Ceiling Fan Falling
by
Jasanna
Unfortunately no photo at the moment, as I'm at work. My husband gently tapped our ceiling fan in the bedroom with his elbow and down it flew! Luckily no one was hurt, but now there are wires sticking out of our fan, the ceiling anchor still intact with possible wires inside. He touched the fan's wires that were completely disconnected from the ceiling and they shocked him! Is it safe to try to fix and how would you advise we go about repairing it? It looks like one of the 4 pieces that anchored the fan to the ceiling came loose. We're not in the best shape for hiring an electrician at the moment...
3 answers
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If your husband puts his fingers on live wires without checking to see if their hot again, he will be in worse shape even more. First off, you need to find and identify the power switch in the breaker panel that turns off the power to this fixture. You can purchase low cost voltage sniffer at any big box store or hardware store. They cost around $15 and when placed next to a live wire they beep. One person should hold this next to the wires while someone else keeps turning off the breakers in the box until the beeping stops. Check all wires, not just one. Sometimes boxes have several wires from different power sources that need to be turned off. Once your sure that the power is off you then can investigate what happened. If the fan itself just fell down along with pulling the wires with it. And the box is still fastened to the ceiling then there should be a slotted bracket that spans from corner to corner and is held in place with one screw in each corner of the box. Then a small tube shaped bolt screws into this bracket that then is fastened to the fan support itself. Either the bracket failed by the screws coming loose, or the tube shaped support came loose. In any case both are easy fix. If the box fell out of the ceiling then you need someone to come in and install a new fan support bracket to hold the fan into place. It should not be to expensive I would say around $300 to re-install the fan with a new bracket. As long as the fan was not damaged. I would contact my home owners insurance company if you have a low cost deductible. This is why you have insurance in the first place.
Woodbridge Environmental Tiptophouse.com
on Jan 05, 2012
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hi Jassana, also make sure the box is a faan approved box as you cannot use a regular electrical box for a light fixture for a fan. this may be what happened as the means of which they attach is much more rugged on the proper box and vibration will cause this to happen if that was the case we see this happen all the time. take care, charlie
Ace Solves It All
on Jan 06, 2012
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YES MAKE SURE YOU INSTALL A MATAL OCTAGON BOX TO SUPPORT THE WEIGHT OF THE FAN.AS SOME ARE REALLY HEAVY
MANUEL ALBERTO D
on Jan 18, 2012
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