Especially in the winter, with wet and snowy cars moving in and out of the garage, I tend to have problems with moisture on the floor and in the air. One of the solutions for this problem is a ceiling fan.
I apologize ahead of time for this post being a bit sub-standard when it comes to the inclusion of pictures. I was getting help on this one from my electrician father-in-law, and the finer aspects of wiring somehow escaped the camera.
I happened to have a ceiling fan that nobody wanted to buy on Kijiji, so I decided to make use of it in the garage instead of selling it. I also had most of the wires and stuff needed for the project, so it was just a matter of putting things in place.
The first thing to do was to choose where to mount the fan. Central to the room is best, but with a big garage door to contend with, that wasn’t exactly possible. The best possible location was marked on the unfinished vapour barrier and a long metal rod was poked up through the plastic to locate the proper spot through the insulation above.
Up top, in the itchy pink stuff (do at least wear a dust mask when working with fibreblass insulation!), the spot was found and a 2x4 was screwed across the ceiling joists to support the fan. The insulation batts were sliced to accommodate the new chunk of wood.
From underneath, the octagonal box that would support the fan was screwed to the new 2x4.
In a drywalled application, you would usually want to recess the octagonal box in the corner of the 2x4s so that it sits flush with the drywall. With this unfinished garage, I felt it was best to stick it underneath the vapour barrier to keep things as sealed-in as possible. Also, because this is a low-clearance fan instead of one that hangs down, the airflow would be a little better if it was farther from the ceiling.
The fun really began when it came time to run the new wire. I decided to have the attached light connected to the rest of the garage lights, with a separate dedicated switch on the wall for the fan. This meant one short wire would be run from the nearest light to the fan light, and one long wire would be run from the switches to the fan.
We replaced the 2-gang switch box on the wall with a new 3-gang box to add in one more switch for fan control. There was enough room to run the new wire through the existing holes in the garage framing and up into to the attic, where I (as the home owner) had the pleasure of doing the dirty work. Calisthenic stretches in the tight confines and itchy fibreglass of the low attic were required to find the wire and string it across the joists. This picture was taken before it was placed under the insulation.
Wires should always be secured every few feet, so wiring staples were hammered on to hold the wires to the ceiling joists. I was using wires left over from a previous project, so I happened to have a black wire and white wire. Most residential wire is white, but it was convenient to be able to easily identify which one was for the light and which was for the fan.
With the two wires strung across and poked down into the new octagonal box, it was time to do the wiring.
Opening up one of the existing light fixtures (circuit breaker OFF!), I wired the lighting portion of the fan into the lighting circuit. Wiring home fixtures is easy - the bare copper wire is the shield and connects to the metal of the electrical box. The white wire connects to the white wire, and the black wire to the black wire. Twisting residential solid wire isn’t as easy as automotive stranded wire, but once it’s twisted and a marette threaded onto it it’s quite solidly connected.
At the switch end of things, the old box was unscrewed from the wall and the new 3-gang box installed. The hot wire for the light switches was used to also supply the new fan circuit, connected to the new switch and the new wire.
At the new octagonal box, the same electrical connections are made but with a couple of exceptions. There is a braided cable on ceiling fans which acts as a safety cable for holding the fan up - this gets screwed to any convenient part of the electical box. The white wires all get attached together. The fixture has a green stranded wire which is connected to the electrical box (and bare copper wire) to act as the ground. There is a blue wire, which is conveniently labeled as the light source, and that is connected to the black wire from the existing light. The other black wire, from the new switch on the wall, gets attached to the black wire of the fan.
And that’s it. The garage should now stay warm and dry in the winter, and cool and dry in the summer.
Cost breakdown:
$6 - 3-gang electrical box
$2 - octagonal box
$3 - 3-gang decora switch cover
==$11
Incidental supplies:
ceiling fan (left over from an upgrade in the house)
decora switch (left over from a dimmer switch upgrade in the house)
~30ft 14/2 residential wire (left over from wiring the garage and basement)
marettes
wire staples
scrap 2x4 wood
various screws
I apologize ahead of time for this post being a bit sub-standard when it comes to the inclusion of pictures. I was getting help on this one from my electrician father-in-law, and the finer aspects of wiring somehow escaped the camera.
I happened to have a ceiling fan that nobody wanted to buy on Kijiji, so I decided to make use of it in the garage instead of selling it. I also had most of the wires and stuff needed for the project, so it was just a matter of putting things in place.
The first thing to do was to choose where to mount the fan. Central to the room is best, but with a big garage door to contend with, that wasn’t exactly possible. The best possible location was marked on the unfinished vapour barrier and a long metal rod was poked up through the plastic to locate the proper spot through the insulation above.
Up top, in the itchy pink stuff (do at least wear a dust mask when working with fibreblass insulation!), the spot was found and a 2x4 was screwed across the ceiling joists to support the fan. The insulation batts were sliced to accommodate the new chunk of wood.
From underneath, the octagonal box that would support the fan was screwed to the new 2x4.
In a drywalled application, you would usually want to recess the octagonal box in the corner of the 2x4s so that it sits flush with the drywall. With this unfinished garage, I felt it was best to stick it underneath the vapour barrier to keep things as sealed-in as possible. Also, because this is a low-clearance fan instead of one that hangs down, the airflow would be a little better if it was farther from the ceiling.
The fun really began when it came time to run the new wire. I decided to have the attached light connected to the rest of the garage lights, with a separate dedicated switch on the wall for the fan. This meant one short wire would be run from the nearest light to the fan light, and one long wire would be run from the switches to the fan.
We replaced the 2-gang switch box on the wall with a new 3-gang box to add in one more switch for fan control. There was enough room to run the new wire through the existing holes in the garage framing and up into to the attic, where I (as the home owner) had the pleasure of doing the dirty work. Calisthenic stretches in the tight confines and itchy fibreglass of the low attic were required to find the wire and string it across the joists. This picture was taken before it was placed under the insulation.
Wires should always be secured every few feet, so wiring staples were hammered on to hold the wires to the ceiling joists. I was using wires left over from a previous project, so I happened to have a black wire and white wire. Most residential wire is white, but it was convenient to be able to easily identify which one was for the light and which was for the fan.
With the two wires strung across and poked down into the new octagonal box, it was time to do the wiring.
Opening up one of the existing light fixtures (circuit breaker OFF!), I wired the lighting portion of the fan into the lighting circuit. Wiring home fixtures is easy - the bare copper wire is the shield and connects to the metal of the electrical box. The white wire connects to the white wire, and the black wire to the black wire. Twisting residential solid wire isn’t as easy as automotive stranded wire, but once it’s twisted and a marette threaded onto it it’s quite solidly connected.
At the switch end of things, the old box was unscrewed from the wall and the new 3-gang box installed. The hot wire for the light switches was used to also supply the new fan circuit, connected to the new switch and the new wire.
At the new octagonal box, the same electrical connections are made but with a couple of exceptions. There is a braided cable on ceiling fans which acts as a safety cable for holding the fan up - this gets screwed to any convenient part of the electical box. The white wires all get attached together. The fixture has a green stranded wire which is connected to the electrical box (and bare copper wire) to act as the ground. There is a blue wire, which is conveniently labeled as the light source, and that is connected to the black wire from the existing light. The other black wire, from the new switch on the wall, gets attached to the black wire of the fan.
And that’s it. The garage should now stay warm and dry in the winter, and cool and dry in the summer.
Cost breakdown:
$6 - 3-gang electrical box
$2 - octagonal box
$3 - 3-gang decora switch cover
==$11
Incidental supplies:
ceiling fan (left over from an upgrade in the house)
decora switch (left over from a dimmer switch upgrade in the house)
~30ft 14/2 residential wire (left over from wiring the garage and basement)
marettes
wire staples
scrap 2x4 wood
various screws
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