DIYbanter - View Single Post - Ceiling fan install

Jeff Wisnia

wrote:
Before I start, I'll note that I'm about 50/50 on calling in an
electrician over this. I don't want to waste money and this seems
like a very simple electrical install, but I also don't want to either
kill myself or my new ceiling fan.

Anyway, I just bought a ceiling fan to replace another one that had
mysteriously died just after a somewhat shady electrician had come in
and done some work. We called him back, he tested the wiring and said
we had power, so yeah, the fan was just dead. It *was* old, and a
cheap piece of junk. So we bought a new one.

I decided I was going to hang it myself. I took the old one down and
then used a neon tester to test the wires. I have only one black and
one white wire; nothing else. I assume the junction box itself is
grounded, my neon tester lights up when i touch black wire to junction
box.

Problem is it *also* lights up if I connect white wire to junction
box, which doesn't seem right and isn't what other sites have said
should happen. Seems this wire is live, or the junction box is.
Wondering if this killed my old ceiling fan.

Am I off track here? Should I call in an electrician or am I just not
testing right? Everywhere I've read says black to ground should light
my tester, white to ground should not.

Thanks for any help...

IF (note emphasis) the junction box IS grounded, and when you say
"connect white wire to junction box" you are really trying to tell us
that you are connecting one side of the neon tester to the white wire
and the other side of the neon tester to the junction box, then it's
odds on that the white wire is disconnected somewhere along the way from
that fan junction box to your breaker panel and the neon bulb is
lighting because of capacitive coupling of the voltage on the black wire
to the "floating" white wire which can deliver the few microamps needed
to make the bulb light.

From your writings I'm not sure you know enough about what you are
doing to find the fault, but with the breaker for that circuit off, open
up the switch box for the switch controlling power to that fan and see
if you can spot where the white wire coming down from the fan's junction
box connects, and whether maybe that connection sprung loose from a
poorly installed wirenut or something.

If you don't spot anything there, I'd suggest you call in a competant
electrician and have him find out what the first "shady" guy screwed up.

Maybe if you are lucky you can have the new electrician reconnect your
old fan, see it run fine, and return the new fan to the place you bought
it for credit.

HTH,

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10^12 furlongs per fortnight.