Installing a ceiling fan light blue wire

Get a Quick Reply! Ask the Electrician. Electrical Video 1 Electrical Wiring Tips? July 16, at am. Dave Rongey says:. Electrical Video 1 Electrical Wiring Tips. Helping You to Wire It Right! See the Electrical Wiring Video 2 Below:. How to Ground Outlets and Receptacles. The Non-Contact Electrical Tester. Twist another wire connector onto the two wires to complete the neutral circuit. Connect the black insulated wire from the ceiling fan to the black insulated wire from the electrical box.

If you do not have a separate toggle switch on the wall to operate the ceiling fan and light separately, grab the blue wire and place it with the black wire from the fan motor and the black insulated wire from the electrical box. Twist a yellow wire connector to all three wires. If you have the additional toggle switch, connect the two black wires together with an orange wire connector, and then match the blue wire and the red wire together.

Twist another orange wire connector on the red and blue wires. Cecilia Harsch has been writing professionally since She writes mainly home improvement, health and travel articles for various online publications. She has several years of experience in the home-improvement industry, focusing on gardening, and a background in group exercise instruction.

Harsch received her Certified Nurses Assistant license in The function of the blue wire on a ceiling fan is to control the power going to the light kit. Generally, the black wire on a ceiling fan is reserved for the power of fan only and it does not provide power to a light kit. Controlling the lights on your ceiling fan is not possible without connecting the blue wire on the ceiling fan to a power source.

The confusion occurs due to the fact that the blue wire is not a standard wall wiring color and that is why it does not have a color-match like white and black wires.

Why this ceiling fan wire is blue? It is blue to differentiate it from the black wire that controls the fan. Make it just large enough to loop around the hot terminal.

You then loop that exposed wire around the hot terminal of the first switch. Finally, strip the end and connect that to the second switch. The hot returns are then the red wire and the white wire which you tape black on both ends to designate it as a hot wire. You can also jump the ground wire. This method of jumping wires is nice in that it eliminates the need for wire nuts.

It also makes for a simpler wiring scheme and gives you more room to work in the box! This is identical to situation 3 above. However we wanted to outline the wiring differences when the power is actually at the switch instead of in the ceiling. We find this method is encountered in roughly fifty percent of the time in older homes.

It especially occurs when electrical wiring originated in the crawl space. Additionally, there is a sort of clean-ness to this method. It also offers two helpful advantages. First, the wires are consistent. You have no re-labeling of neutral wires.

Secondly, this method of wiring makes swapping out ceiling fans easy. Cutting power at the switch eliminates all power to the ceiling box. We got quite a surprise when we reached inside! What does change is that you can safely deactivate the ceiling fan box simply by turning off the switch. This is handy when replacing ceiling fans with a similar model. However, we still recommend shutting down the breaker, lest someone walk in on you and attempt to turn on the lights!

When stripping wires, we prefer to use a stripping tool as opposed to a razor blade. They almost never have a metal inner winding and are commonly undersized. That makes them difficult to use, if not unsafe.

Instead, be sure to grab a small assortment pack at your local home improvement or hardware store. While typically not necessary, we recommend taping any wire nuts after you make those connections. Wire nuts are normally very reliable, but it never hurts to add an extra layer of protection to keep them from ever unwinding. This is just a good habit to get into and costs next to nothing in terms of time or money to implement.

Hopefully, this guide will get you on your way to installing a ceiling fan and making all of the required electrical connections to get it up and running smoothly. A ceiling fan makes a great addition to almost any room. It can also make you look and feel like a real handyman. When he's not remodeling part of his house or playing with the latest power tool, Clint enjoys life as a husband, father, and avid reader.

Working on a myriad of feature films , Clint honed his skills as a dialogue editor, foley editor, and sound designer. After founding the CD Media, Inc. He also heads up the Pro Tool Innovation Awards , an annual awards program honoring innovative tools and accessories across the trades.