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Odd Home Electrical Problem

Chief Brody

Chief Brody

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It's going to be 111 degrees here on Friday....my AC is not handling the heat well, so I looked up in the attic space and saw that my roof attic fan is not working.

I climbed onto the roof and pulled the cover off and checked for power to the fan...it is not getting power....

I looked in the breaker box and there is NO breaker assigned to a "Attic Fan"...what's up with that? Where would it be?
 
the first thing i would do is trace the wire until there is a junction box and check for power there,keep tracing back until u find power,if u cant follow the wires, u can always twist the hot and neutral together at the fan(making sure theres no power of course) and ring it out with ur meter from the next spot u think the wires are. if u find a hot and neutral wire with no power,set ur meter to "ohms" with the "beep" on,and if it BEEPS then u no those r ur wires for the fan!
 
theres always the possibility of a sub-panel also. i found one in my house a couple years ago i didnt no existed. (my house was built in 1952)
 
shaun89 said:
the first thing i would do is trace the wire until there is a junction box and check for power there,keep tracing back until u find power,if u cant follow the wires, u can always twist the hot and neutral together at the fan(making sure theres no power of course) and ring it out with ur meter from the next spot u think the wires are. if u find a hot and neutral wire with no power,set ur meter to "ohms" with the "beep" on,and if it BEEPS then u no those r ur wires for the fan!
Click to expand...

The only junction box I see is the thermostat housing....from there it is white romex that gets lost in a foot of insulation in a place that I can't get to...
 
Doesn't it have to be wired into the breaker box?

and if all the breakers are labeled as to what they are and there isn't a blank on or spare one...what the heck?
 
My fan has a dedicated power line to it, but it also has a light switch inline so I can turn the fan on/off. To find your power source, you may need someone else downstairs while you tug the line and see if they can hear and locate it, and go from there.

Often the thermostats on these seem to fail, Amazon.com sells lots.
 
ya,all wires have to get power from the panel one way or another but if ur house is older like mine,they r so mis-labeled its insane. and home electrical is very hard to trace if a cracker jack electrician wired it. that's y I mentioned the "ring it out" method,it might take a couple guesses but the wires have
to pop out somewhere else,just be sure to test any wires for
power before digging in
 
Jessie James said:
My fan has a dedicated power line to it, but it also has a light switch inline so I can turn the fan on/off. To find your power source, you may need someone else downstairs while you tug the line and see if they can hear and locate it, and go from there.

Often the thermostats on these seem to fail, Amazon.com sells lots.
Click to expand...


I checked the power below the thermostat
 
Usually there are a bunch of devices on each circuit - so the electrician may not have labeled everything on each circuit. My guess is it was run off of some other lighting or outlet circuit near where the wire goes into the insulation.

It may be wired to a switch in the attic - or somewhere else in the house. Are there any switches that you haven't figured out what they do?
 
If the fan was added after house was built it will not be on a dedicated circuit. So what you are looking for is the branch circuit feeding it. Depending on the year of your home it may or may not have an attic circuit. Start with that. If it is older where it was pre code for having a seperate circuit for attic's, basement's or storage areas it may be tied into any of your homes branch circuits.

Breakers DO NOT always show tripped. Or may trip more to the on position than the half position. So if there is no power at the fan lets start simple. Turn each breaker off and then back to the on position (breakers should be exercised once a year anyway). If one trips when you are resetting each breaker you will feel it trip in your fingers. Or you will put the fan back into working order. If it trips again there may be something wrong with the fan.

While I am at it there should be a GFCI on most attic outlets (again depending on age of house). It may be protecting the fan. Usually next to attic access. If you find one there check it for tripped and reset it.

Start with the GFCI first then go to breakers.
 
I found it....your not gonna believe this....

It's wired into the dimmer switch in the dining room....when I turn the lights on it comes on....when I use the dimmer....the fan slows down....

That almost sounds dangerous to me....it's the only switch for the light in the dining room...
 
I got to find a way to separate that circuit....
 
Chief, that looks like it may be fairly simple to fix if you are living there permanently.
Its fixable if you are renting, but you got to do a neater job.....

It looks like you have a black power wire coming into the switch from the panel, along with the white neutral.
Then the white neutral and the two output neutrals are all tied together.

Those can be left alone.
Then, take the one hot black wire loose, and split it up to two wires.
Leave one going to the dimmer like it is now, and take the second and hook it to another switch which is rated high enough for the fan.

Take the black output wire going to the fan loose from the dimmer and put it on the other side of the new switch.

Now comes the tricky part.
You can buy "add on" boxes that will hook to the other side of the stud, or even snap into a hole in the sheetrock.
Mount one of those, somehow run the two wires hooked to the new switch over to it, and mount the switch in that new box.

How you get those wires over, depends on how you mounted that new box.

I have seen a hole cut in the side of the old box, plus a couple of smaller holes. Then the new box with the same holes cut in it was slid into a cutout in the sheetrock on the nonstud side of the old box, and the two were bolted together with the wires running through the bigger hole.

I'm not saying do it that way, that would not be code, and therefore wrong. Just saying I have seen it done that way............
 
Is there a lighting, or any other circuit in the attic you can take power from?

Is that fan supposed to have constant power?
 
What if I just want to let the attic fan have power all the time...it has a thermostat to turn it off, then I could just hook the dimmer to the lights?
 
Chief Brody said:
What if I just want to let the attic fan have power all the time...it has a thermostat to turn it off, then I could just hook the dimmer to the lights?
Click to expand...

That would be fine, as long as it was fused somehow. Many attic fans just run on a thermostat.
But, there might come a time when you want it off. Some of them make enough noise that people have trouble sleeping, and it would be nice to have a switch to throw.

BTW, running that thing on a dimmer, the race was on as to which burned out first.
The fan motor or the dimmer.

NOT GOOD.
 
Fordum said:
That would be fine, as long as it was fused somehow. Many attic fans just run on a thermostat.
But, there might come a time when you want it off. Some of them make enough noise that people have trouble sleeping, and it would be nice to have a switch to throw.

BTW, running that thing on a dimmer, the race was on as to which burned out first.
The fan motor or the dimmer.

NOT GOOD.
Click to expand...

Won't the fan be fused by the breaker still?
 
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