bract atomic number 26 (the bracket that holds the bract to the fan). Then, spike the blade irons to the motor with the screws provided.
• Plug the fan'south calorie-free-fixture housing into the wire hanging from the underside of the fan'due south motor.
• Install the shades and lightbulbs.
• Screw the plastic holder for the remote control to the wall abreast the wall switch.

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Tools

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

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