Three Tips for Installing Ceiling Fans

As the weather starts to warm up, homeowners think about how to keep things cool. One easy choice (a lot of people think) is to install a ceiling fan. But be careful: the box where all the wires get spliced and where the ceiling fan attaches is supposed to be rated to hold 70 pounds. And, sometimes, the existing box doesn’t fit the bill. How to tell? The easiest way is to go into the attic and take a look: if the “lightbox” is plastic, it might not be able to handle the load and could fail and cause some drooping maybe even a falling ceiling fan. All lightboxes can be replaced and/or drywall cut to get a new box in there. The pictures give you a couple of ideas of products that address this dilemma but they have limitations: the smaller device needs to be located on a joist and the other one only shrinks down to fit a 12″ space between joists. A final option is what’s called the “pancake box.” This is a shallow metal box that lets you fasten right TO the joist and fish your wire in one of the knockouts. The box is the width of the drywall so it ends us being flush with the ceiling.