Oh, yeah. Bombed.

Over the years I’ve probably put up/taken down thirty or more ceiling fans. We’ve moved several times and I’ve always had to put them up in several rooms for each place. Sometimes this entailed mounting external wiring, but we’ve always had our fans. This particular fan has been with me a loooooong time.  Like, fifteen + years and it’s still going strong after three moves. Most fans I’ve mounted have one of two types of supports for the motor while you hook up the wiring. A nice solid internal housing into which you place the ball end of the hanging rod permanently, the outer housing being just for show, and a flimsy hook which you hang the motor on while you wire and bolt up the housing, then lift it off to rest in the decorative housing.

I thought this fan was of the first type. Wrongo! I casually undid the outer housing, released it, and the whole thing came down on me head. Brilliant. How many times have I said I’ve done this? And never before managed this little trick. Well, as long as it was down, I really got into the box, discovered the screws that held it to the stud had worked loose, found a couple of unused holes into the stud and put in new screws rather than futz with the old ones, discovered the bolts that hold the fan to the housing had worn threads, found a couple of those in my screw-stash…by this time, we’re well into the first game of the WS…a game I’d really liked to have watched!…I put the whole thing back up…sans blades, which I want to clean as long as I have the thing down….flip the switch…and it hums, but it doesn’t turn. I try switching the rotational direction. Still nada. I try spinning it manually…no problem.  The lights go on, so the basic wiring is sound. The hum of the motor changes with each pull of the new switch chain.

WAH!!!!!Okay…I think I’m looking at a dead motor. What have I got to lose? I take the whole thing down…again…and take it to the couch to watch the game while I take it apart to see if I can find anything obviously amiss. The answer to that was a resounding no. So…I wire and bolt the whole thing back together, put it up…and bingo! It runs. I don’t ask questions, I just put the blades back on, and let her rip.

The kicker? Last night, I was too warm. I realized the fan was rotating the wrong way, pulling air up. I turned it off, flipped the little switch to change its direction….it only hummmmmmed.

to Lowes, my nice organized bedroom torn apart…and I finally have a working fan again.

Today’s saga begins a couple of weeks ago, when my ceiling fan became stuck in the high position. (Luckily, since I find it very difficult to sleep at night without it.) Unluckily, this meant the only way to turn the fan off  for the now-chilly dayswas at the wall switch which meant zapping the light switch as well. I had a slider switch I’d planned to put on the kitchen fan/light, and I thought, since the thing was stuck in the “on” position, that I could put it in and problem w/b solved.

Wrong. I got into the package and the wall and realized (which I’d have known if I’d thought about it first) that slider switches like that require separate lighting for fan and light. So…no can do. So…put that little task on hold.

Went to Chip’s and while at the Home Depot for fixit-toys for his place, I thought of my switch. Asked the section guy about it and he handed me a nice little switch gizmo that cost me a couple of dollars. Looked pretty straight forward, so I bought it and carried it across the state home with me.

Wrong part…which I realized after I’d dug into my light. I needed a four way to accommodate the light  fixture and he’d sold me (without asking, and I didn’t think to say) a three way.

Sigh. I’m now sans fan night #1. So…next day I’m out, I go to Lowes, which is much nearer to us than HD, and pick up the right piece. They have only one left on the shelves, so even tho it was obviously a returned item, I took it home with me.I should mention, this was only one small part of a bunch of errands I was running, so I got home exhausted, unloaded the car, and headed back up onto my bed (the fan is right over my bed) and once again tackled the problem.

This was a different kind of switch. Instead of leads that you twist onto the old wires and cap, you’re supposed to stick an unfolded paper clip into this tiny black hole to flex a connection spring, extract the wire from the old switch and repeat the process on the new switch. I’d already cut a couple of the wires from the old switch preparatory to putting in the original replacement, which, recall, used the twist and cap method, so I tried this extraction method on a third and discovered the wires had been soldered together. “I’m in trouble,” thought I, and oh, I was right.

I had no idea HOW right.

I tried the first wire into the “L” for light slot. The paperclip slipped in without resistance. So did the wire. Both slipped right back out with equal ease.

Doubled trouble.  The spring was broken. Hmmm…I wonder why this little item had been returned? With another trip to Lowes looming in my near future, I began to play with the other wires, trying to get them to slip into these little slots….all without overmuch luck. Mind you, I’m doing all this mostly blind as I’ve left the fan attached to the ceiling and am working overhead, while standing on the superior footing of my mattress.

Finally, I take the switch down and try the process with a spare bit of wire. Those tiny wires, no matter how tightly twisted, are just collapsing when I try to work them in past the paperclip.

Oh joy. Another night with no fan. This time, I get smart. I bring a floor fan up from the basement, so at least I get some sleep.

Have I mentioned, I was doing all this on Wednesday because I had a migraine and couldn’t work on the computer?

Lesseee…..Yesterday. We went skating, then made another trip to Lowes where I exchanged the switch (I’d called them, and indeed, there were a bunch more squirrelled away in a drawer.) impressing on them several times that I was returning this thing because it was broken and please not to restock it and get some other schmuck as confused as I’d been.  Anyway…I went to the lighting department and got my new part, then went to the attendant to get help as to why I couldn’t get the other one to work. She hadn’t a clue. So I went the the electrical department, found another service person and he hadn’t a clue either, but he went after a paperclip and scrap wire and we figured it out.

Sort of. The wire he used had much larger individual filaments, but at least I saw that it could, indeed, be done, and that I was theoretically doing everything right.

Back home to put it in. It works with a lot of futzing. I turn it on, and lights! fan! But, while I’ve been working, I really haven’t liked the way the whole contraption was wiggling against the ceiling. So…I decide, I’d better check the box. I try to shortcut and just slip the housing down…but this is the one fan I have that slipping the housing free makes the whole fan fall off.

Bombed!

Whoops. time to go skating.

TBC