Hi There,

So I successfully installed two ceiling fans that did not have remote controls. My house is prewired for the ceiling fan and it took a lot of re-reading of the instruction manual before I figured out that the extra wire (red) went to the blue fan wire, black to black, white to white, green ground to green ground. Now here's the dilemma... I want to install the remote kit but the instructions are as follows... red wire to red wire, white wire to white wire between the receiver and the ceiling... and between the receiver and the fan... white to white, blue to blue, black to black. So question part one: What about the black wire from the ceiling?? And this doesn't work because not only does the fan/light not turn on, but I have zero power in that room anymore. Is this remote control not appropriate for a prewired room?? Should I remove the remote and just do straight wall control? Have I screwed up the electricity to that room?

Thanks

The only way you could have screwed up the electricity to the room is to have shorted the wires and tripped the breaker, easily fixed by throwing the breaker after you finish. Note, in some cases a tripped breaker doesn't look tripped and must be turned all the way to off and back on.

Now, if the houses prewired for the fan, that means you have a couple of switches somewhere on the wall, one supplying power to the black, and the other to the red. Cap the black at the ceiling, and connect the red ceiling wire to the red wire of the receiver. Then with the circuit breaker on, and the switch for the red wire on, the receiver should have power and respond to the remote.

LabMan is correct.. . One thing I want to add.. . Depending on how your room is "wired for fans" it's possible that the red wire is switched and the black wire is not (designed for the light to be controlled at the wall and the fan from the pullchain). In which case you could wire the receiver's red to the black, and you would not have to worry about the wall switch shutting power to the remote. However if you have two wall switches (one for light, one for fan) it doesn't matter if you hook it to the red or the black.

For more information on ceiling fan wiring:

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