Single Control For More Than One Ceiling Fan

[mrtom]

A local small tavern contacted me today to install a total of six new standard ceiling fans with (incandescent bulb) light kits. They do not want any remote controls but rather standard wall devices to control new ceiling fans/light kits. I am guessing that the customer will be buying standard residential style ceiling paddle fans with light kits from Home Depot/Menards.

They would like to have at a minimum of two ceiling fans/light kits to be controlled with one device (they actually would prefer three fans controlled together with one device and the other three fans controlled together with second device) in order to avoid having a bunch of controls/switches at the same location behind the counter.

I have mostly residential, service upgrade, and service calls /troubleshooting experience and (if you can believe it) never had the situation of having more than one ceiling fan installed per room. Has anyone installed or can recommend a combination fan control/light kit dimmer device that will operate more than one ceiling fan?

Thanks again for a great forum, I don't post many questions, but I do look here quite often and enjoy learning from it.

 

[Riograndeelectric]

You can put all three lights on 1 switch and all 3 fans on 1 switch. Nothing wrong with doing so. I doubt that the fasn pull much more than 1.5 amps per fan.
If you are utilizing an existing circuit you will want to verify that the additional load can be added to the existing circuit.

 

[mrtom]

You can put all three lights on 1 switch and all 3 fans on 1 switch. Nothing wrong with doing so. I doubt that the fasn pull much more than 1.5 amps per fan.
If you are utilizing an existing circuit you will want to verify that the additional load can be added to the existing circuit.

Thank you for the reply. I know standard switches would work without issues, was just wondering if there are any fan controls (speed controls) that would work as well for more than one ceiling fan motor (so no one would have to pull the chain off the ceiling fans themselves to adjust low-medium-high speeds).

Will checkout some online catalogs later tonite.

Thanks.

 

[cowboyjwc]

You can put all three lights on 1 switch and all 3 fans on 1 switch. Nothing wrong with doing so. I doubt that the fasn pull much more than 1.5 amps per fan.
If you are utilizing an existing circuit you will want to verify that the additional load can be added to the existing circuit.

I would agree with that.

 

[GoldDigger]

Thank you for the reply. I know standard switches would work without issues, was just wondering if there are any fan controls (speed controls) that would work as well for more than one ceiling fan motor (so no one would have to pull the chain off the ceiling fans themselves to adjust low-medium-high speeds).

Will checkout some online catalogs later tonite.

Thanks.

An SCR-type speed control for fans will be noisier and less efficient than the winding-switching speed control usually contained in the individual fan unit. But if you can tolerate that you should be able to find a motor speed control which is rated for the total power/current of the three fans. However this type of motor speed control often needs to be set up on installation to have a lower limit on the voltage/speed to avoid damage to the motor. If you turn off one or more fans using the pull chain or a remote, then the setting might not let you go to as low a speed as you want on the remaining fans.

You will get the best performance if you set the fan speed switches to the the highest speed you will actually want to use, not necessarily the highest speed possible, and then use the speed control to go down from there.

 

[ronaldrc]

This might be a little expensive but it would work.

I have a wireless remote control for my Den ceiling fan.

To use with different fans in same room you program the fans all
with a different slide switch code.

If you used the same code on all they all would work the same from one remote.
My fan controls buttons on my remote are off, low, medium and high.

You would have to buy a separate control unit for each fan or have a receiver in each fan.

Ronald

 

[Knightryder12]

A local small tavern contacted me today to install a total of six new standard ceiling fans with (incandescent bulb) light kits. They do not want any remote controls but rather standard wall devices to control new ceiling fans/light kits. I am guessing that the customer will be buying standard residential style ceiling paddle fans with light kits from Home Depot/Menards.

They would like to have at a minimum of two ceiling fans/light kits to be controlled with one device (they actually would prefer three fans controlled together with one device and the other three fans controlled together with second device) in order to avoid having a bunch of controls/switches at the same location behind the counter.

I have mostly residential, service upgrade, and service calls /troubleshooting experience and (if you can believe it) never had the situation of having more than one ceiling fan installed per room. Has anyone installed or can recommend a combination fan control/light kit dimmer device that will operate more than one ceiling fan?

Thanks again for a great forum, I don't post many questions, but I do look here quite often and enjoy learning from it.

Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but Leviton makes a 5 amp, 120v rated fan speed controller.
http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/Sect...9B06922E78175D810E8D158B34AF12C14D9BC5F8260F8

 

[Dennis Alwon]

My advice is don't install more than one fan per speed control. The variable controls would have to be used for more than one fan and as others have said they are noisy

 

[mrtom]

Thank you for the replies and info.

Problem solved, the owner's wife decided that it would be better to have a seperate switch for each fan/light combo, that way they can put them on one at a time as needed. Good news for me LOL.

Thanks again for the input and a bit of an education.