In this episode, John Maher speaks with Joe Malone, a master electrician with Cape Cod Heat Pumps and Electrical, about key considerations for ceiling fan installation. Joe shares insights on meeting NEC and local codes, including height requirements, the need for heavy-duty junction boxes, and options for low-profile fans in homes with lower ceilings. They discuss the benefits of remote-controlled fans, common challenges with wiring and mounting, and tips for minimizing noise and vibration. Joe also explains the fan direction debate, providing guidance for different seasons. For more details, visit Cape Cod Heat Pumps and Electrical.
John Maher: Hi, I’m John Maher, and I’m here today with Joe Malone, master electrician with Cape Cod Heat Pumps and Electrical, an HVAC and electrical contractor in Marstons Mills, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, focused on detail, quality and professionalism. Today, our topic is ceiling fan installation. Welcome, Joe.
Joe Malone: Hey John.
How To Meet NEC and Local Code Requirements for Ceiling Fan Installation
Maher: Joe, how do you ensure that ceiling fan installation meets current NEC and local code requirements?
Malone: Ceiling fans aren’t very much different, electrically speaking, from a standard light in your house. It’s fairly common practice for us. We do so many of them, we know the code front to back, up and down, left and right. Building code requirement is usually one of the things that supersedes our electrical side.
To install a ceiling fan safely and legally, the bottom of the blade needs to be at least seven feet off the ground, so that somebody who’s six feet tall or more doesn’t hit their head on a ceiling fan as it’s spinning around. That turns out to be one of the biggest downsides for a lot of folks. A lot of homes around here are lower ceilings, older homes. That tends to be the major drawback for a lot of folks.
Low Profile Ceiling Fans
Maher: Do they make any types of ceiling fans that don’t come down off the ceiling quite as far, or something like that, that can help with that? Any different styles of ceiling fans that you typically would install in that situation?
Malone: Oh, yeah. There’s so many manufacturers, and so many different styles and aesthetic choices these days. It’s considered a hugger, which is a ceiling hugging fan, so it can get as close as you can to the ceiling as possible. Most of them would be about six or eight inches, so as long as your ceiling is seven feet six, seven foot eight, or eight feet tall and up from there, generally, most people end up being fine at that point.
Ceiling Fan Weight
Maher: How do you know what weight of a ceiling fan can be installed? Are there any limitations to how you mount that to the ceiling? Do you need to, in some cases, maybe even add some structural support into the ceiling?
Malone: Up until a few years ago, we used to be able to hang ceiling fans that were under, it might’ve been 10 pounds, I forget the exact limit on it, used to be able to put those onto any electrical ceiling light junction box that you had for a standard, normal light fixture. But again, with the updates on all of our code, one of the big things they found is that the spinning motion and mass of a ceiling fan spinning and spinning creates a lot of vibration, and they need to be supported significantly better than a standard light fixture that just sits there and turns on, and provides light.
Generally speaking, we have to figure out, by either take down an existing light fixture or if somebody’s adding one, we have to put in a heavier duty junction box that is rated, again, by UL, the Underwriters Laboratory, for safety reasons. A certain thread of a screw, a certain type of a screw that generally, a more strong metal junction box that has some sort of bracing, which we can either do through, if there’s attic access directly above it, we can get up in the attic and nail in some two by four lumber, which it then gets screwed into, so it’s a nice, solid, rigid connection.
Or, we have some boxes that are made by a couple of manufacturers that are heavier duty metal, that actually gets into the ceiling and will screw into the structural members in the ceiling, and lets us tighten down really hard, and gives you a really solid, really good, safe mounting point to mount that five-foot-wide spinning circle.
Challenges of Wiring a Ceiling Fan
Maher: Is wiring a ceiling fan any more challenging than wiring just a ceiling light, or something like that? These ceiling fans have reversing switches on them, they might even have lights built into them as well. Does that complicate things, or is it pretty much still just a few wires that you’re attaching?
Malone: It’s very straightforward. The wiring of them is really no big deal. A lot of the manufacturers now, if you have a reverse function, or you have lights on them, most of them you can purchase with a remote control, and you can actually even get a remote control kit to go on to just about every ceiling fan that’s made. We do run wire, it’s a 14/3 or a 12/3, which just means there’s an extra wire in there. That allows us to put a second switch on, so you can control a fan and a light separate from each other.
Remote Control Ceiling Fans
Maher: Do you find that a lot of people are using these remote controls now, especially if the ceiling fan is on a high ceiling? Some houses these days have cathedral type ceilings or something, and the ceiling fan might be 20 feet up in the air, so that remote control would really be necessary in a case like that.
Malone: Remote control is definitely a very nice luxury function to have. It’s not a total necessity in most cases, but like you said, if it’s 10 or 12 feet up in the air, most people are not going to want to climb up a ladder and flip a switch, or even have a chain dangling three or four feet down that they have to go over and try to pull, and remember, which way does it go? Did I click it enough? All those type of things. Some people just don’t like to look at chains hanging from the ceiling fans, so it can be an aesthetic thing, and you get rid of the chains and just have a remote control.
Minimizing Ceiling Fan Noise and Vibration
Maher: In terms of minimizing noise and vibration from ceiling fans, is it basically what you were just talking about before, with building that extra structure, so it’s not just hanging from a light fixture?
Malone: Yeah, generally when you have those nuisance problems, nine out of 10 times there’s something wrong with the mounting structure. It’s not necessarily the fan itself. The box is either not screwed in tight enough, it’s not tightened up enough. There’s a couple of screws that are a little loose on the fan itself. Each one of the blades that spins around has two or three or four mounting screws, and sometimes, those just have to be tweaked and torqued.
What Direction Should Ceiling Fans Spin?
Maher: Do you know offhand what the rule is for the direction that the fan should be spinning in? I know that people always get confused about, do I want it to blow down during the winter, or is it up in the summer? What’s the situation that people are in there?
Malone: It’s funny you say that, because this is a colder season right now, we’re transitioning into fall here in New England. Even to this day, I still have to Google it. I still have to look it up. It always turns into a discussion between myself and everyone else in the house. Which way is it best? Do you want the warm air to blow down on you, or do you want it to get pulled up away from you? Again, I even Google it to this day.
Maher: Yeah, and it’s probably not the worst idea to go ahead and just Google it yourself, and figure it out. You might even find opinions. It’s one of those cases where it’s on a case by case basis, depending on the style of house that you have even.
Malone: Well, yeah, and that’s exactly what it comes down to. It seems like a great idea too, in the wintertime, you take all heat, the hot air rises, you want to turn that and spin that and blow that back down on yourself. But then, some people say that breeze makes you feel colder, so you want to have the warm air being drawn up, from the ground up, so you feel warmer because you yourself are lower to the ground. It’s just, everybody’s got an opinion.
Maher: Right, and then it goes up to the ceiling, but then it gets pushed down the sides, so maybe that warm air is coming back down the walls and then back to you, without it feeling like the wind is blowing on you all winter.
Malone: Right, exactly.
Maher: All right. Well, that’s really great information, Joe. Thanks again for speaking with me today.
Malone: Oh, thanks for having me.
Information About Cape Cod Heat Pumps and Electrical
Maher: For more information, you can visit the Cape Cod Heat Pumps and Electrical website at ccheatpumps.com. Or call (508) 833-HVAC. That’s (508) 833-4822.
