You can control the lights on a ceiling fan with a separate switch.
Ceiling fans usually hang in the center of the room. To take advantage of this prominent location, they often are supplied with a preinstalled light fixture. The fan and lights have common neutral and ground wires but separate hot wires, which gives you the option of wiring the fan and lights to separate switches. You can avoid running two separate cables to the switches by running a single length of 4-strand cable to the switches and using two small lengths of wire to pigtail the switches to the circuit wire.
Instructions
1. Install a 2-gang electrical box at the location of the switches. This task is simplified by using a remodeling box. Outline the box on the wall and cut around the outline with a drywall saw.
2. Run a length of 4-strand cable between the fan box and the switch box. Pull one end through the fan box and feed the other end into the back of the switch box. Turn off the breaker controlling the circuit that will control the fan and pull the circuit wire into the switch box.
3. Place the switch box in the hole you cut and turn the screws in front with a screwdriver to hook the anchors behind the box to the drywall. Tighten the screws to hold the box to the wall.
4. Strip off 6 inches of plastic coating from the ends of all the wires with a utility knife and use a wire stripper to expose 1/2 inch on the ends of all the red, black and white wires.
5. Make connections at the fan first. Twist the white wire from the fan clockwise with the white wire going to the switch and screw on a wire nut. In the same way, twist the red wires together, then the black ones and finally the ground wires. The ground wire in the fan may be bare or green, but the one going to the switch will be bare. Screw wire nuts onto all the connections and attach the fan to the box with the hardware provided.
6. Slice open a spare length of cable about 20 inches long with a utility knife and remove the black wire. Cut it in half with the wire strippers and strip off 1/2 inch of insulation from the four ends.
7. Twist the two lengths of wire together with the black wire from the live circuit and screw on a wire nut. Use a nut that is large enough to accommodate the three wires. Connect the other end of one of the wires to the top terminal on a switch. Either back feed the wire into the self-clamping hole behind the terminal or loosen the terminal screw with a screwdriver, hook the wire around it and tighten the screw. Connect the other wire to the top terminal of a second switch in the same way.
8. Connect the black wire coming from the fan to the bottom terminal on the switch you want to use to control the fan. Connect the red wire to the bottom terminal on the other switch. It will control the lights. Twist the two white wires in the box together and screw on a wire nut.
9. Twist the bare wires together, leaving one end long enough so you can attach it to the ground screws on both switches. Wrap it around one ground screw, then extend it to the other and wrap it around that one. Tighten the ground screws.
10. Push all the wires into the electrical box and screw both switches to the box, then screw on a cover plate. Turn the breaker back on and test the fan and the lights.
Tags: black wire, wires together, 4-strand cable, both switches, , circuit wire