Ceiling fan light kit

duhtroll

Hi all - first post of many to come as I just bought a house built in '08 with an unfinished basement, which I am going to finish.

But today my question is about ceiling fans. I have done this before and I have even checked the wiring -- it seems to be correct but I am getting no response from the light kits.

The home came with two ceiling fan/lights installed, living room and master bedroom. I bought two matching (identical) kits (minkaAire Contractor) for the other two upstairs bedrooms.

The home has two switches on the wall of each bedroom - in the master the two switches work the light and fan. In the other two the light works but the second switch is unused. In addition, both other bedrooms have fan boxes already installed with simple light fixtures on them.

I took the fixtures down and found black, white, red, bare, just like in the master BR. The master BR fan/light is wired black/black, white/white, bare/green, and red/blue, which makes sense that the red would power the blue wire for the light kit on that fan.

I wired the other two fans in the same way -- red to blue.

The fans work, the lights don't. I doubt I have two defective light kits.

My only explanation so far is that those red wires aren't connected at the other end. I did the "light bulb" test on the red wires and got nothing. I even hooked up the fan blue and the black to the ceiling black and got the fan to work but not the light, so I am confused.

What am I missing? I won't mess with the junction box myself -- but am hoping I can avoid calling a pro on this since I have done fans before and this is frustrating me.

Other info - the light kit uses a molex plug system between the fan and light kit, but it also has a black and white coming from the light kit that are right now just sitting loose in the switch cup for the light kit. The instructions do not say anything about hooking these two wires up to something, and if they did I wouldn't know where they could go, but that is the other thought I had.

Thanks in advance for any help offered.
Andrew

dSilanskas

Well usually when wiring a bedroom for a fan light we will do what you just said. Run a 14/3 to the fan box and come down to two switches. One will control the fan and other other the light. What it sounds like to me is that the electrician left the wire off the switch itself. So do what you said, black to fan, red to light, and green to bare copper. Find out what breaker it is and shut it off. Open the switch box and you will see the 14/3 coming into the box and just hook the capped wire onto the switch that isn't being used and you should be all set

duhtroll

Thanks for the help. I uncovered the switch box and saw the red wire hooked up to the switch, so now I am stumped again.

brric

Is there another wire(power) connected to the switch with the red wire?

duhtroll

Yes, red on bottom, black on top.

HouseHelper

I would think it has something to do with the loose wires in the light kit.

__________________
"Life is hard. Life is harder when you're stupid." John Wayne

duhtroll

Thanks - that is another thought I had as well. But I don't know where they would go. There is nothing for them to be hooked up to and I don't think I want to hook a black and white up to each other.

I will check the wires coming off the molex plugs again and see if they have something these B/W could be mated to. Instructions missing a step would be nothing new.

brric

There should be a black and white wire from the light kit that usually plug into a blue and white in the fan housing. The wires inside the fan housing are usually labeled "light kit" or something similar.

duhtroll

Those light kit wires are in the molex plug I mentioned. Nothing else comes from the fan. The only wires to connect to would be in the light kit itself. Once I get home I will check - likely tomorrow.

brric

They probably are in the molded plug but they have to be connected to the light kit.

duhtroll

It turns out they were hiding bundled underneath the bunched wires of the plug assembly in the light kit. So yes, the light kit wires attached other light kit wires, completed in the molded plug obviously, which I don't understand but once I found them it was simple.

The instructions made no mention of it so I am glad you were able to help. Thanks.