I have two 52" Maplewood ceiling fans by Hampton Bay. Both of them are inoperative because I cannot pull the cord switch from the center of the fan to turn the light on or off. Can you help me? What exacerbates the damn thing is that I have two new ones that I haven't mounted yet and this will be the third time that I have gone through this situation with this particular product. Any assistance would be appreciated, thanks

So the chain just won't pull?

Those boogers do tend to fail after awhile. The chain can get jammed up in them.

Those pullchain switches are only a couple bucks and can be wired in easily.

thanks for your help. I'll head over to Home Depot and see if I can pick a couple of those up, I was ready to trash them. Thanks again Frank L

Maybe I misunderstood.

Are you saying that you cannot pull the chain on either of the new ones either?

If so, then I would suggest returning the new ones for exchange... and pick up a pullchain switch for the other one while you are there.

Sounds like they may have had a bad batch of pull-chain switches on a few fans...

Do these fans come with a remote? If so you may want to locate that and give the fan an electronic signal to unlock. Was the fan put in by an electrician? If not the wiring could be incorrect. Either way it is doubtful that two fans would fail at the switch due to a manufacturing defect. If you could provide more information we can at least narrow it down to an electrical or a mechanical problem and take it from there.

I still have two new ones that are in the cartons. The two that are mounted
Were both acting up at the switch point. Basically, the pull string was jammed or stopped working and after some manipulation they would work again. One is fine now, but the other is till inop. I tend to think that it is a mechanical prob. Vs an electrical. I'll take it apart this wknd and troubleshoot. Thanks for your assistance.

You can purchase replacement pullchains and they are very easy to install-- much easier than taking the fan down and taking it back to Home Depot under warranty, which you could also do.

You will need a basic 2 wire on/off replacement pullchain. Home Depot sells them, as do most hardware stores. You inscrew the broken one, disconnect the two wires, connect the two wires from the new on in their place, and screw it back. Voilà!

Here is some more information on ceiling fan parts including pullchains:

http://www.ceiling-fans-n-more.com/ceiling-fan-parts.php

This is a great response for my situation. Thanks and I will pick those up for my existing Hampton Bay fans. Truthfully, I dreaded the prospect of having to tear them down, package them up and try to get replacements. This wasn't even a possibility until you folks mentioned it. Thanks again for solving my difficulty. Best regards, FS

Let us know how it works. The replacement pullchains should cost no more than $5 each.