How to Rewire Lighting & Install Ceiling Fan Support Box
So far our Back Porch is slowly progressing and when I say slowly I mean it’s crawling along. We’ve had a few set backs these past few weeks but we’re back on track and ready to kick it into gear! When we last left off my husband and I tore down the ceiling, cleaned up the space and recently added 2x4s to reinforce the beams, making the porch ceiling sturdier.
This week we rewired our lights, we bought 14/2 wire and replaced the outdated light fixtures with ceiling fan support boxes. Our wiring for the back patio was not in good shape and since we had to take down our old ceiling we decided that that would be a great excuse to add new wiring. Lucky for us the electrical panel is located in our laundry room next door. Although it was a bit more work, we knew this was something we needed to do when we talked about updating the back porch.
Please know that we are not professionals, although we do have some personal experience with electrical (we’ve changed a few outlets, ceiling fans etc in the past) I do encourage you to check with your local township/city for any codes or ordinances they require.
Below I break down the materials and our process on how we rewired our porch:
TOOLS/SUPPLIES FOR THIS PROJECT
- 100ft 14/2 electrical wire
- Wire cutters
- Gloves
- Safety Glasses
- Electrical Tape
- Wire nuts
- Wire Strippers
- ceiling fan box/bracket
- Staples (we used ones for electrical)
- measuring tape
- Flashlight (you’ll need to see lol)
HOW TO REWIRE CEILING FAN
IMPORTANT! To prevent electric shock, please make sure to shut off the power going to the room you’re working on from your electrical panel.
First thing to do is to measure how much wire you’ll need for your project. Since we are replacing our wire we measured from the existing fixture. We measured the distance of the existing wire and gave ourselves some extra wire (abut 2 feet or so to make sure you have enough). Once we measured we bought our supplies from Home Depot and Lowes, if you’re not using a ceiling fan you can get a regular ceiling light box.
To install the box we used these ceiling support box to hold the weight of the ceiling fan. The support bracket is adjustable and can fit between ceiling joices. The hardware is included to mount the bracket to the joice, just unscrew the box and all supplies are inside.
We chose an adjustable ceiling box which allows us to re-position the ceiling box if needed. It also comes with two screws and two bolts that can be loosened or tightened as needed.
Once you mount the bracket you can feed the wire through, make sure to secure the wires with staple to keep from shifting.
We followed the path of the existing wire and connected it to the switch box. We did have to make some changes to our switch box from a two gang to a three gang box (we have other lighting) but for the most part you can connect to the current switch box you have.
Once we had everything connected we tested the power using a pig taled light to make sure power is going through before we close off the ceiling later. Thankfully it worked with no issues!
We are so happy to have power back in our porch!
Thanks so much for reading I hope this post helps, make sure to head on over to my instagram for behind the scenes and step by step tutorials!
NEXT WEEK ON HNC…
We will be installing insulation, drywall and painting! So excited to get started! Make sure to follow on instagram for real time updates!
