Ceiling Fan Fell Down!! Common??
 

Has anyone ever heard of a ceiling fan coming loose and falling? A rental house of mine has two ceiling fans outside and a few inside (installed previous to my possession of the home) and one of the outside ceiling fans fell down. Luckily no one was near it. It was off when it came down and the whole ceiling box didn't come down. The disconnection was at a "joint" within the fan assembly. Google searches only revealed a few instances and friends/coworkers I've polled have never heard of this happening.

Has anyone experienced this or heard of it? Or should I consider this just a freak accident?

Thanks.

What do you mean joint?

I have seen them close to falling by being installed in a non ceiling fan box.

Should be moved to the electrical section.

A while back here on the forum someone posted pictures of a fan that fell while it was running. Somehow the connection point for the shaft to the mounting plate failed and allowed the fan to fall twisting the wires all up.
I have seen poor installations come loose .and have repaired more than my share of bad installs but never saw one come down

Happens all the time.
Someone removes a ceiling light and thinks they can now hang a 25 lb. fan fron the same box, not going to happen.

where did it let go? can you post pics?
If it ripped tout of the box is common with using the wronge mounting.
But it sounds like the fan itself came apart?

exactly. hacks everywhere. many times, even very dangerous.

Got to say I've never heard of this one. Doesn't surprise me though.

I have faced this type of situation near about one year ago due to loose installation. Luckily no one was near under the fan.

But I studied the code before and it does not say you need a ceiling box to use with a fan. Maybe this kind of thing are not part of the code more like common sense.

Previously I had a brown builder plastic box with 2 side nails holding a fan.. it held though but was not ideal..

But it IS part of the code: see NEC 314.27.

Yeah, they hang ceiling fans from regular boxes all the time. But actual failures are relatively rare. That's because stuff is mostly overengineered. Hell, a ceiling fan will hang by the wires alone if you put on the wire nuts correctly.

ceiling fan failure
 

I have seen many ceiling fans come loose/fall due to improper installation, poor quality fan parts, and even abuse by a tenant.

Since you have 2 outside fans and one failed at the joint, I would inspect that 2nd fan to ensure its joint is in good shape and not about to fail. Such an inspection might answer your question.