I'm in an old apartment bldg in NYC that has ONLY black & white wiring (2 wires) in all its switches and outlets. And am replacing a kitchen ceiling fan/light. The old fan/light had 2 pullchains, one for the light and one for the fan. The connection to the ceiling junction box were just white and black wires -- the blue wire from the fan had been capped -- and a green ground connected to the fan hanger hardware. The wall switch was a simple on/off switch connected black/black and white/white to the house wiring. So switching on/off the wall switch switched on/off power to both the fan and fan light. When power was on, the pullchains could be used to control the fan and light functions separately.

The new fan is a Hampton Bay Vercelli. It uses a wallmounted transmitter that can separately control light and fan via pushbuttons (and also has an overall on/off switch).
THere are no controls on the fan itself except for arotation direction switch.
The transmitter communicates with a receiver tucked into the canopy cover. The recevier has three wires out to the fan, and accepts two wires in from the j-box. THe fan wiring is

Fan to receiver : white/white black/black blue/blue

Receiver to j-box : white/white black/black

(and green ground from fan to hanger screw)


All well and good, and easily done. My problem is replacing the old simple wall switch with the transmitter switch. THe Vercelli transmitter switch has got three wires :

One is black and labelled "TO POWER SUPPLY -- DO NOT CONNECT TO NEUTRAL WHITE WIRE"

The second is ALSO black and labelled "TO FAN -- DO NOT CONNECT TO NEUTRAL WHITE WIRE"

The third wire is a green ground wire

The switch instructions also say HOOK UP IN 'SERIES' ONLY. DO NOT CONNECT THE HOT AND NEUTRAL WIRES OF ELECTRIC CIRCUIT TO THE TRANSMITTER WALL SWITCH. DAMAGE TO THE SWITCH AND POSSIBLE FIRE COULD OCCUR.

So it looks to me like I'm supposed to have two hot wires in the wall switchbox, one running directly to the fan and another to the house power. Given that all I have available from the house wiring at the switchbox is one black (hot) and one white (neutral) wire, how the heck am I supposed to connect this transmitter? Am I S.O.L or is there some way to make this work? And what happens to the neutral wire that's in the wall switchbox? Does that get capped?

You don't have a neutral in your switch box, you have two hots, one of which happens to be white. You connect the two wires from the new switch to the two wires that went to the old switch.

You dont have a neutral in your switch box, you have two hots, one of which happens to be white. You connect the two wires from the new switch to the two wires that went to the old switch.

Thanks, that's sure good news. I guess the only thing now is to figure out which switchbox wire is going to the fan and which to the house. Maybe a continuity tester...

Also, what is happening at the fan end, then? There is only a white and black from the junction box to the receiver -- as per Hampton Bay directions. Is the white wire 'hot' there too? The Hampton Bay instructions call it 'neutral', and the black wire 'hot'.

It is common to use a two wire cable to operate a switch. The black should be the power going to the switch and when turned on the white should be the power going to the light or fan. You need to get a multimeter tester and learn how to use it, if you are going to do electrical work. Kentucky Nick

krabapple, don't use a continuity tester, buy the muiltimeter. The two wires in the switch box, when the switch is off the wire that is hot goes back to your panel/circuit. The other wire that is not hot should be white with black tape and it goes to the fan.

Actually you can just try it either way. If the switch doesn't function properly, switch the two wires.