Ceiling Fan Installation
Ceiling Fan Installation Maitland
The question we get most is whether the fan goes where the light already is, or somewhere better. Moving it costs more and is usually worth it, because a fan is only doing its job over the part of the room you actually sit in. Either way it gets fixed to something structural rather than to the plasterboard. Tell us how many rooms you want done and we price ceiling fan installation Maitland as one visit rather than charging you an attendance each time.
What moves the price is the ceiling, not the fan. A fan replacing an existing light on a flat ceiling with roof access above it is quick. A new position, a raked ceiling, or a cavity with no timber where the fan needs to hang all mean getting into the roof space, and that is where the hours go.
Price Your Fans
Tell us how many fans, which rooms, your ceiling height, and whether there is a light in the spot already.
What we do
Will Your Ceiling Take A Fan?
Blade height is the first thing we measure, because it is the one thing that cannot be fixed afterwards. The blades have to finish at least 2.1 metres off the floor, and that is measured to the blades rather than to the motor, which is where people get caught out. The 2.4m ceilings through the newer Maitland estates and the 3m-plus ceilings in the older houses therefore give you completely different fans. Tell us the ceiling height when you enquire and we will tell you which ones are actually available to you before you go shopping.
Then we look sideways. Blades want around 600mm of clearance to walls, wardrobe doors, curtains and beams, so we position the fan for what the room actually contains rather than at the exact geometric centre. The blades also want about 200mm of air above them. In a bedroom all of that usually puts the fan over the foot of the bed rather than dead centre, which moves air where you sleep instead of at the wardrobe.
Why A 2.4m Ceiling Changes The Fan You Can Buy
On a 2.4 metre ceiling a standard fan on a drop rod will usually fail the 2.1 metre rule, so the answer is a hugger that mounts flush. That is a real compromise rather than a neutral swap: a hugger sits too close to the ceiling to breathe properly and moves roughly forty per cent less air than the same fan on a rod. It is worth knowing before you buy, because it is the reason a fan can go in legally and still disappoint you. Where the ceiling has the height, we hang on a rod and you get the airflow.
What Size Fan Your Room Wants
Bigger is not better here. Roughly 1200mm suits a bedroom, 1300 to 1400mm a living area, and a long open-plan space wants two smaller fans rather than one large one, because a single fan only moves air under itself. An oversized fan in a small room is loud at the speed you need it at.
Start to finish
From Call To Fan Turning
One fan is under an hour. Most jobs we do are three or four in a morning.
-
Tell us how many and where
Room by room, plus the ceiling height and whether there is a light there now. If the ceiling is raked, pressed metal or lath and plaster, mention it. That changes how we fix and how long it takes.
-
We price the visit, not each attendance
A fixed price covering all the fans in one visit, including any noggings we have to install and any control changes you want. If we think the fan you have chosen is wrong for the ceiling height, you hear that now rather than on the day.
-
Install day
We isolate the lighting circuit, fix to joist or nogging, mount and balance each fan, and set the seasonal direction. The lights are off in the rooms we are working in and the rest of the house stays live.
-
Test, tidy, certify
We run every fan through its speeds, test the light, make good the ceiling where we have opened it and take the packaging away. You get a Certificate of Compliance for Electrical Work for the installation.
Have the fans on site if you are supplying them, and know your ceiling height in the rooms you want done. If a room has no light fitting where you want the fan, tell us, because that is the difference between an hour and half a day. A note of which rooms you want done first helps if the budget only stretches to some of them.
Before you book
What People Ask Before Booking Fans
Do I need an electrician to install a ceiling fan?
Yes. Ceiling fan installation Maitland is hardwired work, so it is not legal to do yourself, and the honest detail is what it costs you. Hardwiring anything is licensed work in Australia, so there is no legal version where you do it yourself. What changes the size of the job is whether there is already a ceiling rose where the fan is going. If there is, it is a swap and it is quick. If there is not, it is a new circuit run through the roof space, and that is a different morning.
Can I install a ceiling fan without existing wiring?
Not yourself, but we can, and it is the question that separates a small job from a real one. Without a light point at that spot we run new cable from the nearest circuit or from the board, which means roof access above the room. On a plasterboard ceiling with a decent roof space that is straightforward. On the raked ceilings, pressed metal or lath and plaster common in older Maitland houses, it takes planning and sometimes a surface-mounted approach instead. Tell us the ceiling type when you enquire and we will tell you which one you are in.
How much does it cost to have a fan installed?
A swap where a light already hangs is the cheap end. A new position with cable to run, or a wall controller instead of a pull cord, is more. Doing several at once is cheaper per fan than doing one, because most of the cost is getting into the roof. Quotes are free, there is no call-out fee, and you pay us for the work rather than us taking a cut on the fan.
How much do Bunnings charge to install a ceiling fan?
A retailer quotes a fixed installation price against an assumption: that there is an existing ceiling rose in the right spot and easy access above it. Where that is true, it is a fair price. Where it is not, the job gets requoted once someone is standing in your Maitland hallway. We would rather ask about the ceiling first so the number we give you is the number you pay.
Can I supply my own fan?
Yes, and plenty of people do. Buy it before we come and have it on site at the Maitland address. We make nothing on the fitting either way, so if you want a recommendation you will get an honest one rather than the one with the best margin on it.
How long does it take?
Ceiling fan installation Maitland takes about an hour where a light point already exists. Half a day or more if we are running new cable, fitting a wall controller, or working on a ceiling with no accessible space above it.
Fixing To The Structure, Not The Plasterboard
A ceiling fan is a rotating mass with real out-of-balance force in it, so it has to be fixed to a joist or to purpose-installed noggings between joists. Plasterboard anchors are not adequate and we will not use them. If we take down an existing fan and find that is exactly what has been holding it up, we will tell you, because it is one of the more common things we find on fans installed by someone in a hurry.
When There Is No Joist Where You Want The Fan
We go into the roof space and install a nogging so the fan sits where the room needs it rather than where the framing happens to be. The older Maitland houses are the ones where this comes up, because the framing was never set out with a fan in mind. That is the difference between a fan positioned for the bed and a fan positioned for the timber.
Planned for, an unusual ceiling is routine. Found from a ladder on the morning, it is a second visit. That is the whole reason we ask about it when you book rather than when we arrive.
Putting A Fan Where Your Light Is
Swapping a light for a fan-and-light combination is the most common job we do here, and the electrical side is straightforward: the existing lighting circuit runs the fan, we fix to the structure and we make good the ceiling. What you will want to know is whether you can control the fan and the light separately, and the answer depends on the cable you already have.
What decides your options here is the cable already sitting at the light point, so we check it before quoting rather than on the day. It is the difference between a fan that goes in within the hour and one that needs a conductor pulled through a ceiling you would rather we did not open.
Outdoor areas are their own case. An alfresco, patio or verandah fan must be rated for the exposure, and a fan sold for indoor use will corrode and become a hazard over a Hunter summer or two. We fit outdoor-rated units on outdoor-rated fittings, and we tell you when the one you have chosen is not.
Wall Control, Remote Or Pull Cord?
Wall controls are the most reliable and there is nothing to lose down the side of the bed, but they need a switch wire back to the fan. That is simple where the roof space is accessible and awkward where it is not. Remotes need no new cable and give you speed, light and reverse from where you are sitting, which is why they suit retrofits and bedrooms. Pull cords are the fallback where neither is practical.
We ask which you want before the day rather than fitting whatever came in the box, because changing your mind afterwards can mean opening the ceiling again. If you want a wall control and the cable is not there, we tell you what it costs to add while we are already up there.
The reverse function is worth understanding whichever control you choose. Running the fan in reverse at low speed in winter pushes warm air back down from the ceiling instead of blowing it at you, and on a high ceiling that makes a noticeable difference to heating. We set the direction for the season on the day and show you how to change it.
Ceiling Fans For Maitland Summers
Summers in Maitland are hot and humid, and the fans we fit most often go into houses that already have air conditioning. That surprises you if you had it down as the thing you buy instead of aircon.
The reason is the ducted systems common in the newer Maitland estates. Running the whole system overnight so one bedroom is comfortable is the expensive way to do it, and a fan in that room means you do not have to. We fit bedrooms first for exactly that reason, then the living areas.
In older weatherboard and brick homes with high ceilings, fans do the opposite job: they bring the air back down from where the heat has collected. Those ceilings are also the ones that take a drop rod properly, so we can hang the fan at an effective height instead of tucking it up against the plaster.
The climate we fit for
Maitland runs a mean maximum of about 24.5 degrees across the year, with hot, humid summers. It is why so much of what we fit is about moving heat: fans, cool-running fittings, and roof cavities that sit far hotter than the rooms below them.
Answers
Ceiling Fan Questions
Can you hang a fan on a raked ceiling?
Yes, with a sloped mount rather than a standard bracket, and the rod length has to be worked out against the pitch. Two things decide it: the blades have to clear the slope on the high side, and they still have to finish 2.1 metres off the floor at the low side. A steep rake usually means a longer rod than the room looks like it needs. Tell us the ceiling is raked when you enquire, because it is the one that turns an hour into a morning if it is found from a ladder.
Can you put a fan where my light is?
Usually yes, and it is the most common version of this job in Maitland. The fixing is dealt with above. The thing worth checking before you buy is the switching: if you want the fan and the light controlled separately, that depends on the cable already sitting at the light point, and it is far cheaper to find out at quote than after the fan is on the ceiling.
Why does my fan wobble?
Nearly always the mounting or the blades rather than the motor, and it is the most common ceiling fan call we take in Maitland. Either the bracket is not fixed to something solid, or a blade is bent or a fixing has loosened, which puts the whole thing out of balance. A wobble that started recently is a fixing working loose and worth attending to. A wobble it has had since day one is usually the installation.
Do fans and air conditioning work together?
Better than either alone through a Maitland summer, and it is the cheapest change you can make to a cooling bill. A fan does not lower the room temperature, it moves air across you, which makes the same temperature feel several degrees cooler. So the air conditioner runs at a higher set point for the same comfort. Run them together and the fan costs a fraction of what the compressor does.
Should I get a wall control or a pull cord?
A wall control in a bedroom, without question. A pull cord means getting up and standing under a moving fan in the dark to change speed, which is exactly when nobody does it. A wall control also lets us put the fan and the light on separate switching. It needs a cable run to the switch position, so it is worth deciding before we start rather than after.
Can you install a fan outdoors?
Yes, on a covered patio or veranda, with a fan rated for outdoor use and appropriate IP protection. An indoor fan put outside corrodes, and the blades absorb moisture and go out of balance within a couple of Maitland summers. The circuit feeding it needs safety switch protection, which is worth checking on an older board that may not have any.
Who Picks Up
Ask Before You Buy The Fan
The person on the phone is the one on the ladder. So you can ask whether your ceiling will take the fan you are looking at, and whether the existing light point is enough or you are up for a new circuit.
The awkward answers on a fan job are about the ceiling, not the fan: clearance to the floor, whether there is timber above the plaster to hang off, and what a raked ceiling does to the drop. In the older Maitland cottages there is often nothing solid up there at all, and we put the timber in before the fan goes anywhere near the ceiling.
Maitland, NSW 2320. Open 24 hours, 7 days.
-
Phone
Quickest if you want a fan checked against your ceiling height before you buy it.
-
Form
Better if you are at work, on a site where you cannot talk, or you would rather write the problem down than explain it on the phone.
-
Email
Use this when you have something to attach: a photo of the board, a defect notice, a plan, a quote you want read.
Maitland Ceilings We Hang Fans From
We install ceiling fans across Maitland and the surrounding Hunter: drop rods on the high ceilings in the older suburbs, low-profile fans in the newer estates.
- ABN
- 35 361 481 837
Get Your Fans Priced
Tell us the rooms and you get one fixed price for the whole visit rather than an attendance fee per fan. Book the lot together and the per-fan rate falls, which is why most people do the bedrooms and the living room in one go. Maitland summers being what they are, the diary fills from October, and a fan is a great deal cheaper to run through a Maitland February than the air conditioning.