Looking for ideas...

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1793

1793

Senior Member
Location
Louisville, Kentucky
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Inspector
I have to add a ceiling fan in a room with a vaulted ceiling. There is a ridge beam, hollow, that I need to install the fan on. I believe I can fish from the end of the beam to the fan location, what I would like to know is what is the best way to mount the fan, ie... I have seen, more time than I care to count, a hole in the beam and the fan screwed to the beam, no box. I have seen a cut-in switch box used as the J-box and the fan bracket turned 90 deg. and screwed into the wood.

What have you done in the past in a situation like this?
 
Use a pancake fan box...? if it is flat. or install one of these
whnew80a.jpg


http://www.aifittings.com/whnew80.htm
 
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1793 said:
Surface mounted? Would this not create a visible gap between the fan and beam?
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Only if its not flat, i added some other ideas... Alot of houses I wire have a triple LVL ridge, so they flaten the ceiling at the ridge...
 
If I was doing it, I would use a fan pancake box with a holesaw, but only cut into the beam 1/2 an inch and chisel the rest of the wood out, thats how i've always done it... this way the box is flush with the wood... thanks for the picture also....makes alot more sense... :)
 
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If you have a hole saw kit, start with your biggest hole saw for the box (4 1/4"), then move down in sizes to your smallest, using the first 1/4" hole as a pilot. When you are done, you will have several concentric "holes". This makes it a lot easier to chisel things out.

Mike
 
stickboy1375 said:
If I was doing it, I would use a fan pancake box with a holesaw, but only cut into the beam 1/2 an inch and chisel the rest of the wood out, thats how i've always done it... this way the box is flush with the wood... thanks for the picture also....makes alot more sense... :)
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That's standard procedure (for me) when installing a fan on a solid wood beam.

Since his beam is hollow, I would surface mount a shallow steel pan.

I always cut a donut from sheetmetal to cover the exposed wood between the pan and the edge of the canopy (410.13).

steve
 
Cover plate

Cover plate

hillbilly said:
That's standard procedure (for me) when installing a fan on a solid wood beam.

Since his beam is hollow, I would surface mount a shallow steel pan.

I always cut a donut from sheetmetal to cover the exposed wood between the pan and the edge of the canopy (410.13).

steve
Click to expand...

One thought I've had is to take an 8-B cover plate 1/2" KO in the center, mount to the beam and then the fan mounting hardware. Plate would protect the wood.
 
I bump into this same deal often times in these prefabricated sun rooms. I generally use a Wiremold fan box, in those cases, since the beam is not wide enough to accommodate a fan pancake. In one instance, the customer objected to the Wiremold fan box, so I used a 3-1/4" round regular pancake, recessed into the beam. I bolted the fan bracket into the beam, as the outboard mounting holes in the fan mounting bracket would clear both sides of the little pancake, and bolt right up into the beam.
 
1793 said:
One thought I've had is to take an 8-B cover plate 1/2" KO in the center, mount to the beam and then the fan mounting hardware. Plate would protect the wood.
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That sounds like an excellent solution. I've seen a few fans that came with a sheet metal plate slightly smaller in diameter than the canopy for just that purpose. The fan bracket can then be solidly mounted directly to the beam. If this is a decorative "boxed" beam, there may not be enough material on the bottom of the beam to recess a pancake and still adequately support the fan.
 
I like the idea of the recessed pancake. Depending on the height of the beam, you could surface mount and not be able to tell (I have had to do this on non-hallow beams with wire mold running to the box). My only thought and concern is, how thick is the beam? By the time you recess the box, is there enogh structure to hold the box? Unless...

mdshunk said:
I bolted the fan bracket into the beam,
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