Tag: ceiling fan

January 28, 2026 – Gotta Use Your Noggin

January 28, 2026 /

So, the war is on. We were at the lake house last week for our longest stint ever, three days. We were there primarily because we had the house inspection and Radon test. I was willing to come back so that the tester could pick up the Radon module after two days but my wife wanted to stay.

One of the things that the inspector asked was if there were any concerns. I said that the heating is absolutely inadequate. My wife and I actually were discussing about purchasing and replacing one of the wall heaters the previous night. One of the heaters I could put my hand on the metal grate while it was running for as long as I wanted. It was warm, but that was it. The other heater I could hold my hand about an inch from the metal grate for about two seconds before it was too hot.

I was also interested in the electrical panel to see if there was any space if we do want to add a mini split. Maybe we will resize the heaters? I don’t know for sure but I will say that it takes 24 hours before the downstairs living space is comfortable. One of the thoughts we had was to turn on the ceiling fans in reverse. That is supposed to help keep the heat from moving upstairs.

I didn’t have a ladder so I climbed up on one of the few pieces of furniture that we had, a bar stool. I didn’t have enough height to see on top of the fan base but I felt around and I could not find anything. On the list for the next trip was a ladder. Only the cheapest of ceiling fans cannot be reversed. Ask me how I know but these had remotes and different light hues and fan speeds. I found it hard to believe that there was no reverse switch.

On Saturday, we were working on a puzzle and really just killing time until the Radon test was picked up so that we could leave. This was my time to get busy with the ladder. On the first fan, I plopped the ladder down, climbed up and the switch was right in front of me; fan reversed. I was excited that in five minutes I would be back to the puzzle.

I move to the second fan and I don’t see a switch. I checked three different angles on the fan base. Then my wife wanted to see. She said, “here is the hole where it is supposed to be”. I said “what”? I still couldn’t see it. Once I got through the paradigm that the switch wasn’t there, I missed it because I was looking for something raised, not a hole She was underneath the fan and said that it looks different than the other fans. We did some bickering about why I could not see the hole and I reluctantly agreed to take the fan down and see what I could see.

Ceiling fans are job that I don’t like doing. These things are heavy and awkward. More so than this, it really is not my place to be taking down someone else’s fan to see if I could determine what is wrong. But I did it anyway. When I got the fan off the ceiling, I could definitely see the hole. I stuck the flashlight in the hole and I couldn’t see a switch anywhere. I reluctantly agreed that I would take the fan apart further to see if I could determine the problem.

Once I got the upper housing off, I could see that it was installed about 120 degrees from the switch. Hence, the switch was underneath the housing but not visible or accessible. Once I got thing put back together the way they were supposed to be, I begin to wonder how this was possible. This had to have been built incorrectly in the first place.

The escutcheon was painted to the ceiling. It is possible that this was a homeowner installation, but based on the fact that the previous owners only lived in the house three years, there has already been a major remodel and there are some other electrical oddities, I suspect that this is exactly the way it was installed. Before I am too hard on the installer, I can’t say that I would have noticed this problem either. I strongly believe this is how the fan was built as the fan cover is not a typical user installed part.

End Your Programming Routine: Because we had already been at the house for three days with the heat blasting the whole time, it is hard to say if the fans actually helped. It also makes me wonder if I should pull apart the heater that is only kind of working. I will probably do that while we are here this week. I would have never have guessed that something made incorrectly, installed an used but never noticed the problem would be the case.

July 2, 2025 – Summer Projects

July 3, 2025 /

For the last couple of weeks, stuff has been piling up in our foyer. The reality is that a lot of these projects are not really necessary but as my wife is fond of saying, ‘happy wife, happy life’. It doesn’t say that much for me, but the optional things are relatively easy. It is the necessary ones that are going to be a lot more work.

We have lived in this house over 20 years. That entire time, we have had a heat pump downstairs but no air conditioning upstairs. We had our bedroom upstairs for at least 13 of those years and the truth be told, I only found a handful of days a year to be too hot. Nevertheless, we are having house guests in a couple of weeks. My wife wanted to ensure they were comfortable.

I suppose where it finally cracked, my son’s room is south facing. I won’t lie that it does get hot. But, over the years he has declined the offer for air conditioning. Our exchange student was staying in my son’s room and he spent several nights sleeping downstairs in May when we were in the 90s. Now that he is gone, we are cleaning up the remnants and my son is moving back into his room. It is the perfect time to get the new AC unit installed. I have a second one to install in the upstairs family room.

Speaking of my son’s room, he is also getting a new ceiling fan. My wife says that it needs to be replaced because it is old. What? Remember ‘happy wife, happy life’. The truth is the pull string has been broken pretty short. The reason is the kids would jump off the bed and pull on it breaking it. I know because I have caught them doing it.

This could be repaired for a couple of dollars; I have also done that before. But, it is best not to fight it. I have to say it does look new and more contemporary. The new fan is significantly inferior to the old one. This one has two lightbulbs where the other one had four. Also, the access to remove the globe requires you to reach your fingers up and over the metal fixture, inside of a channel.

The worst part is that I had to completely take the whole fan apart twice. Once because the blade was rubbing on the switch. After that was fixed, I found out that one of the supply wires was rubbing on the fan motor. That is done now.

Now that we have had the dry rot repaired and the new windows are installed, that has spawned two projects. The first is all of the replacement work has to be painted on the exterior. The second project is that I need to do drywall finishing on the inside.

I guess that because those are separate trades, then that is why they do them. It does seem like for two days of work and $5000 in labor that I would have a week’s worth of effort to finish. They did do the initial mud and tape job and it was pretty sloppy, so they did me a favor by stopping and not charging me more.

But wait, there is more. For my wife’s birthday (and anniversary) she want’s a new vanity and light fixtures in the bathroom, bedroom and dining room. This definitely makes my shopping easier but I already had a plan for what I wanted to buy. Now, I am going to have quite a bit of work to get all of this work done. Keep using the phrase ‘happy wife, happy life’.

I think that is enough to do this summer. As I have already stated in my podcast there is still plenty going on in life the summer as well. I am assuming that I can complete all that in the summer time frame. You can expect that there will be periodic updates on all of the work. The fan and AC are done now, at least my foyer is clear of boxes at this point for now.

End Your Programming Routine: We are currently in a holding pattern for cancer treatment. There have been some mixed results on the testing and so the doctors want to wait and retest in a few months. My wife really wanted to wait until the fall to get started anyway, looks like there will be no choice now. Hopefully, I can get the projects finished before my life is turned upside down again.