I recently tried to help a friend install a Harbor Breeze ceiling fan w/ a light kit (this model 52" White Ceiling Fan ENERGY STAR®)

The fan has 4 wires: green, white, black, and blue.
The house has 3 wires: green, white, and black.

Per the instructions we hooked up the green to green, white to white, and the black and blue from the fan to the black from the house. The fan works fine, but the light doesn't. We unhooked the fan, confirmed the connection was good and tried it again, to no avail. We hooked just the blue wire to the black from the house, still no light. Figuring that it was a problem with the kit that we had bought, we brought that back and got another new fan housing/motor and installed that one. Same problem.

The kit calls for a specific light bulb type (I believe it's something like an A19c - candelabra base). We bought 2 new bulbs (40W) the first time around, both of which seemed to be fine, and tried them both.

There isn't a remote for this fan. There are 2 pull chains, one for the light and one for the fan. We tried each of those in every position.

There was originally a light fixture where we're putting this in. We don't have access to the attic so I can't see if there's a box above, but there does not appear to be one from what we can see.

I haven't had a chance to go back with a multimeter and confirm the power is getting to the socket, which is the next step, but I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions aside from that as to what might be the problem that we're missing. I am tempted to just buy another brand, but there is a limited amount of real estate we can attach the fan bracket to, and we're reluctant to unattach the brace for fear of the next one we install being less stable.

Thanks!

If you tie the blue and black together it should work. If not you could have another problem and you will have to sound out the fixture to see where the wires go.

We did tie them together, both times, and it didn't work - so it's likely a problem inside the fan/light/motor section then? That was my original thought but given we ran into the same problem with 2 different fan kits, I thought that would be a heck of a coincidence and that maybe there was something with the house wiring we were missing.

The blue and black power the fan motor and the lite. Now make sure you have 110 volts on the black wire feeding the fixture.

Confirm that the fan's reverse switch is firmly in the up or down position. You can always bench-test the fan motor with power applied from some other source to confirm the problem is or isn't it the motor. But as stated, the way it's wired, if the light works the fan should work also.

General ceiling fan troubleshooting and help FAQ- Ceiling Fans N More

The fan works fine, it's the light that won't work. We did try putting the reverse switch in the different positions with no visible effect (except the fan ran backwards, of course).

It sounds like we're just going to have to end up opening the housing. I think we had avoided that previously because of the warranty. I'll give it a try and see what happens.

Thanks to both of you!

My mistake, I thought it was the other way around. Trace the blue wire from the power source to the light, and back, and make sure all connections are secure.

It could also be the bulbs aren't in all the way. Or, were you using the same bubs in both fans?

I have a problem along these lines, I bypassed the black box in the light kit, connecting the white wires on one side of the switch and the blue/black on the other, the light comes on fine, but when I use the chain to turn the light OFF, it trips the breaker... any insights on this one? If I turn it on and off at the wall it's fine, fan works either way, the breaker only trips when I turn the light OFF.