How To Install A Ceiling Fan – Step By Step Installation Guide

This article will help you understand how to install a ceiling fan correctly without resorting to the intervention of an electrician.

With a few exceptions, in most cases the choice to buy a ceiling fan is mainly dictated by the need to save money, since these appliances have the advantage of costing little, not requiring expensive maintenance, having a low energy consumption and, above all, to be more or less easy to install depending on the model chosen.

The intervention of an electrician in itself represents a significant expense item considering the current rates of these professionals.

Not everyone, however, has the basic elementary technical knowledge, or is accustomed to do it yourself, so let’s try to understand what must be done to correctly install a ceiling fan without resorting to the intervention of an electrician.

How to install a ceiling fan?

Preliminary operations

Once you have chosen the best airflow ceiling fan for your home, you must first check that everything necessary for assembly is present in the package, especially the small parts. After that, you must carefully read the instructions attached and perform all the steps required for assembling the various components of the fan, following the order described.

Pay particular attention to the assembly of the blades, because an error in this phase will almost certainly lead to an imbalance in the distribution of the weight of the rotor, with a consequent increase in the vibrations, oscillations and noise of the appliance.

Once you have prepared the various components, namely the rotor and the main body, check the instructions to understand what is the next step.

Depending on the model chosen, in fact, it may be required to assemble the fan entirely before installation, while in other models the rotor must be assembled only at the end, after installing the main body on the ceiling.

You will also need to identify the lighting box on the ceiling, that’s usually created for the installation of chandeliers. In the box there are usually three electric wires identifiable by the different colors. Given that the color of the electrical wires may not correspond to current standards, especially if the home’s electrical system is old, you will have to identify the one that carries the current and to do this you will need a multi-phase tester or, if you do not have one, you can use a screwdriver with a phase finder function.

After identifying the wire that carries the line, mark it with a piece of colored scotch tape, so that you can easily recognize it later. At this point, before proceeding with the installation, it is absolutely necessary to turn off the main power switch. In the event that you are unable to do so, for one reason or another, try to identify on the panel if there are other circuit breakers.

Usually, during the installation of the electrical system, two or three secondary switches are installed which allow the power to be cut off only from certain rooms of the house. Once you have identified the one relating to the room where the fan is to be installed, turn it off so as not to risk an electric shock when connecting the electrical wires.

How to make the connections?

For this step, the instructions attached to the fan you have chosen will come in handy again, because this phase is subject to variations depending on the model chosen, and in all probability, you will also find the help of a second person useful.

In fact, it may be necessary to install the fan support bracket first and then connect the wires, or make both passages coincide. Therefore, it is better to proceed calmly and carefully, extracting the electrical wires present in the lighting box placed on the ceiling, as far as possible, after which you will follow the steps as illustrated in the instructions attached to the fan.

In the case of a basic model, without lighting and any other additional functions, simply connect the wires, paying attention to the classic color scheme: the white wire of the fan to the white wire of the lighting box, the cable uncovered or green to ground, black to black and red to blue for the fan.

If the wall switch has a double button, then all the ground wires must be connected, that is, each connection or green wire must be connected to the ground with a clamp. In this way, if the selected fan also has lights, one of the switch buttons will activate the fan while the other will turn the lights on and off.

For models equipped with a remote control, the signal receiver wires must also be connected, these must always be connected following the color scheme, but being careful to attach them to the current line which is always active and not to the one connected with the switch.

Furthermore, every time you make a connection, remember to always fix it well and then secure it by covering it with insulating tape, so that once pushed back into the lighting box, the connections will not be discovered with the risk of entering contact and cause a short circuit.

At this point, finish the installation by assembling the main body, taking care to insert the relative cover, and then the rotor with the blades. Also, in this case the order of the operations to be performed may vary according to the type of fan chosen.

Conclusion

If the procedures we have described seem too complicated to you, or you have attempted the installation but stopped because you encountered difficulties, as the colors of the wires do not match for example; or the fan is a complex and expensive model with many connections to be made, then the best solution is to contact an electrician.

It will cost you something more but on the other hand, you will have the certainty of a work done in a workmanlike manner, also from the point of view of the safety of the system.

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