New Ceiling Fan Installed

The instructions say it should take a beginner about two hours to complete this project, so why did it take me about two weeks? Here's what happened.

I had an old, noisy ceiling fan/light in my living room that needed to be replaced. I bought one for $89. Looks nice. Then I removed my existing fan, and of course, realized it had not been hung properly. Here is a picture of what was coming from the ceiling. No junction box, no brace, nothing. Just two little screws put into the rafter held up this fan.

So I then spent a few days researching the best way to secure a proper mounting. I had no access from the attic, and from where the wires hung, it seemed to make any brace-type mounting unworkable. So I did some digging and settled on a shallow (or pancake) box that is meant to hold up to 70 pounds.

It turns out my existing drill was too weak to drive into the rafter. That led to another day of searching for new drills with more torque. With that unexpected expense out of the way, I then set back to work. The box went in OK, and then I began to hang the new fixture. No major problems at all, until it came the wiring. The instructions only made mention of three wires coming from the box, and I had four. After a few days of looking for answers and coming up with many different ones, I decided to just try out configurations. Eventually, after about 12 trips up and down the steps to turn off/on the breaker, I figured what I needed to do.

This past weekend I finally finished up the project. Tell me what you think! I think it looks much better and is much less noisy. Fan plus box cost around $90, drill cost $100 (though I don't consider that a project cost since I'll use it for years to come), and I figure I saved about $150 by not having an electrician do the job.