"Adam Preble" wrote in message
...
My living room has an elevated ceiling that rises and peaks somewhere
inside, with a beam running across it. In this beam is one ceiling fan. I
am hoping to replace it, as well as installing a second fan on this beam.
It's a room that could use two fans, and I wouldn't mind extending the
circuit if I had to; I would want both fans to be controlled by the same
switch.

Replacing the original fan seems easy enough, and it would perhaps be the
easiest installation in the whole house. I've put two fans in elsewhere,
and they were trouble for different reasons. This is an existing fixture
that's right in the beam. My real concern is what I'd have to do to
extend cable if I must.

I don't see how the original fan was wired. There's no crawl space in
that part of the ceiling. From what I can tell, it's just inches away
from the roof itself. The beam was painted by the previous owners, and it
hides anything that might have been done. I don't see a painted over wire
running along the beam, so it must have gotten its power somehow.

Does anybody have an idea of how a fan like that is wired? Is it
practical to DIY install the second fan? The worst installation was
changing a light fixture to mount a fan. I had to put in a new hole two
feet away from the original fixture and run wire to it. I put the radio
receiver for it in the original fixture's hole. Am I looking at something
much more complicated?

Go to an electrical & lighting store and take a look at surface mounted wire
channel material. It's metal low-profile stuff that you run the wire
through. It's easy to sand to a matte finish, and then paint the same color
as the surface it's mounted on. Use it to extend wire from the existing fan
to the new one.