fanslightwiring
I am replacing the exhaust fan in my bathroom, however it seems like there is an extra white wire on the fan. The wires came with “quick connectors” – do I remove these and tie the whites together?
I was assuming:
Thanks!
No way from here to know which wire fed the light or fan, but you have a continuous hot feed into the box that fed the receptacle, light and fan. The third wire, maybe it fed the fan or maybe something something else farther down the line, if the latter that needs to be tied in 100 percent to the hot feed. All whites still tied together, blacks to the dimmer from the light and hot. All grounds tied together set with a screw to the metal box. Securing the ground to the box is not needed if the box is plastic.
Before I got too wordy, here is a sketch
Still have to learn to format better
The sketch is a little rough, it should get the idea across I hope
You said
At the switch box there is a light switch that is for the vanity light and one that controlled the old fan.
So you are removing this switch and replacing it with the new one? It isn't exactly clear what you are trying to do. A drawing or pictures would help.
If the new fan has a light in it then you need to use the either the black wire for the fan or the light and the red for the other. The new switch should be fed with a "hot" wire (one that is energized all the time) and one of blacks goes to the light and the other to the fan.
Hope that helps.
Best Answer
Yes, they are giving you separate neutrals so you have the flexibility to put the fan and light on different circuits if you want to. Neutrals must be supplied from the same circuit as the hot; you can't return current from circuit 1 on the neutral from circuit 2, or it causes a number of problems and safety threats.
In an application like yours, feel free to tie the neutrals together using your preferred wiring method.
Once that and the grounds are hooked up, you have 2 from the ceiling and 2 left on the fan. One wire is for the fan, the other for the light. Generally blue is for the light. I have no idea if your house was wired black for the light or red for the light, but whatever. Hook it up one way e.g. black-black blue-red, and if that doesn't do what you want, then hook it up the other way e.g. black-red blue-black.
Make sure not to put a fan on a dimmer by mistake!