Installing Ceiling Fans for Back Patio

We bought a couple of ceiling fans for our covered back patio and set about the task of installing them to replace the light fixtures in the ceiling. Some of the work was more challenging than expected as it can be on these types of projects. The ceiling fan that we chose was the Hampton Bay Cedar Lake, mainly because the blades and airflow are suitable for the smaller area, it is rated for outdoor covered usage, and the light fixture looks cool:

Removing Existing Fixture and Electrical Box

First of all power was cut from the circuit at the switch box. Then the original light fixture had to be removed:

which revealed a plastic electrical box, which is OK for light fixtures but totally inadequate for a ceiling fan:

These types of boxes need to be replaced by something rated to support a ceiling fan such as a metal box supported by some structure between the ceiling joists. But first the existing box needed to be removed which was somewhat difficult because it is nailed to a joist from the side by two nails. I used a long piece of wood and hammered it upward to push the box up until it broke. I was then able to remove the nails and the rest of the box.

Installing New Electrical Box Brace Kit

Since there is no way to do the assembly of a bracing from above the key is to install it from below using a ceiling fan brace kit and I found a brace kit from Home Depot that did the trick and looks like this:

The angular legs at each end of the kit stand on the sheet rock and the square-shaped brace is turned to expand the brace. There are barbs at the end of the legs that grab to the studs on both sides of the hole as the tension is tightened and the brace is centered over the hole as such:

Then the electrical fixture box is hung from the brace and the wiring is run through two holes in the box. In this case there was two sets of wires as the house wiring is relaying the power to the second light in the patio ceiling.

Installing the Ceiling Fan

The first step was to install the ceiling fan mount to the braced electrical box that was installed in the previous section:

Then the blades are attached to the motor assembly which is then attached to the ceiling fan mount:

Next the house wiring is attached to the motor assembly wiring and the canopy is attached to the ceiling fan mount to hide everything:

Finally the light kit is installed to complete the installation:

This particular model ceiling fan won’t work until the light kit is installed so it was now ready for testing. The power was then restored to the circuit and the ceiling fan was tested and worked well.

Painting Ring Left by the Original Light Fixture

There was a ring of unpainted sheet rock around the fan canopy, which was the area that had been covered by the original light fixture (see image above). The challenge here was to match the ceiling paint because we didn’t have the original paint nor its specification.

Getting Paint Chip and Color Matching

Using an X-ACTO knife I cut a dime-size paint chip near the fan from the outside paper part of the sheet rock. I took it to the local Sherwin Williams paint store and they used a scanning device to do a color match and sold me a quart of the matched paint. After painting the area I noticed the color match was close but the sheen was off:

In the more lighted areas of the above image it’s apparent that the sheen is different. The paint is a flat sheen, but the original paint has a satin sheen, which appears as a mismatch in color. When I got the matched paint at Sherwin Williams I assumed they also matched the sheen of the paint but when I returned to the store it was pointed out that the system doesn’t match the sheen.

I got a new can of matched paint with a satin sheen and then repainted and the match was then perfect:

The conclusion of the color match challenge was to be careful to specify the correct sheen when ordering the paint, although that may not always be easy until the paint is laid down.

Conclusion

The installed ceiling fans look good and deliver a nice airflow smoothly and quietly. The biggest challenges in the project were the removal of the old electrical box, the installation of the braced electrical box, and the matching of the existing paint to finish the project. The ceiling fan itself was easy to install thanks to the nice the “QuickFit” installation provided by Hampton Bay fans.