How to Install a Ceiling Fan on a Cathedral Ceiling | Ask This Old House

kevin scott thank you for coming to denver ah we're happy to be here welcome so this is the room you want the ceiling fan in that would be great all right we probably center it over this room and i'm looking at a cathedral pitched ceiling scott what do you think how are we going to get it up there well we need to mount the ceiling fan to building structure it's heavier than a light fixture it needs to get secured right to the building itself and we need to get power up there so we could probably we could probably come off of this outlet right here we could fish from the outlet up to a switch and then from the switch we could come up the wall across the ceiling and down to the fan but that's a pretty complicated installation and it's going to mean putting a few holes in your wall are there any other options you want all those holes in your house there is there's another option we could put the fan on a remote control it's wireless we can attach it down here someplace so you can control it in the space that you're in so we'd have one less hole we wouldn't have a switch in the wall but it also means less fishing of wire less fishing there's no wires down here at this location we could come across at the easiest spot which looks like up in the loft bring power to the fan and should be good we'll see what kind of power source we got up here all right all right so we are looking for any power up here and i already see some outlets on this wall in fact they wrap around the entire room and i've got two on this knee wall you want to tap into these we could kevin but right here we have a switch box that most likely has power in it we could fish right up this wall into the ceiling across to you right down to the fan okay but i don't have any attic access how are you going to get a wire up and over isn't that going to be a mess we can let me show you whitney this is your ceiling and how it's framed outside we have the roof we have a roof rafter and below we have our drywall which mounts directly to strapping which mounts perpendicular to the roof rafters and that strapping mounted to the roof rafter gives us a little void would allow us to snake the wires from one end to the other without any obstructions the other area that we have is a rafter bay which allows us to fish the wire down that bay endlessly right to your fan with no problems so it's really not a problem fishing wires up here in the ceiling but there are two choke points there are when i change directions i need to cut an access point and that access point allows me to pull the wire out go the other direction right and then the second choke point is actually getting the wire into the ceiling assembly because remember here's that light switch box right so you've got to come up from there that's correct we have to come in out of the light switch box we have to drill through this top plate every wall has a top plate that mounts directly to the ceiling so what we need to do we need to drill a hole we're going to come in at an angle and that will allow us to get into the ceiling bay and we can do our fishing in any direction like we talked about so let's shut down the power and get working on that box do it i'm going to break off this tab with my needle nose pliers and that will allow us to get access to the wall with my fish tape great looks like we're all the way up to the top plate that i showed you what i usually do is put my finger right here and i pull all the fish tape out i can show you that we're right up to the top plate to expose the top plate i cut a notch in the wall using a keyhole saw all right so what we have here is the top plate right here and this white pipe is a pvc vent pipe from down below from your kitchen so we're going to do is we're going to sneak the drill right in through here and drill to the other side to get into the ceiling great we're through so we're through the top plate in this wall which is right here and that means we can fish a wire along the ceiling going in this direction but we're going to have to turn and then continue fishing it down the ceiling in that direction so at this turn it's our first choke point that's right so i need to cut an access hole that access hole we could just cut and patch or i could put in a fixture box for you which would allow later on down the road to put a light fixture in and this fixture box can be for now just covered with this plate so the only thing that you're going to see is right there the box comes with this template i'm going to go ahead and trace it out beautiful all right before i install the box let's run some wire i'm going to run this 14 gauge wire with three conductors to the new electrical box the bare copper wire is the ground the white is the neutral the black will serve as the hut and the red will act as a switch leg which will control that future light fixture so the first thing we need to do is get this wire up to the first access point that's your fish so i'll take the fish tape here we'll go ahead put it right into the top hole of this box right here and we should look for it right up top leave it popped out for you all right there we go so now i need to take the wire tie it onto the end of the fish tape now i have the electrical tape which i'm going to wrap the wires so it'll go right up through the box really easily all right good and i'll pull enough slack to get us right to the fixture all right i think that's plenty all right i'll get the end of the fish tape for you all right now i'm gonna go ahead and insert this into the hole that we drilled and the top plate and you should be able to get it fairly easy a little further a little more yep there it is all right pull it out and there and you can go ahead and pull it all the way through and there's the wire there you go all right so now we're good to that point we'll go ahead and snake the wire down to the fan location whitney what we need to do first is cut a hole in the ceiling for the fan box what i've done here is set up some scaffolding which will allow us to work at this height next we're going to go ahead and get a measurement off the wall kevin what do you have for a measurement to the center of that box up there i've got 77 inches all right all right very good now we'll go ahead and cut the hole and mount the fan box to the structure this is a standard light fixture box has the small metal tabs and the small screws are made for a regular light fixture what we're going to use is a fan rated box it has the same metal tabs for light fixture however we're going to use these threaded rods that are extra heavy duty to hold the weight of the fan so we need to do now is go ahead and trace this out on the ceiling and cut the hole okay so it looks like there's no strapping in your ceiling that is the bottom of the roof rafter right there there's supposed to be a void right here which we had actually found up in your loft so this box that we originally talked about is not going to work it's too it's too big it won't fit in the space so i've had this pancake box which is a lot thinner and we can go ahead and attach that to the bottom of the roof rafter and that'll support your fan and be flush with the sheetrock okay kevin push the snake down keep going keep going not yet keep going that that's it hold it hold it all right go ahead push that's it beautiful so what i'm going to do is attach this 14 2 wire to the fish tape and we're going to pull this back to you this wire has only two conductors because of the remote control we won't need the third switch leg conductor like we did in the loft kevin go ahead and pull the snake okay ah there it is all right we got it all right great let me come up there we can make up that box nice and snug now i just need to splice the wires together ground to ground white to white and black to black we're not going to use the red wire we're just going to leave that for the future what i'll do now is put this button connector in that'll hold the wire so that it doesn't pull out pushes right through the back it won't pull down and i screw the pancake box directly to the roof rafter okay here it is here's your new fan it has a satin nickel finish it has a light kit that we're going to mount on the bottom with wooden blades now it's normally made to mount on a flat ceiling when it comes from the factory and they give you this rod right here which is only about three inches long and you can see if the fan was hanging down from the rod and we took the blade it would hit the ceiling over here because your ceiling is slanted so what i've done is installed this three foot rod it's the same finish as the fan and it'll bring the fan blades down three feet below your ceiling this is what's going to connect right up to the box so we're this metal bracket will carry the weight of the fan and it attaches to the pancake box with screws and this is the brace that will support the fan and our vaulted ceiling this opening needs to be facing upwards towards the high end and that just attaches with a few screws and this is how we hang a ceiling fan on a cathedral ceiling with a ball joint it just hangs automatically plumb now all we need to do is wire it up tie all the grounds together the two neutrals together and the two huts one last thing we need to add to this fan is the light kit i'm going to take this plate off and we're going to tie white to white black to black and this is the halogen lamp that comes with it it's a hundred watts and you can't touch the glass with your fingertips the oil from your fingers will actually shorten the lamp life last thing we have is the frosted globe okay all the wiring is finished and the power is back on and we have got the remote you can control the light and the fan separately give it a try lights on that's a good sign that's good are you guys ready fire it up all right thank you so much for coming to denver and helping me

Channel: This Old House

Views: 1,453,921

Keywords: Ceiling Fan (Product Category), Ceiling, cathedral ceiling, Do It Yourself (Hobby), Construction, How-to (Website Category), Repair, Design, Renovation (TV Subject), Home Improvement (Interest), Interior Design (Industry), Home Repair (Interest), Installation, Electrician (Profession), This Old House (TV Program), scott caron, kevin o'connor, Norm Abram (TV Personality)

Id: Tf5qF93gCVk

Length: 13min 6sec (786 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 13 2015