A ceiling fan can be controlled independently of its attached lights.
A good place for a ceiling fan can also be a good place for a light, so fans often come with attached light fixtures. When you hook up the fan to a house circuit, it's possible to wire the fan motor and light fixture independently of each other so you can control each of them with a separate switch. The switches can easily be paired as a double wall-mount device, such as you would use to control two different light circuits. Running 4-strand electrical cable to the switch saves the effort of running separate cables for the fan and lights.
Instructions
1. Mount an electrical box for the switches at a convenient location on the wall. This usually involves cutting a hole in the drywall with a drywall saw, nailing the box to a stud and repairing the drywall after the electrical work is completed.
2. Secure an electrical box to the ceiling rafters to hold the fan. Many fans come with their own boxes and include detailed instructions for installing the boxes. If you use a standard box, be sure it is rated for the weight of the fan.
3. Pull a cable into the switch box from which you can draw power, connecting it either to a receptacle or other device or directly to a circuit breaker installed in the main electrical panel. Run a 4-strand cable from the fan box to the switch box. The cable includes an extra hot wire, colored red. Its gauge must be the same as the cable coming from the power source.
4. Examine the wires attached to the fan. The red one is usually the hot for the fan, the black the hot for the lights, the white a common neutral and the bare or green one a common ground. Check the fan instructions to verify the color coding of the wires.
5. Pull one end of the 4-strand cable through the fan box, strip 4 to 6 inches of sheathing with a utility knife and strip 1/2 inch of insulation from each covered wire. Connect the wires from the fan to those in the cable, twisting together wires of the same color with pliers: red to red, black to black, white to white and bare or green to bare. Screw a wire cap onto the end of each wire pair and mount the fan onto the electrical box.
6. Pull the live circuit cable and the one coming from the fan through the back of the switch box and strip the ends of all the wires. Twist the two white wires together and cap them.
7. Cut open a spare 8-inch length of electrical cable with a knife, remove the black and bare wires and strip the ends of the black one. These are jumper wires for connecting the two switches you will mount in the switch box.
8. Loosen the top terminal screw of a standard light switch with a screwdriver, wrap the black wire from the live circuit and one end of the jumper wire around the screw and tighten it. Connect the other end of the jumper wire to the top terminal of a second switch.
9. Connect the black wire from the fan to the bottom terminal of one switch and the red wire from the fan to the bottom terminal of the other switch.
10. Connect the green ground screws of the two switches with the bare . Twist the two other bare wires in the box together and connect them to the ground screw on one of the switches. When you are finished, mount the switches in the switch box and screw on a cover plate.
Tags: jumper wire, wire from, 4-strand cable, bare green, bare wires