Has your Hunter ceiling fan stopped working, and you have no idea why? Starting from scratch and attempting to figure out why your fan will not turn on can be a difficult and challenging experience. Where do you start, in terms of the troubleshooting process? This step by step article provides a general troubleshooting guide for Hunter ceiling fans.
Is there power being delivered to the ceiling fan?
The first thing to check, is there power going to the fan? While this may seem trivial, we need to rule this out initially as a concern. Is there a breaker tripped in the electrical panel? One way to tell if there is power to the fan, is if there are lights on the fan and they are working. If the fan has no lights then you can skip this step as you won’t be able to check this. However, if the fan does have lights and they don’t turn on, and the fan does not turn on either, there may be no power going to the fan. Try flipping the breaker that controls the fan’s circuit on and off.
Note: Make sure you always turn the power off to the fan from the breaker before working on any live wires!
If still there’s no power to the fan after this, try checking if there are any wires that came loose in the box that holds the fan to the ceiling. This mounting box typically will have a live wire and a ground wire. Live wires are usually red or orange and black wires are generally ground. If you don’t know which wires are live or not, you can purchase a toning tool which will tell you when you are working with a live wire. This is especially useful when you aren’t sure if you have turned off the right circuit breaker or not. This happens sometimes – maybe you’ve purchased a new home recently, and it didn’t have the breaker panels labelled. You may have to start adding labels yourself, or have an electrician come over and test all the switches to make sure they work properly. Again, you can tell if there is a live circuit (or “hot” wire) by using a toner probe.
If you’re still stumped, you could have a direction switch problem. In the fan housing, you should find a direction switch. It controls the fan going between forwards and backwards. Try changing the switch back and forth a couple of times, to see if that enables the fan to start moving.
Troubleshooting Ceiling Fan Remotes & Dip Switch Issues
If you’re using a ceiling fan remote to operate the fan, make sure the dip switches are set correctly. Dip switches are what sets the frequency between the fan remote and the fan itself. You need to make sure the dip switches are set correctly. Is it possible they were recently tampered with? Maybe the kids were playing with the remote – these things do happen!
If the remote is not working – have you also tried the pullchain that starts the motor? It’s unlikely both the remote and the dip switches have both stopped working at the same time. Pullchains can stop working sometimes too, if someone has completely ripped on the chain and broken it inside. But once again, it’s highly unlikely that the pull chain has been broken and the remote has stopped working, unless you’ve got some very naughty children!