Installing lighting fixtures are one thing; installing a ceiling fan is a whole other project indeed. Balancing a ceiling fan is crucial to ensuring a long lifespan of your ceiling fan. Even when an electrician installs a ceiling fan, they don’t worry about balancing the fan. Use this guide to balancing your wobbly ceiling fan and you’ll be sure to get the most out of your ceiling fan for years to come.
Visual Inspection
While some fans come with a balancing kit, many do not. You can easily buy a ceiling fan balancing kit that will work with any fan. But before you go out and buy a balancing kit, it’s a good idea to do a visual inspection of the fan and its blades. Check the two screws that hold each blade in place and ensure they are snug and tight.
Check for blade alignment. More often than not, inferior wood materials are used to construct the blade and it may be bent or sagging. Use a yardstick placed against the fan motor to gauge the blades uniformity. Gently bend each blade as needed to ensure the blades are aligned. Sometimes, you can switch fan blades around to make it less wobbly. Loose ceiling fan lighting can also cause extreme wobbling in some cases.
Balancing Kits
Balancing ceiling light fans are an easy task when you use a balancing clip or stick on weight set. These weights are placed one by one on each fan blade to adjust the weight ratio and spin on the motor. Start with one blade first and attach a clip onto the center of the blades trailing edge. Test the fan and see if it reduces the wobbling. Test each blade until you find the one that reduces the wobbling the most. Now the weight can be adjusted up and down the length of the blade to reduce wobble even more.
Sometimes, multiple weights need to be added to the fan blade to reduce the wobble and stress on the motor. When this is the case, you may need to test the ceiling light fan many times in order to get the best balancing blades possible.
New Blades
When weights just won’t work, a new set of fan blades can be installed. This can easily be done with a sample template of your blade hardware. Better yet, remove the hardware and take it to the store to help find a matching alignment. Some blades can be bought without the hardware; some cannot. Always ensure that all the screw holes align and you’ll be sure to get a nice matching set of fan blades that will eliminate your wobbling ceiling light and fan.