Well we moved into a new house and as always there are problems, fortunately in this house which we are renting the problems are far less then the last house we were in. On a positive note, I haven’t seen the need to hire orkin to put glue traps around to catch lizards and massive spiders that feel as though they should share the house with us. So hopefully it will stay that way.
Anyways, so we moved in and the ceiling fan in the master bedroom was working just fine…. on low setting… Well I turned the fan on high because we were a little warm and the dang thing became orbital. I mean it was violent. I’ve heard of ceiling fans wobbling but this sucker was literally orbiting around the ceiling, the glass globes were shaking and not sound like they could handle the g-force and the little pull chains were like bull whips just going crazy. It was crazy. So we put the fan back on low and let it run like that without any problems.
The other day I finally had time to look at the fan and to be honest I don’t know the first thing about ceiling fans so my knowledge and ability to fix a balancing issue goes something like this.
1. Check the screws to make sure everything is tight.
2. Turn the fan on and see if problem is resolved.
After that I’m at a loss. So I did what anyone would do, I got on Youtube and found some tips to resolve wobbly ceiling fans. Everything mentioned making sure the screws were all tight and then if that didn’t work balancing the fan by taping coins to the backsides of the blades…. Now I know this fan from our brief little history and I know the dang little thing moves fast and rough, last thing I want is to tape shrapnel to the fan so that when it goes crazy it has hard metal objects to hurl through the air. Wasn’t going to do it.
So yesterday on the way home I stopped by Home Depot to buy an official fan balancing kit. I actually went to buy a new fan but the salesman told me not to give up on the fan and with the balance kit I could make it work. I thought to myself how odd it was a home depot employee talked me out of spending between &75-$200 on a new ceiling fan and instead sold me a $2 ceiling fan balancing kit. And I really didn’t think the balance kit would work, after all this wasn’t a little wobble I was trying to fix. But hey I know nothing about ceiling fans so I thought alright I’ll give the $2 fix a try. I went home read the directions and stuck this little tape thing to the blade and tried to get it to stop convulsing. It didn’t get better, it didn’t get worse, it just stayed the same with it’s thrashing rotation.
So I gave up, there was a lowes closer to my house then home depot and at this point I figured home depot would probably try to sell me other crap to stick to the blades and I really didn’t want that so I headed to lowes, found a a fan for $25 with a light kit which sort of scared me. After all the fan was for our bedroom so we wanted something with some quality to it and that was quiet. I didn’t want to buy this cheap fan and try to sleep with the sound of a wind tunnel over my head. I knew Hunter brand fans were pretty good so I bought one of those and got out for less then $100 which was good. And what really got me excited was it was a Hunter brand five minute easy installation fan… Woohoo, could it get easier?
I got the new fan home and opened the box and saw a plethora of parts. As I read the directions I thought to myself there is no way this is going to be a five minute job but I gave it my best shot. It took me about 15 minutes to get the old fan down. In retrospect I probably could have just turned it on and let the sucker fall on it’s own which would have been fun to watch. I now had a ceiling fan mount on the ceiling, and no light and a bunch of parts to a new fan on my bed.
Now the thing about hunter five minute ceiling fans is that they are 90% put together of which I really don’t understand what they are talking about because there was a lot of pieces in that box, the only thing I could tell was put together was the motor and I honestly don’t think ANY ceiling fan you buy makes you build your own motor. This hunter ceiling fan had many different parts, plus the blades, little rubber grommets to put on the blades before putting screws in, then you had to attach the blade arms. I would have thought for a 90% put together fan all that should have been on already. After all, do you know how long it takes to put 15 rubber grommets on ceiling fan blades? I’ll tell you, about 6 minutes to do it right because you have to squeeze this big ol rubber thing through a small hole, then stick a screw through it and attach it to the arm. Not an easy task, especially in the dark. But alas I prevailed.
I hung the new mount on the ceiling, attached the power cables and got the fan up. It took a while to get everything up and screwed in but I got it. I put the fan blades on, then the light kit and screwed the screws into it, attached the globes and put the lights in and had a clark griswold moment. You remember that scene where he builds anticipation before turning on his Christmas lights only when he plugs em in nothing happens? Yeah that was me. I flipped the light switch and nothing. I pulled the chains to see if maybe they were off and still nothing. I was irritated, if I had a little plastic santa I probably would have kicked it and punched an elf but fortunately the Christmas stuff was safe in the closet upstairs. I checked everything and then realized that either I hooked up the wires wrong or had a bad fan.
So I did the one thing I could to minimize the amount of work to fix it, I unscrewed the entire fan from the ceiling mount and let it hang on it’s little plate. I looked at all the wires and saw where the freaking positive wire had popped out of the wire cap. I’m guessing this is because the fan provides you with about 10 feet of power cable when 1 foot would have worked and I didn’t want to cut any of it so I had a ball of power cables and in my quest to jam them into the area of shot glass one of the wires pulled loose. I wasn’t about to put it back up without testing so I left it hanging precariously on the little hinge and turned it on, the light worked! Now for the part where you do a little praying, turning the ceiling fan on without it being secured to the ceiling… I mean what could possibly go wrong? I figured worse case it would fall from the mount, the power cables would pull out and live wires would be hanging there, probably touch causing sparks and possibly a fire right over the bed, the fan itself would fall and land on the mattress however it’s about a 6 foot drop so there would be some bounce so it would then bounce onto the hard floor and shatter…. But I gave it a shot anyways and the sucker started to spin! I immediately turned it off, put the screws back in and did the final test. I put the fan on high turned it on and there was an ever so slight wobble but it was hardly visible, nothing like the old fan.
So how long do you think it took me to hang a 5 minute ceiling fan? Well I started around 3:15 and finished at 5:30…. Yep just over 2 hours for a five minute fan……. I’m going to have to call B.S. on this five minute concept. If they attached the grommets for you, gave you instructions easy to follow and freaking remove the instructions in other languages because honestly, in America instructions should be in english, in Mexico they should be spanish and in Francethey should be french but I’m sick and tired of having every language included. It’s a waste of paper and my time flipping through the books. And my issues may have been partly caused by my own abilities here, but I am a typical DIY’er. I think even saying 30 minutes would be much more realistic, and next time I will probably be able to do it faster. So yes perhaps a contractor could do it in 5, but not your typical guy who installs a ceiling fan once every few years.
I wonder, has anyone that reads this blog ever bought a ceiling fan like a hunter five minute fan and actually got it installed in 5 minutes or less? Putting the blades together alone to me would exceed that since there’s 5 blades, 3 holes on each blade that need grommets put in them, plus screws, plus the arm mounts, then you have to actually mount them on the motor. That’s easily 1 minute per blade….
But I am happy to say the fan is working great, it looks good and I had a sense of accomplishment without causing any damage or setting anything on fire. Last time I worked on a light fixture it was our Knoxville house and that thing shorted out, fell from the ceiling and smashed into the tile floor smashing the light bulbs. So I must say this was a huge improvement. 
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