Electrical question: Two ceiling fans, one circuit?

[Uncle Wig]

We'll see. I ordered the 2nd fan and if it doesn't work when I install it, I'll get an electrician.

[Carm]

If you have two white cables over there (or two black) you should have a set of one or the other. Turn off power at breaker. Connect them and turn power back on and try the switch again.

[GGD]

Maybe post a picture of the wires from the missing fan.

[Uncle Wig]

GGD wrote:
Maybe post a picture of the wires from the missing fan.

Good idea. Next time I'll take photos before I disconnect any wires, duh. Here are a couple crappy photos. So it looks like there are three white, one black, and ground for the missing fan.

This one shows the wires from the missing fan:


And this is a photo showing the wires to the fan I put up today (it's a crop from a much bigger photo). One white, one black, and ground.

[GGD]

That's pretty strange, it's hard to tell from the picture if there's a bare end of a black wire, or if all the black wires are terminated in wire nuts.

Do you recall how the old fan was connected to this? Three white wires is odd. It looks like two of them were probably tied together and maybe there was a white wire going to the fan tied with them. If these were tied together, then putting a wire nut on those two might get the new fan to work (breaker off when doing this).

But where did the black wire from the fan go? Did it go to that separate unterminated white wire? Or is there a bare black wire hiding in that picture?

[Carm]

The black wire is there it's hard to see. Connect the white wires together.

[iamrfixit]

Installing the second fan won't fix the problem if it does then it's not wired right. The fans must be wired in parallel meaning each fan should have power regardless of the other.

There are a number of ways this could be wired, depending how the electrician chose to route the cables. Diagnosing will require pulling all the wires outside the boxes so each cable can each be identified, traced and the layout figured out. You may even need to pull out the switches to see where power is brought into the circuit. It may even require testing for voltage to actually identify which cable is the incoming power, or continuity testing to determine where each cable routes to.

I think you should call in an electrician to get this corrected. The work in those boxes is poor, not neatly done, the ground wire is twisted up, not wire nutted and the entire pancake box is badly overcrowded. Almost everything about that pancake box is very poorly done. Most importantly, a ceiling fan should never be attached to the wings in a stamped box. You should either attach the fan bracket directly to framing or install a box especially designed to mount a ceiling fan.

[Mike Johnson]

iamrfixit is right, they’re not installed correctly, not even close. I guess the good news is, you discovered it before one of the fans broke off its mount and hurt somebody. And of course, it’s old overhead lighting so there’s probably no arc fault on the circuit, so while you’re rushing your bleeding, unconscious mother-in-law to the hospital, the exposed torn wiring will arc and start a fire.

If I had to guess, it’s something like



but it’s hard to tell from the photos, it’s wonky, it doesn’t really make sense, and most importantly, I’m not an expert. That diagram is just a possibility and carefully examining the actual wiring, and testing it, would be necessary.

Edited to add: looking again at your photos it’s clear my diagram isn’t what you’ve got. I give up.

[Ombligo]

At this point, with all the confusion we have,it is pretty obvious that something isn't right. Just call the electrician.

I hate three-way circuits.

[space-time]

Ombligo wrote:
...

I hate three-way circuits.

I love 3-way circuits, when they're done right.