Replacing and installing ceiling fans in an exposed indoor ceiling beam

[Adam Preble]

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?

[RBM]

The wiring to the existing fan was done during construction and would probably be impractical to try to wire a second fan the same way. You could install a surface mounted box at the original location and extend a conduit from it to the second location. "Wiremold" company makes surface mounted fan support boxes as well as more decorative conduit

[Doug Kanter]

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.

[Adam Preble]

I wanted to update the thread. I've been looking at the existing ceiling fan for the longest time and I think I finally figured out what they did to wire it . . . after posting on the Internet.

My original description of the beam is wrong. It isn't at the apex of the ceiling. Rather, it's about halfway up. So you'd have one side of the beam more exposed than the other, right? Well, on the side with more exposed, it looks like they had boards running across that jut out off the beam. I'm betting they're running wires behind it.

I'll have to see if this is that channel material that has been mentioned already. Given 2/2 suggested that, I would imagine so.

[Doug Kanter]

Actually, you could make (or have someone make) your own surface channel out of wood. If someone's skilled with a router, it could be quite decorative.

***BUT***, I'm not sure it would be up to code, running wire through a closed wood channel, even though wire runs through holes in your walls to begin with. If you're doing it yourself, you may not care. If you're planning on having an electrician do the work, he can advise you further.

[RBM]

Wiremold channel would only have been used if the conduit had to be exposed and visible. If they were able to conceal the wiring behind something, it's probably just a cable