Install foyer light and replaced ceiling fan porblem light stays

17 years ago

I took out a ceiling fan light it had a white wire a green wire and a ground and then 3 other wire that are part are the fan were tied together blue and green, The white went with the white in the ceiling the ground went with the ground and the black with black all normal to me and the there was a red wire in the ceiling that went to the blue green combo that the fan had. I took my foyer fan and did ground to ground white to white black to black and capped the red wire that came from the ceiling and attached to the blue and green fan that were on the old ceiling fan. Now the light stays on.. this old fan was working with 3 separate light switch and in the ceiling they were 3 black and 3 white tied together. the on red wire bothers me but I guess that was for the fan power of the old ceiling fan and was not needed so I capped it was is the light staying on what did I do wrong ps have installed many lights before ...

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Comments (4)

DavidR
17 years ago
Sorry, this seems rather confused. What is a "blue green combo"? "It had a white wire a green wire and a ground" also can't be right; the green wire IS the ground.

Green is always ground. White is always neutral (except as below). Other colors, including blue, are hot.

Ground and neutral are never connected together except at the main disconnect. Hot and neutral are never connected together. Hot and ground are never connected together.

The only times when white can be hot, and may be connected to black, are when wiring a switchloop, or when using cable assemblies for wiring 240 volt circuits. In these cases the white conductor should be re-marked as black, red, or other non-green, non-white color, to avoid confusion. I don't think either of these applies here.

If you actually have red connected to green, you've connected hot to ground. You may be in danger of electrocuting someone - such as yourself.

However, it's hard to tell whether you really have it set up that way, because I'm having a lot of trouble reading what you wrote. You use almost no punctuation and capitalization. Is that really necessary? You aren't typing on a cell phone here. Maybe I'm just a cranky old so and so, but if you can't take time to write properly and clearly, I don't see how you can expect anyone to take time to respond.
karayj
Original Author
17 years ago
Sorry about that let me try again. I took out a ceiling fan that had a light and replace it with a regular light fixture. When I took the fan out there where 4 groups of wires attached to the ceiling fan Black White Ground and red. I attached the 3 wires from the new light fixture as follows one wire to the black one wire to the white and the ground wire to the ground in the ceiling. There is a red wire that I capped this res wire was used for the ceiling fan I guess its no longer needed. I am assuming the red wire in the ceiling was used for the power source for the fan and the 3 black and 3 white wires are for the light source. There are 3 light switches involved for this light. One switch is near the garage the other near the front door and the 3rd at the top of the stairs near my kitchen. The light stays on I feel I should have tied in the red wire that I capped. Hope that helps.
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The only thing that a 3-way switch adds to the equation is two extra wires called travelers. They simply go from one wall switch to the other and have nothing to do with connecting the fan. That's what the two red wires in your ceiling box likely are. Modern ceiling fans have three wires -- hot, neutral, and ground. If the fan has a light or a light kit can be added they will have a second hot wire (often black-white but it can be another color such as blue) so that the fan motor can be switched (from the wall) independently from the light. If you're only going to use just one wall switch, then the two hot wires of the fan (black and black-white) are connected to the hot wire serving the fan. Then you'd just control the fan speed and light from the fan's pull chains. So in your case you'd connect black and black-white wires of the fan to the black wire (hot) in the ceiling box, then white to white (neutral), and ground to ground. It's possible the fan is defective or when you connected the black-white wire to the neutral you damaged the circuity. Make up one connection at a time and see if you can fan motor and light to work independently. Make sure your connections are tight, sometimes in can be hard to get the stranded wire of the fan to twist well with the solid wire of the building.
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DavidR
17 years ago
How did the fan work before? Did the fan go off when you turned off the light, or did it keep running? (That is, did you have to use the chain on the fan to turn it off?)
karayj
Original Author
17 years ago
Never mind I got it to work the red wire in the ceiling was hot. I attached one foyer wire to the red and the other foyer wire to the 3 white and boom it works. The red wire was jumping for all 3 light switches so that was my clue.

Install foyer light and replaced ceiling fan porblem light stays

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Install foyer light and replaced ceiling fan porblem light stays

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DavidR

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