# Power at Ceiling Fan showing 30 Volts



## landmd (Jun 27, 2015)

Hello,
  My ceiling fan and light have been installed for a couple years and the fan and light both stopped working recently.  It uses a wireless remote so the original wall switch was removed and wired together.  When I pull down the fan and measured the voltage coming out of the ceiling its showing only 30 volts.  I pulled the cover plate off the wall where the old switch used to be and checked the voltage here and its showing 120 volts.  Any ideas?
  I read on another forum that someone had similar issues and it was a loose wire on one of the other outlets in the room.  I pulled all the outlets out and verified the wires were tight.
Thanks in advance for any help.


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## bud16415 (Jun 27, 2015)

sounds to me like your controler box at the fan is messed up. Do you get 120 where the line going up connects to the fan control box?


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## landmd (Jun 27, 2015)

I have disconnected the fan from the incoming power in the ceiling.  The hot to neutral (and hot to ground) read 30 volts.


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## JoeD (Jun 27, 2015)

You have an open connection between the switch box and fan box.


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## landmd (Jun 27, 2015)

What are the options to deal with an open connection?

Also, at the switch box, I connected the white and ground together and checked for continuity at the fan. My meter generates a tone as expected.
I disconnected those and connected the white and the ground at the switch box. When I check for continuity at the fan, I do not get a tone this time. I disconnected and reconnected at the switch box but could not get it to show continuity.


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## bud16415 (Jun 28, 2015)

It is rare for a wire to open like that but it does happen. How sure are you that the wire runs straight from the old wall switch to the fan without making any stops in other Jbox. What voltage do you measure from the black wire to the bare copper ground wire. If you are getting 30 between black and white and 120 between black and ground there is some problem in the white wire leg as mentioned above. 

You could try hooking up a light bulb or something that puts some load on the lines and see what happens. 

Something like a chipmunk could have chewed on the wires or something. Is there a way to get at the wires from above?


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## landmd (Jun 28, 2015)

It became more complicated this morning.  I pulled all the wires out of the switch box all the way to find that the cable going to the fan is a 3 wire with the red capped off.  I then pulled the box out of the ceiling and its only a 2 wire.  I have pictures of when the house was being built, but all I can see in the pictures is the two cables in the switch box (1 two wire, 1 three wire) both go down into the basement (no idea why).  I traced the 3 wire across the basement ceiling where it then goes back up one of the outside walls.
Net is at some point it goes from 3 wire to 2 wire and there are no exposed junction boxes.  I am stumped.


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## bud16415 (Jun 28, 2015)

The original wiring might have been set up for a fan and a light each with their own switch. With the remote controlled one only power is needed. 

Did you check voltage to the ground yet?


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## landmd (Jun 28, 2015)

Ok folks, stupid me figured it out.  On the other side of the room there is another switch and that's there the 3 wire cable was running.  Someone turned this switch off.  To be honest I don't recall it controlling this fixture.
While checking this switch box I found two more potential issues:
1) This one is definitely a problem. There are three switches in the box.  When I pulled them out to check the wires, I see a spark back in the back of the box.  Turned off the power and found the white wire was cut through 90% of the way and as soon as I grabbed it, the wire broke into two pieces.  So if nothing else, this whole adventure may have saved me a fire in the future.
2) In this switch box, there are three different circuits running.  One to the fan, One to a light in the room next to it and one to a light at the top of the stairs in front of the switch box.  I noticed that the electrician tied all the ground wires together.  Can you have the ground wires for different circuits connected together?
Thanks for all your support on the first issue and sorry to waste your time.


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## bud16415 (Jun 28, 2015)

Yes all the whites together. 

All's well that ends well. :banana:


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## JoeD (Jun 28, 2015)

All the whites do NOT go together if they are from different circuits. The different circuits must be kept separate.
All the grounds go together, even from different circuits.


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## bud16415 (Jun 29, 2015)

JoeD said:


> All the whites do NOT go together if they are from different circuits. The different circuits must be kept separate.
> All the grounds go together, even from different circuits.


 

Im a little confused does the OP have two or more circuits? It sounded to me like he had one circuit running to this 3 switch box controlling 2 lights and a fan. He mentioned in post #7 something about a red wire that was capped off but that was in the box across the room. 

Maybe Im misunderstanding what he has. Just trying to learn here.


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## JoeD (Jun 29, 2015)

He stated this, so I have to believe there are three circuits.



> In this switch box, there are three different circuits running. One to the fan, One to a light in the room next to it and one to a light at the top of the stairs in front of the switch box



May he meant three branches on the same circuit.


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## bud16415 (Jun 29, 2015)

JoeD said:


> He stated this, so I have to believe there are three circuits.
> 
> 
> 
> May he meant three branches on the same circuit.


 

Thats how I understood it as he had one cable coming across the basement and up into that box so I assumed one breaker was involved. 

Many DIYers interchange terms and use other terms you never hear normally. Many times you end up having to read something into it that wasnt actually said. I just wasnt sure but assumed as thats the way it was originally wired and the single cable feed.


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## landmd (Jun 30, 2015)

Bud,

  In the end, the fan was on a 3 way circuit.  The switch box that I spoke about and was working on 90% of this thread and one I found on the other side of the room that I did not realize also worked the fan.
  This second switch box has 3 separate circuits (connected to 3 breakers) running into it. One circuit for the fan.  One is a circuit at the top of the staircase for hall lighting (switchbox in question is at the bottom of the staircase) and one circuit for an adjacent room.
  I hope this clears things up.  If not, I am sure I can confuse it more.  LOL.


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## bud16415 (Jun 30, 2015)

landmd said:


> Bud,
> 
> In the end, the fan was on a 3 way circuit. The switch box that I spoke about and was working on 90% of this thread and one I found on the other side of the room that I did not realize also worked the fan.
> This second switch box has 3 separate circuits (connected to 3 breakers) running into it. One circuit for the fan. One is a circuit at the top of the staircase for hall lighting (switchbox in question is at the bottom of the staircase) and one circuit for an adjacent room.
> I hope this clears things up. If not, I am sure I can confuse it more. LOL.


 

Like Paul Harvey now we know the rest of the story. 
So way back someone had a ceiling light up there most likely and wanted it to be turned on from both ends of the room thus the 3way wiring job. Along the way it was converted to a fan and both switches were confusing or whatever so the one switch was removed tied together and it was made into a single switch. Maybe later on the remote setup was added and the switch just was left on until somehow it got turned off by accident causing you to start looking around for the problem. 

Im still confuses where the 30V is coming from? And you did discover a bad wire in the box. I dont pretend to be a pro only an avid DIYer like yourself. Im surprised actually that you have 3 breakers running to one switch box that just control 3 lights. I would have really thought such a thing would have been just branch circuits off one feeder. But if you know you have to shut off 3 breakers to get all 3 things powered down then by all means I would separate the commons to their own circuit as JoeD advised.


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## JoeD (Jun 30, 2015)

30 volts was likely a phantom voltage from a high impedance digital meter.


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## bud16415 (Jun 30, 2015)

I&#8217;m so glad my old analog meter is still going strong.


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## bud16415 (Jun 30, 2015)

JoeD said:


> All the whites do NOT go together if they are from different circuits. The different circuits must be kept separate.
> All the grounds go together, even from different circuits.


 


Just out of curiosity I havent looked at a huge amount of newer concepts in wiring or regional ways things are done. I have seen a lot of branch circuits branching out of outlets and switches, and I have seen the multi wire branch circuits controlled of a dual breaker come up to an outlet and then branch off two 120 legs of the 240 and sharing a common. 

But how often do you see 2 or 3  120v breakers come up together and into one switch box like this and then branch out? I dont think I have ever ran across that around here, but then again Im normally messing around with older wiring. I can picture a multi wire branch circuit where you had a whole bunch of lighting in a long box with lots of switches and high loads like a hall or something I guess I could even see several multi wire branchs in a box like that but I would then break them up into one multi box per double circuit I think. Just seemed odd to me in home wiring. 
Just trying to learn


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## JoeD (Jun 30, 2015)

Since I am not actually a full time electrician working on house wiring I have not seen any where more than one circuit came into the same box.


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## nealtw (Jun 30, 2015)

We see long runs wired with a 3 wire all the time, they use the same common so the breakers have to be tied together.
I think you can use any box for a junction if room allows, but if the breakers are not tied together they should all be on the same leg to avoid 240 volts.


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## slownsteady (Jun 30, 2015)

Also a big PITA when you need to work in that box. You have to shut three breakers just to work safely.


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## JoeD (Jul 1, 2015)

nealtw said:


> We see long runs wired with a 3 wire all the time, they use the same common so the breakers have to be tied together.
> I think you can use any box for a junction if room allows, but if the breakers are not tied together they should all be on the same leg to avoid 240 volts.



No need to be on the same leg.
The only time breakers need to be tied together is when two hots share a neutral. This is call a multi wire branch circuit (MWBC).
If you have a separate neutral for each circuit then no ties are needed even if the hots are on opposite legs.


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## bud16415 (Jul 1, 2015)

I don&#8217;t really care for the idea of MWBC and here is one of the reasons. 

http://ecmweb.com/content/multiwire-branch-circuits-can-be-dangerous

I also wouldn&#8217;t care for mixing three different breaker feeds together in the same Jbox. I would have to assume there is so much draw on each of the circuits thru lighting is the reason they did it that way. If I did do that I think I would be doing some sort of marking inside the box to let someone down the road see each was on its own breaker. With a MWBC you at least see the cable coming in with a red and a black and that lets you know what&#8217;s going on.


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## nealtw (Jul 1, 2015)

I still think every switch plate and outlet plate should have the circuit number on it. No guess work.


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## slownsteady (Jul 1, 2015)

I put the breaker number right on the front of the J-box too


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