Balancing A Ceiling Fan

DerbyDad03 · 2010-08-02T03:33:47+00:00

This isn't a How-To? post...this is a victory story.My son moved into an apartment in a really old house this weekend. Theceiling fan in the dining room has a downrod of about 6" and wobbledlike crazy. When it got dark and we turned the fan and light on, itmade us dizzy as the light caused the shadows to dance around.I took the job of trying to balance it. Having never balanced aceiling fan before, and having never dealt with a downrod style, Idecided to Google around for some tips. I knew about balancing kitsand taped-on pennies, etc. but had never actually had to balance oneand assumed that there were other tips/tricks available. I was right.So, the first thing I did was measure the distance of each blade tipfrom the ceiling. 11.5, 11.5, 11.5, 12. Well, there's one issue.Next I checked all the screws. All eight screws that held the bladebrackets to the motor housing *and* all 12 screws that held the bladesto the brackets were loose. OK, let's start there.I tightened all the screws and remeasured. 11.25, 11.25, 11.25, 11.5.A big difference and a big improvement. 90% less wobble.I removed the bracket for the lowest blade, gave it a little tweak andremounted it. 11.25 all the way around and even less wobble now.OK, now let's try the penny trick. I took a penny and some tape, andassuming this was going to be a trial and error exercise, I randomlypicked a blade and taped the penny to the top. Dead nuts solid!Absolutely no wobble at all, first try.I climbed off the ladder and treated myself to another slice of pizzabefore moving on to fixing a few other "old house" issues.

Aug 02, 2010 20 Replies

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Dean Hoffman 10 years ago

It looks like Derby Dad has been around awhile.

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Balancing A Ceiling Fan

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