Yes, I measured w/ a DVM, but I can tell the diff between a floater and a
solid 120. I measured against a nearby wall outlet's return 'cause the wall
switch is hot-side only. You nailed it. I have an open return which is why
three of the four don't work. Something I couldn't tell until I got upon a
ladder, dropped the canopy and spun off the nuts. The fourth fan, the one
with the light fixture, is fried.
TFTH
-LZ

"Jeff Wisnia" wrote in message
et...
Lou Zher wrote:

snipped
I did try rebooting the house, one
circuit-breaker at a time and hunting down all the GFCI resets... no
effect. A check of the neighborhood revealed hotness on the wall switches
leading to the fans.


Questions:

1. When you say "hotness" I presume you're trying to sound like you're
"one of the boys" and are using that term to mean VOLTAGE. If not, and you
really meant that the wall switches are all thermally HOT, then pull the
main breaker move everyone out of the place and get a pro there fast!

2. What did you measure that "hotness" with? If it was a digital
multimeter, you may have been fooled by capacitive coupling allowing just
enough nanoamps through to give you a meter reading, without any real
current capability beyond that. If you're a digital guy you oughta know,
digital stuff can run on microamps, fans take AMPS. You may have an open
connection on the 120 volt (black) wire somewhere ahead of those switches
and the meter is fooling you by reading a 'phantom' voltage.

3. What did you measure that "hotness" with respect to. If it was ground,
and not the neutral return, you may have an open neutral connection
somewhere.

Best to use a light bulb to see if you've really got power available
between the output terminal of one of those fan switches and the neutral
(white) wire going up to the fan.

4. Did you ever learn what paragraph breaks are?

HTH,

Jeff










--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
"Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength."