Fans as in Ceiling not Football

I bought two rather cool Bluetooth enabled ceiling fans online at the end of July and started putting them up a couple of days after I received them. 

It was not as straight forward as I thought. 

One shiny new fan in box

Decided to just install one fan then a couple of days later install the other just in case there where problems with the first one. I must have had a psychic  moment as you will see. 

Getting ready to add the earth wire

Fan 1.

The fans require an earth connection, there was no earth at the ceiling point, just live and neutral. 

Earth wire attached now pull very carefully.

So had to run an earth wire, no real biggy but still a job I would rather not do as it always takes longer than you think.   Top tip when pulling cables is to use some washing up liquid to lubricate the cable, works just as well as any special cable lubricating liquid which costs 5 times as much.

All folded, origami anyone?

The fans came with a marking template which I thought was a good idea. The circular template was folded in half then folded in half again and pointy section (which is the middle when unfolded) was cut. This allowed me to place the template over the wiring and get the placement exactly where I wanted it.  Marked the four holes.

A hole in the middle

 

Drilled the holes, I always use my own rawlplugs  rather than rely on the ones supplied. Inserted the plugs, and this is where the fun begins.

The fans are not that heavy but are definitely a two person job. So throwing caution to the wind, I decided to fit them on my own. Trying to hold the fan with one hand connect the wiring with the other would have probably made a hilarious comedy sketch and had me thinking about the Only Fools and Horses Chandelier moment. (Google it to find out more). Any ways connected the wires, fortunately the connector was a quick connector type rather than the traditional screw type so you can just about do it with one hand. 

Next came the screwing it to the ceiling not as easy as it could have been. Again holding the now seemly getting heavier fan with one hand and screwing the screws in with the other,  fortunately I only dropped one screw.  After a few choice swear words managed to secure the fan to the ceiling. Turned the electricity back on and fan didn't work. @#?¿ I said. So switched the electricity off again climbed back up the ladder, undid the four screws, and the neutral wire had come out of the connector. So re-connected the neutral, screwed the screws back. By this time both arms where feeling rather numb. Switch the electricity back on and hey presto it worked. Downloaded the app as the fan can be controlled by an app or the supplied remote. And it worked for all of ten minutes, then it started having a mind of its own. The light changed from cool white to neutral to warm white and back again, the fan worked though. 

 More swearing this time I said &%$@ and other choice words of Anglo Saxon origin.  Took the fan down, I think you know the sequence by now.  Wired it up on my bed and plugged it in to a socket. Still bad. Had various theories from the flat above having a Bluetooth device that was interfering with it to demonic possession to it actually might be a bad unit.

Fan Jigsaw puzzle 

Decided best course of action was to make a cup of tea. Then as I had a second one I fitted that one, and it worked fine. So put the lamp shade on and the air vent disc.

So it must be a dodgy unit. Wrote to the shop where I bought it from. I was quite lucky as I found out the shop is only an hours drive from where I live, and said I would come by the shop to pick a new one up. So four days later I picked up the new one. 

Fan 1 was still working two weeks later so thought right lets install  Fan 2 ( reminds me of Thing 1 and Thing 2)

Fan 2:

 While doing the earth wire for the second fan I discovered that the old light was wired up incorrectly. Live came from the lighting circuit but the neutral was from the plug circuit, so had to correct that. Here in Spain all circuits have there own live and neutral, so when you switch off a circuit you not only switch off the live but also switch off the neutral. 

Apart from the incorrect wiring the rest of the fan 2 install was a piece of cake. Ohh cake. Time for another cup of tea and did someone mention cake. 

I now have two nice new ceiling fans in the bedroom. 

Ceiling fan