英文好文

07/27/2005

A couple of weeks back my wife “bumped” our ceiling fan. I’m still not sure exactly HOW she did it, but apparently, when she did that, the fan “slipped” and from that point on hung at a precarious altitude.

Even worse - it only worked when one tilted the fan straight.

We decided that we needed a new fan anyway. Over the last couple of years we’d slowly been renovating the kitchen. The fan was old.

After 6 trips to Home Depot and/or Lowes, we finally found a model that we liked.

I’ve replaced many of the ceiling lights in our house - I knew that I could handle the job with no problem.

First thing to do, obviously, is to remove the globe and the fan blades.

Removing the cowling revealed the actual “bump” damage. This model of fan is held up by 3 inverted U-type clips. Terri had somehow bumped it hard enough to knock the fan out of 2 of the clips. This would be a really simple thing to fix, but we’d already bought the replacement fan, plus this one was just ratty looking.

We proceeded onward with the replacement.

I got a little assistance in removing the bracket.

Before I could attach it, though, we noticed that the ceiling underneath the old fan was pretty rough looking. Since the new model wouldn’t be directly covering as much ceiling as the old one, we decided to do some touch-up paint on the mounting area, as well as painting the hole repair that I’d done a couple of months ago.

After painting - a nice clean ceiling!

The replacement fan in all of it’s unassembled glory.

We bought a Hunter fan. When we were at Lowes, Terri had asked me if it was a good brand, and I said it was. She asked how I knew, and I told her the truth: Hunter is the only fan company I’ve seen that has TV commercials.

She says “Well, it had better be better than our old one”. We got home and saw that our old one was a Hunter, too.

Every stinkin’ part in the box was bagged (and sometimes double-bagged) in plastic wrap covered in suffocation warnings.

I mean EVERY single bag had the warning. Seemed to be a bit of an overkill.

I had a hard time not thinking about some doofus installing this fan, being distracted by his infant child, and getting frustrated because there wasn’t a bag that he could give to his kid. Dag nabbit! I KNOW that there’s got to be at least ONE of these bags that you’s could play with, Junior!

Installed the new mounting plate. This model of fan doesn’t utilitize the 3 clips like our older one. This one has a single square hoop hanging down. The top of the fan has a hook that attaches to the hoop. Pretty nice, actually, as I didn’t need any help holding the fan up while I connected the wires.

Since our ceiling is a bit low, I had to follow the “flush mount” directions. They were all pretty clear. I got the top of the fan ready for installation.

Hooked in to place, and I realized that they’d included about 3 feet of wire that I didn’t need.

So a quick trim, and I’m good to go.

Wiring is pretty easy - 1 white and 2 black wires from the fan (one for the motor, the other for the light). Since I’ll be running this off of a single wall switch, the 2 black wires were joined with the single black coming from the ceiling.

Another way that Hunter has designed this fan to be installed by a single person - They cut a little tab on the bracket.

After you get it wired up, you swing one side of the fan up on to the bracket. It’s held there while you get the 2 screws on the opposite side.

After getting it this far, I realize that it’s not level. The problem is that this top side of the mounting plate has 4 rubber feet that are used for sound insulation. When I place the plate, one of the feet sunk into the plaster on the edge of the hole.

So I had to take everything down and figure out how to fix it.

I cut a small piece of cardboard, and put it between the offending rubber foot and the plaster.

Once tightened up, it prevented the foot from sinking into the plaster again.

The fan is still not perfectly level, but it’s much closer.

I assembled and installed the 5 fan blades.

The upper mounting bracket for the light fixture.

Assembled and installed the lamp.

And it’s all done!

Worked on the first try!

This fan is a 52″ model, while the previous one was only a 42″. The increase in blade length is extremely noticeable. It’s almost like a tornado in the kitchen when on the highest setting.