Installing a new ceiling fan.

[Greg Pepin]

Renovating the extra bedroom in the house and am replacing an older ceiling fan with a newer fan. Kind of stumped about the wiring, and thought I'd post here and give a shot at it. Instructions with the fan kit were useless. I know the wires in the box are copper(not sure if this matters).

Scenario: Box in ceiling: 3 wires. Red, Black and white. Ground on fan housing. Fan/light: 3 wires. Blue, Black, white and ground.

Connected green to green and white to white. So far, so good. Manual says to connect blue and black on fan side to black in box. That leaves a red left, which I'm not sure what to do with. From what I can tell, it's a hot wire(and logically red means hot).

This is probably an extremely simple thing, but it's frustrating the heck out of me... Can anyone help me out? Thanks for your help in advance.

-greg

[Colbyt]

Assuming everything was wired properly before you started:

Scenario: Box in ceiling: 3 wires. Red, Black and white. Ground on fan housing. Fan/light: 3 wires. Blue, Black, white and ground.

white to white red & black are both hot if you have two switches connect to fan blue/black Your choice of colors.

You did not mention a ground wire in the box so connect fan ground wire to the metal box or cap it off. If ground on fan housing meant you have a bare ground wire then connect it to the fan ground wire. Older lighting circuits did not always have a ground at ceiling fixtures. Best not to connect it to white.

If you don't have a light kit the blue wire is the unused one normally. Just cap it and one of the two hot wires.

There I made that almost as the third world printed directions.

Colbyt

[Greg Pepin]

Thanks Colby.

There's only 1 switch in the wall. There is a ground in the box.

Last attempt at this was capping the red coming out of the box and yielded no result, so I'm thinking that it's atleast for the light kit.

Should I cap the blue on fan and connect the black on fan to black and red on box? Or can I go blue and black fan wires to red and black box wires?

Thanks a bunch.

[RBM]

If you only have one wall switch, how did the old fan-light work? If the light worked off the wall switch and the fan worked off the pull chain, connect your greens and whites as you already described, connect the blue (light kit) to your red, and connect your fan (black) to your black. If the wall switch controls the fan instead of the light, just reverse the red and black wire connections

[trader4]

You need to figure out which wire is which at the box. If you have only one switch, it must control one wire. The other is usually going to a switch for the light. If you don't have one, it may be a permanently hot wire. If that's the case, connect the switched wire to the fan, hot to the light for the fan if it has one. You will need to use the pull switch on the fan, if it has one, to work the light.

Alternatively, you can use a wireless remote unit that will work both and only uses a permanent hot at the box. Personally, I like that solution, especially for new installs, as it avoids running a wire and installing a switch.

[Greg Pepin]

Not sure how the old one worked. I think it had a red wire and a black wire ...

I will try switching the blue and black and see how we make out...

Thanks for your help!