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Steve
 
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Default Ceiling Fan

Unfortunately, I am very much a mechanically challenged person. I am great
with electronics, but mechanics just aren't my game. I'm trying to determine
if my ceiling boxes are ok to use for ceiling fans. I am rather particular
about wobble, noise, shake, etc so I wanted to see how best to be sure
before I go ahead and install.

First, my house was built in 1959 in WI and I am not the original owner.
When I moved in there were ceiling fans in each of 3 bedrooms. All the fans
have some wobble to them. One wobbles terribly. They all appear to be
cheaper fans with a couple geared towards kids - ie, the crayon, crayola,
and multicolor fans. These two crayon fans are ones I want to replace as I
have no kids and they just aren't my style.

I wanted to investigate the mounting and boxes so I removed the blades and
housing on one fan. It just lets me see the rim of the box. If I rock the
fixture back and forth it moves considerably, but the ceiling boxes moves
only slightly. It appears that this one is loose screws. I would say that
roughyl 99% of the movement is the fan itself and 1% is the ceiling box.
Before taking this one down further, I wanted to compare it to the other
crayon fixture.

I removed the 2nd fan to the same point and it too, moved when rocked with
99% of the movement seeming to be the fan itself. I took this one down all
the way. The ceiling is round and metal. There appears to be a round ring
mounted to the face of the box and this is what the fan was secured to. This
round ring is screwed to the face of the ceiling box from down up - meaning
that its screw heads are under the drywall ceiling and not accessible from
below. I suppose this means either the box was in before the drywall, the
drywall was redone, or the round ring was on the box then mounted - the
point is that one could not attach this ring once the box is mount because
you can't get to the screw heads. I see one screw in the center of the box
which appears to be securing a metal clip. I can see either a metal brace or
metal conduit through the holes in the box above it. The ceiling box is made
of metal and has three conduit runs coming into it with electrical. Pulling
on the box from below really doesn't give much movement. Pushing up on the
ring doesn't give much movement. Pushing up on the inside of the box gives a
little movement - maybe a couple 32nds of an inch.

Does this seem like how solid one would expect a fan box to be? Any thoughts
on whether this description sounds like a fan box already? I am a mechanical
idiot so removing and reinstalling a new box would be a major project for me
and if this sounds like what to expect from a fan box, then it seems that I
should leave it as is - my only reason for concern is that in replacing
these fans with something more neutral - wobble and noise is really annoying
to me so I don't want the boxes and mounts to be the reason for that. It
seems to me that these two are just loosely mount and lower quality fans and
that's the cause more than this slight movement of the ceiling box. Can
anyone add some details that might help me out?


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