ceiling fan: neutral wire?

[Eazy716]

What does the neutral/white wire do for a ceiling fan?

On the one I have there is the green wires that are grounds, the blue is power to lights(which are not in the fan so not used), black for power, and white for neutral.

But what does the neutral wire actually do? What is it's function?

 

[Falcon67]

It's the return path for power - it is the "grounded" wire. The green wire is for safety, it attaches to the "grounding" wire and that part of the system is designed to cause a fault (trip the breaker) if power gets in touch with it or anything connected to it. They are both connected to ground at the service entrance and have the same potential there. At downstream panel boxes, the neutral stays as a separate path while the grounding wire connects all metal parts of the system to safety ground.

 

[Eazy716]

thanks for the reply.

Let me ask this question.....would it be possible for me to run the fan from an extension style cord, and do it safely? The only time the fan would be on/plugged in would be when I'm in the garage.

 

[Falcon67]

Put a three prong cord on it and it would be fine.

 

[mustangmccance]

BUT WHY YOU HAVE TO MOUNT IT TO THE CEILING, IS IS EASY TO WIRE IT AT THE SAME TIME. IF IS DIFFICULT TO RUN THE WIRES ABOVE THE CEILING ETC. YOU CAN SURFACE MOUNT THE WIRING AND IT WOULD BE SAFER AND PERMANENT. IF YOU ARE LIKE ME ONCE YOU HANG THE FAN YOU WILL REALLY APPRECIATE IT. i HAVE 2 IN MY SMALL WOOD SHOP AND i WON'T GO BACK TO BEING WITHOUT THEM AGAIN, THEY WORK VERY WELL sorry I just realized the capslock was on and I am being lazy about retyping what I wrote.

 

[Eazy716]

thanks for the replies guys.

mustang - my big issue is that all the existing wiring is behind my OSB that I hung. I would have to pull it down to get to wiring.

I do have on piece of wiring that runs to my garage door opener sockets, but I'm not to confident in tapping into it, or if that is even an acceptable way of doing it..

 

[mustangmccance]

I understand that. I still wonder if you couldn't run a surface line or even a piece of conduit to the fan. obviously you know your situation better than I. I would not tie into my garage door circuit however. I know the circuit could handle it, but I do not like to take the chance that something else could short out and disable my garage door opener. ( the garage door is the main door I use to my house. I don't even carry a key to my house) but anyway if yoy use an electrical cord you would obviously have to anchor it well to prevent something cathing it and pulling it down into the fan blades. that just seems dangerous to me.

 

[Falcon67]

mustang - my big issue is that all the existing wiring is behind my OSB that I hung. I would have to pull it down to get to wiring.

Which is why now when I run new power I use conduit and boxes - same issue LOL. I ran a new outlet to the grinding bench last year - almost resorted to getting out the axe to get the wire down there.

Surface mount a 4" box with a 1/2" conduit running over to the wall and turn up into the attic space - or run down to a plug, stack a metal extender box on the outlet box and tie the conduit in there, run 14-2 w/G up to the fan. Mount a control/switch/whatever in the run.

 

[kbs2244]

Mine has an extension cord going to the opener outlet.

You can turn it on and off with the pull chain, but I leave it going all the time.