Best Tips to Remove Speed Issues in Your Ceiling Fan

Has your ceiling fan begun to show it has gone old? Has it gone slower than before? If that’s the problem, you may be able to fix it yourself. Well, most of the time, ceiling fans retain their speed after simple cleaning and maintenance.

Modern-day ceiling fans have three built-in speeds, and some of them offer 4-speed control. Plus, they usually feature two rotational directions to help maintain the room temperature in all seasons. These features allow homeowners to save-energy while keeping up with the room comfort.

Best Ceiling Fans

Ceiling fans don’t require too much maintenance, which probably is the basic reason why homeowners don’t usually notice the slowness of speed, too soon. In this post, you will learn how you can identify the problems of slowdown and what you should do to remove these issues.

When your ceiling fan begins to slow down, it’s a sign of aging. Initially, you wouldn’t be able to notice the decrease in speed, but as the time passes, you’ll feel the slow air movement, or perhaps there would be none.

How Aging Affects the Speed of Your Ceiling Fan

Regular inspection is an easy way to maintain a ceiling fan. It doesn’t take much of your time and allows you to pin-point and eradicate the problem then and there. Your ceiling fan slows down due to three main factors:

  1. The imbalance in fan blades

Imbalance in ceiling fan can be identified easily. If your ceiling fan shakes or wobbles, or even moves around on high speed, there must be a problem with one or all of the fan blades. Check whether any of the fan blades is bent, warped or fixed at a different angle than those of other fan blades.

You need to replace the badly damaged fan blade. However, if it is slightly bent, you may be able to push it and bend it back to its original condition.

  1. Bearings get damaged or become old

The bearings of your ceiling gum up due to oil or dirt accumulation, or they get dried and need oiling. You can identify this problem by spinning the fan blades with hand. If you observe that the fan blades do not move freely, that must be because of the bearings.

  1. Bad capacitor

While checking your ceiling fan for slow speed, if there is no issue with the fan blades (no wobbling or shaking in the fan) and the bearings work properly, there’s may be a problem with the motor. If you replace the motor, be sure to do so with one having similar fan rating.

5 Steps to Increase Your Ceiling Fan’s Speed

With the help of basic maintenance activities, you can improve the speed and efficiency of your ceiling fan. You are going to need the following items:

  • Dust attraction cloth (or lint-free cloth)
  • Lubricant
  • Screwdriver

Step 1: To Fix the Vibration Issue in Fan Blades

  • Use dust attraction cloth to properly clean the blade surface.
  • Tighten up any loose screws that attach the fan blades with rotating center.

Step 2: To Lubricate the Moving Parts

  • Follow the instruction manual to fill up the oil reservoir of your ceiling fan. Use 20, 15 or 10-weight oil as per instructions.
  • Make sure, the oil reservoir is clean. To clean the oil reservoir, fill new oil and give your fan a few rotations. Remove the oil and refill the reservoir.

Now, switch on the fan and notice if these steps have increased the fan speed. If the fan continues to run slow, you need to check the wiring and the switch.

Intermediary Steps

Step 3: Check the Pull Chain Switch on Your Ceiling Fan

There may be a problem with the switch, or perhaps the fan-speed setting is missing.

  • Switch off the fan and wait until it comes to rest.
  • Set the fan on the lowest speed with the help of the chain and switch on the fan.
  • Now, keep your eyes and ears on the fan motor while increasing the speed with the help of the chain.
  • If the motor speed does not increase after every pull, it means, there’s a problem with the switch.

Step 4: Inspect the Wiring

  • Inspect the point where the chain switch has been wired to the ceiling fan. There may be a few loose connections, or you may find a few bare wires.
  • Reconnect the loose wires.
  • If there’s no problem with the wiring, you may need to replace the switch.

Step 5: Check the Motor

  • If the problem persists even after replacing the switch, you need to check the motor windings that may be causing the slowness. Some of the windings in the fan motor control multiple speeds of the fan.
  • Broken windings cannot be repaired. You may replace the old motor with a new one, or choose a new ceiling fan for your room.

Finally

Ceiling fans normally have long life, yet they often begin to run slow due to the lack of maintenance and cleaning. With proper and periodic maintenance, you can remove any flaws in your fan and keep it operating for years.

Leave a Comment:

All fields with “*” are required

Chuck Houk

Hey need some help!
I went into a old hardware store recommended by hunter for a couple of parts. I needed the mounting rubber bushing with the ceiling u mount. I needed a new pull chain switch. He did not have a two speed switch & sold me a three way switch. I need to know what is high speed wires in fan as well as slow speed. There is a white that I knows goes to white. There is a black for hot, a blue, red, & there is the black with white tracer for light switch.

Sunil Banger

I have a crompton fan 56″ but no good working condition it’s speed too low from first time of purchasing capacitor good wiring new no bearing noise how can increase the speed of fan.

    John

    How do you know the capacitor is good? The capacitor controls the fan speed. If you are certain of that, check the wiring or the switch. Lots of online examples of people curing their fan speed issues by replacing the capacitor. But switches can malfunction, be sure it actually ‘switches’. Those parts sometimes fail, and long before the motor fails.

    Ratul

    Change the capacitor to 3.15

Zechariah Balasingam

ALL ceiling fans I have ever used in Malaysia and Australia I HAVE ever used have 5 speeds .
The three speed fan that my wife and I had to settle for from Home Depot is woefully inadequate compared to what I am used to. As a result I have aVERY LOW opinion of any fans available to us here in New England except for the industrial type pedestal fans that clear a room.

Megan

We have a Nordic ceiling fan by Lucci, only installed last summer so brand new basically. Fan is hard wired and controlled by a remote only. No switch or dimmer type arrangement. We have never had any trouble with it before and haven’t used it all winter…turn it on to second speed tonight and it vibrates and is very noisy intermittently, (this is only happening in 2nd speed and on summer mode…) works perfectly fine on all other settings. Wondering if there is something wrong with 2nd settings speed control…bit of a strange one???

Leave a Comment:

All fields with “*” are required