Install a ceiling fan
Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2016 10:25 pm
Jamie has been nagging me about the original light fixture in our original kitchen. She also decided a ceiling fan would be nice for summers where the kitchen can get warm.
This was the junction box where the light gets its power from. A surprising number of connections. Looks like 4 circuits, and the 5th is this light, which is obviously switched. Turns out this is on the same circuit as the basement lights, which is also shared with the cooktop vent light and fan. Here's the hook and junction box. The nice thing is I noticed the junction box was actually nailed directly into a joist. And the hook was dead nuts inline with the way the joists run so I was thinking I was all set to run one of those 1/2" pancake fan junction boxes. Next I removed the hook. What's this??? No joist??? Yup, the hook was mounted on a standard drywall anchor. Change of plans. I returned the pancake box and got one of those hanging screw things that goes between joists and you hang the box from that. I've seen this on Ask This Old House a bunch of times and finally got to use one. It was pretty easy. I took a length of 14/2 and pushed that across to the new hole. Then I made the junction in the appropriate places in the original box. By the way, this was the easiest way to do it - so the switch controls all. Switch on, and the unit has power. Use the chains for lights and fan. I think this works well because we will leave the lights on so it works as a light switch as it did before. If we want fan, we can pull the chain. If we want to leave the fan on but turn the lights off, again we can use the chain. There are remote control kits I could have used but I elected to keep it simple. I have no need for a remote hanging around the kitchen anyway.
The catch is this is one of those 70s chain deals where the light hangs in a different place than the wire comes out of the ceiling. And I wanted to put the ceiling fan where the light fixture hangs, which is not where the electricity is available.This was the junction box where the light gets its power from. A surprising number of connections. Looks like 4 circuits, and the 5th is this light, which is obviously switched. Turns out this is on the same circuit as the basement lights, which is also shared with the cooktop vent light and fan. Here's the hook and junction box. The nice thing is I noticed the junction box was actually nailed directly into a joist. And the hook was dead nuts inline with the way the joists run so I was thinking I was all set to run one of those 1/2" pancake fan junction boxes. Next I removed the hook. What's this??? No joist??? Yup, the hook was mounted on a standard drywall anchor. Change of plans. I returned the pancake box and got one of those hanging screw things that goes between joists and you hang the box from that. I've seen this on Ask This Old House a bunch of times and finally got to use one. It was pretty easy. I took a length of 14/2 and pushed that across to the new hole. Then I made the junction in the appropriate places in the original box. By the way, this was the easiest way to do it - so the switch controls all. Switch on, and the unit has power. Use the chains for lights and fan. I think this works well because we will leave the lights on so it works as a light switch as it did before. If we want fan, we can pull the chain. If we want to leave the fan on but turn the lights off, again we can use the chain. There are remote control kits I could have used but I elected to keep it simple. I have no need for a remote hanging around the kitchen anyway.