Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Around The House). This thread is read-only.
As would be expected, the electrical lighting and fan fixtures in my new-to-me 32-year old house were all dated. Also, in many cases the electrical wiring was improper / incorrect, leading me to upgrade and resolve those issues to current standards.
My VERY STRONG preference is to have the room’s overhead light controlled by a wall switch at the door when entering the room. This house wasn’t configured to provide that functionality, except at two locations, but I’ve updated everything to now have the wall switch turn the fan light on/off.
All those old retired fans (eight fans, plus two small lightly used / reclaimed fans yet to be installed in my shed / workshop) and the retired light fixtures were set at the curb for collection / recycling by “Sanford and Son”, instead of contributing to the landfill pile.
FINALLY all the electrical fixtures have been swapped, correcting all the electrical problems uncovered along the way!
My southern Florida home has overhead ceiling fans in the rooms and at the covered exterior patios. They were all functional, but the appearance was dated. The surface finish on the exterior fans had degraded. Most of the fans didn’t also have lights. One of the fans didn’t tolerate dimming LED light bulbs (incandescent chandelier base bulbs no longer available).
The two guest bedrooms were first, getting these Volisun 30” Fan / Light, w/ a wall-mount-cradle hand-held remote control, placed above the wall switch. IMO they worked fine, moving plenty of air, but both my girls said they were too small, “this is for a closet”. These new fans turned out to only be installed for a temporary duration and were eventually swapped out to the Hunter 70” Loflin fans.
The master bedroom was next. I picked this Hunter 70” Loflin fan. One thing I really liked was NO special wall switch, just a tiny remote control. The other things I liked were the large diameter and the modern appearance.
Saga time, I then put two of these 70” Loflin fans on the pool patio but was unable to attain the expected functionality. The pool patio extends across the width of the house, w/ light and fan switches in four rooms (two three way and two four way wall switches). I thought I was all set for dual wall switch control, as the fan had both a black power wire and the optional-connection blue power wire.
When the house has one wall power switch it is wired to the fan’s black wire, w/ the fan’s blue wire capped off. When the house also has a second wall power switch, that is connected to the fan’s blue wire, so the black wire switch powers / controls the fan, blue wire switch controlling the light. Unfortunately, even though the manual details this desired functionality and connections, the reality is the fan ignores the blue wire and only acts upon the remote control commands, once black wire power is applied. Required usage of a handheld remote control 100% wouldn’t work for me w/ the existing house wiring already having four pairs of switches controlling the pool patio fan / light power across the width of the house.
Hunter was contacted and they informed me the ONLY products they offer w/ the required switched voltage control for fan versus light MUST be one w/ the old-style dangling pull chain switches, so I swapped those new pool patio fans to the Hunter 60” Dondra fan, largest available w/ pull cord switches and relocated those new 70” Loflin fans to interior rooms, also purchasing a fourth to permit swapping out the two 30” guest bedroom fans to these larger 70” fans.
The front door covered patio entrance fan is above a suspended bench swing, w/ the vertical swing rope limiting the blade diameter, so I selected a Hunter 52” Swanson fan for that location, largest diameter compatible w/ that location.
The existing old light fixtures in the bathrooms above the mirrors had the bulbs behind a “sheet” of closely-spaced ¼” diameter glass rods that were impossible to keep clean / nice, besides also being VERY dated, so those were removed / replaced.
The three bathroom wall light fixtures were all swapped to various finishes and widths of this LED fixture. What I discovered was that the existing house wiring was incorrect in all three rooms. The wall boxes were initially incorrectly located, so instead of fixing the problem, the boxes were removed / discarded and the loose wire routed to the new location. Of course I fixed those problems, properly installing an electrical box at the correct location, repairing the damaged Sheetrock and painting the repair, prior to installing the new fixtures.
The existing front entrance chandelier had a proper classic appearance, but also appeared dated to me, leading me to replace this fixture. I wasn’t happy with the generic options available on Amazon, so I looked on Etsy for something different, more unique and nicer.
The fixture I selected for the front entrance was this string globe pendant lamp. This is very configurable at order placement. I selected an 18” diameter sphere connected by hardwire (instead of plug) with white color for everything: sphere string; power cord color; cord length; bulb socket cover and ceiling box cover. There are plenty of other options for each of these components.
This is an excellent product! It is unique, well made, uses high quality components, is well packaged and ships quickly. This fixture included / accepts a USA-standard Edison E26 lightbulb. It included a GE ultra bright 100W equivalent 8.5W actual Daylight LED dimmable lightbulb.
What I discovered after removing the existing front entrance chandelier was that the house’s electrical box wasn’t installed correctly. It had a wobbly box, partially recessed behind the Sheetrock attached to a loose metal cross bar within the ceiling cavity. I resolved this by scavenging the cross bar bracket from the old box and attaching it to the new round finished work box, now combining the strength of that cross bar to that of the three screw-tightened back clamps on the new finished work box. The new box is now VERY secure.
The fixture I selected for the dining room was this “rectangular” wooden slat fixture. This is also very configurable at order placement. I selected white wood (matching my interior white window shutters), with silver metal trim and a single input connection. The single input connection provides a long / narrow wall plate attaching to the ceiling (instead of three separate box covers).
I was able to attach the mounting hole at one end of the ceiling wall plate to the existing ceiling electric box, the mounting hole at the other end of the wall plate to a newly-placed wall board anchor. This permitted me to intentionally offset the existing location of the center of the fixture to now be closer to the windows, a MUCH better placement over the dining room table. The dining room overhead light fixture had been in the wrong location, too far from the windows.
My existing small (3¼” diameter), round ceiling box was fully covered by the new wall plate. It is possible a larger electric box might not be fully covered. The wall plate is 33½” long x 4¼” wide x 1” thick, w/ a ½” deep cavity on the backside for wiring. The three cords are 60” long, more than enough for my installation.
My ceiling has a 12° slope. The Pythagorean Theorem states that my wire holes need to be spaced ¼” farther apart at the ceiling plate to be parallel. There wasn’t a good solution to modify that ceiling wall plate part for this small dimensional change, so my wires aren’t perfectly parallel. The wire length decreases by 2.39” on adjacent wires. I setup that length change for the three wires on the bench. Once everything was installed it was easy to make minor length tweaks to get everything perfect, taught and level.
The fixture arrives as a carefully-packaged set of precision parts, requiring assembly. The parts are a snug friction fit, no glue required.
This fixture does not include bulbs, but does accept USA-standard Edison E26 light bulbs.
This wooden fixture arrived from the Ukraine in a reasonable amount of time. The vendor estimate was a week sooner than actual arrival. There were not any additional importation fees or taxes for delivery to my home in southern FL.
It has eventually worked through my VERY thick skull that I should use using my Metaltech Jobsite 6’ Baker scaffolding on these cathedral ceiling projects. It is easy enough to move the scaffold parts from storage to the worksite, to setup the scaffolding and to adjust the platform height for the different locations, having different ceiling heights. I’ve been using this scaffold tool MUCH more than I expected. It is SUPER secure and VERY handy!
Initial Guest Bedroom Fans
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Interim Volisun Guest Bedroom Fans
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Hunter 70in Loflin Guest Bedroom Fans
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Initial Living Room Chandelier and Fan
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
New Hunter 72in Overton Living Room Fan
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Initial MBR Fan
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Hunter 70in Loflin MBR Fan
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Entrance Chandelier – Initial Loose Box
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Entrance Chandelier – Original and New Boxes
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Entrance Chandelier – Modified New Box
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Entrance Chandelier – Modified New Box – Securely Installed
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
New Entrance Chandelier Mounted
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Dining Room Chandelier – Installing Long Wall Plate
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Dining Room Chandelier – Setting Preliminary Cord Lengths
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Dining Room Chandelier – Long Wall Plate Wired
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Dining Room Chandelier – Slat Assembly
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Dining Room Chandelier – Installed
[External image (live.staticflickr.com), not copied]
Nice job. All the fans look great. I am loving the lights above the table. I want to do something like that above our kitchen island. I like the looks of those.