We replaced 8 ceiling fans in our house and they all worked great until the last one. It was wired correctly according to the directions, but now the switch that controlled the previous fan, controls the light and vice versa. Is this a problem/ fire risk? We are having trouble finding the answer to this.
Electrical – Why would the light switch control the fan and the fan switch control the light
ceiling-fanelectricalswitchwiring
Related Solutions
It sounds like your electrical box for the switch does not have the power source (line), only a 2-wire cable to handle the switching for the light; the line comes in at the fixture.
Unfortunately you cannot add an outlet to this configuration as-is. You will need to bring a third wire down into the box from the fixture that will act as a dedicated neutral so that you can have the outlet always powered, and then optionally power the light via the switch.
Based on what you've described, my recommendation would be to bring in an electrician to handle this task for you as it requires pulling a new cable from another junction box and correctly wiring it up.
Another thing that seriously needs to get corrected is the totally unacceptable workmanship of the wire attachment at the switches. The wire insulation should be right up at the screw head. The tail end of the wire should only extend out from under the screw heads by a very small amount.
If this wiring was prepared by someone that you paid to do the work you should take proper recourse to get them back to correct this extremely shoddy work.
If you have no recourse then you owe it to yourself, for safety and peace of mind, to get this mess cleaned up.
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Best Answer
You've likely just swapped a couple wires, if you even have to do anything. If the fan and light are controlled by simple snap switches, then you don't really have to do anything (other than relearn which switch is which). If you have specialty fan controls and/or dimmers, you'll want to switch things around.
In the ceiling box above the fan, there should be a wire connected to the blue wire of the fan, and the black wire of the fan. You'll simply want to swap these wires. So take the wire that is connected to the blue fan wire, and attach it instead to the black fan wire. Then take the wire that was attached to the black fan wire, and connect it to the blue fan wire.
If the wiring is more complicated than I've described (or a remote module is used), please post some photos of the wiring before proceeding.