Did you write down the what wires connected to the old ceiling fan? Was the old fan and the fan light controlled separately by wall switches? Are the outlets in your house grounded?

While you are answering those questions, Iwill explain the new fan wiring. The black and blue wires are the hot wires. The black wire is the hot wire for the fan and the blue wire is the hot wire for the light. The white wire is the neutral wire for the fan and the light and will connect to the white wire in your ceiling box. The green wire is a ground wire and connects only to the ground wire of your house wiring if you have one.

The black and brown wires coming out of your ceiling box may be the 2 hots from your switches if you have them. If this is so connect the black wire from the new fan to the black wire and connect the blue wire from the new fan to the brown wire and the white wire to the white wire.

Thank you rjoh for your reply.

Unfortunately, as you can probably guess, you are not dealing with to elerically savy individuals here.

No, we did not write which wire connected where with the old fan. Did not even think of it. The old fan had one wall light switch and also had a remote control. It had two pull strings on the fan itself that controlled light and fan separately. I have no idea if outlets in my house are grounded or not. Would you be able to tell us how to check for that?

Also, how do we check if the brown wire is a hot wire that has to be connected to the blue wire on the new fan? And do we just leave the green wire alone? Do we need to cap it or put electrical tape on it? If the brown wire is not hot, do we just connect both green and black to black?

Thank you in advance.

What you need is a book called wiring simplified from the big box store to familiarize yourself about what I am talking about.

With no grounding do not connect the green wire to anything. just roll it up and wrap a piece of tape around it. You only connect the black wire to black and the blue wire to black not the green wire. The white wire to the white wire.

Is there insulation on the brown wire?

Now to find out if your wiring is grounded. Check your outlets. Are they all grounded outlets or are some 2 prong outlets? If you find 2 prong outlets then your house is not grounded. If you have all grounded outlets pick up an outlet tester at the big box store. They plug into the outlet and have 3 lights on them to tell you if the outlet is wired correctly and has a ground. Plug that into an outlet and you will know for sure if your outlets are grounded. Grounded outlets have a half round hole. for the ground pin.

Thanks again rjoh.

This is very helpful. We will look into getting a wiring book. As for outlets, I think now, that they are grounded, as we do not have 2 prong outlets anywhere except for one outlet in the upstairs bathroom. (yes, I know, you don't need to tell me, it is on our to do list). Everything else is 3 prongs. We had electricians over last month for a different reason, and they checked all outlets in the house and did not say anything about house being ungrounded.

I will look further into this when I get home tonight. My husband will not have any time to deal with this till the weekend, but at least I will do research before then.

Thanks again.

An electrician can put the thing right in short order.

Brown is an unusual color in home wiring. There should however be a bare or green colored wire. It may be that the bare/green wire isn't hanging out of the ceiling but connected to the a screw metal box itself. It's also possible (as someone else was suggesting) that your "brown" wire may be infact a dirty bare one.

Fans get connected one of two ways. Either you have separte switches on the wall for the light and the fan (in which case you connect the black and blue to the wires for the respective switches) or you just have one switch and you connect both the black and blue together to it and then use either the remote or pull chains to select the fan or the light on and off

If you have at least 1 2 prong outlet and the age of the home, the previous homeowners probably changed the 2 prong to grounded outlets. Get the outlet tester (see link below)
They are $7-8 at lowes or home depot. Then you will know for sure.

Here is a link that might be useful: outlet tester

Some ceiling mounted light fixtures have insulation for this purpose, but it depends on the .... Ceiling fan and recessed lighting. If anyone can help I will be truely grateful. ... Please could someone shed any light

Here is a link that might be useful: Fanimation Ceiling Fans

I know this thread is old, but for future reference, I thought I'd add some info. In Australia and New Zealand, and possibly some European countries, they use a different wiring scheme. Brown is active, blue is neutral, and green/yellow stripe is ground. Most of the time ground is not bare.

That colour scheme applies to fixed wiring as well as appliances. Quite often in North America we will see these colours in connect-yourself appliances, although I believe in ceiling fan combos, blue is often the active for the light?

In this particular instance, I suspect the 'brown' wire, if insulated, is actually red that's faded/discoloured, so it's a switch leg or something.

I'm not sure if I understand what Blue07 is asking.