Hi, I have put several lights up but I ran into trouble with my 100 year old house. My new ceiling fan has a white wire, the black wire, the blue fan power wire, and the green ground. The ceiling box has a hot black wire coming out, the white neutral, and a hot red wire. I tried white to white, black to black, and blue to red but somehow the fan would then only work when I put the switch on and plugged something into 1 of my room outlets. Prior to the install, the outlets worked separate from the switches & everything in the room worked fine. My current wire scheme has white & black from fan wire nutted to the white & black from the ceiling and the blue from the fan wire nutted to the red from the ceiling. The room outlets and switch work fine, the light turns on & off with the switch, but the fan does not work with the switch or with the pull chain either. Please help

At first blush, it sounds like you have wired it properly, so I think the wires are not what you think they are... in particular it is very strange that something has to be plugged in for the fan to work. That would mean the fan is wired in series with a plug!

Can you check the light switch to see what kind of switch it is. (i.e. regular switch with only two terminals on it, a 3-way or a 4-way switch, or some kind of special fan switch where the light and fan are controlled separately. )

Can you use a multimeter or voltage tester in the ceiling box to confirm which wire the light switch operates? (sounds like black). You really want to find out exactly what conditions you have to do to make the red wire hot.

Sounds like a Neutral(white wire) problem. Check all boxes or connections recently worked on.

The light fixture that was in place prior to the fan, how was it wired?

It SOUNDS like your current situation would work if you switched the black fan wire to connect to the red ceiling wire along with the blue.. . But I can't advice you to do this confidently until I know more.

Received the following pm from the opening poster. I assume he meant to post rather than just send to me, so I'll cut and paste here for everyone's benefit.

"Hi
the switch is a regular 2 terminal switch that has what looks like 2 back wires connected to the top screw and the red wire connected to the bottom screw. The white neutral is taped to another neutral inside the switch box and of course is not connected to the switch itself. I do not have a voltmeter but I know that the red and white in the ceiling are both hot. Any other help would be great."


It would be much easier if you had a voltage tester - you can get cheap ones from your local hardware stores that consist of two leads and an LED for ~$10. For a few dollars more, you can get voltmeter or multimeter which may be slightly more handy.

You need to find out which wires are hot, and how that changes with the position of the switch. Unless it is wired incorrectly (as Stratmando wondered), the white wire should never be 'hot'. i.e. a tester connected between the white wire and the metal box should not light up while the tester connected from the red wire to the box should light depending on the position of the light switch.

Ok, based on what the OP PMed me, he needs to connect the fan blue and black to the ceiling red, and the fan white to the ceiling white AND black, label the ceiling black with some white paint, and it will all work.

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