I have successfully installed a ceiling fan before but the old house I now live in has wiring that baffles me. The Hampton ceiling fan I am installing has the usual black, blue, white, and green (ground) wires. The outlet does not appear to have any ground wires (so I will ground the fan to the metal box--right?) and the outlet contains 4 black wires, 4 white wires, and two red wires. Experimenting I can get the ceiling fan to work with the pull chain but I cannot get the wall switch to work. I now I am doing something wrong because this is a replacement fan and the wall switch used to work. Any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

If you can supply power to the fan (it works on the pull chain) then put that wall switch in between the source and the wires going to the fan. Sounds like you have 4 circuits in that box. Do you know which circuit powered the fan previously?

It sounds like you have a switch loop in that box. Do you recall how the previous fan was wired? How many wall switches controlled it?

Unfortunately, I did not take the fan down but I am told that the two red wires and two of the black wires were not attached to the previous fan. That would leave the two of the white wires and two of the black wires that ran the fan and light.

The previous fan was turned on by only a single light switch before.

Any suggestions?

Yeah, sounds like one black wire and white wire come from the power source, and the other set go to the switch. Can you tell which is which from looking in the box?

Sounds like a good idea. I will take a look at them and see what I can do. If I figure this out which black/white pair would I attach to the black wire from the fan and which black/white pair would I attach to the white wire from the fan.

Thanks!

Do you have a voltmeter or multi-tester?

Although the thought occurs, if it was indeed a switch loop as I suggested, only one black and one white would connect to the fan, the other two wires would connect together. Was anything else on the switch with the fan? Did the switch have separate controls for the fan and light?

This is more TK's territory.