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Hanging Ceiling Fan in Great room
Has anyone had the pleasure of hanging a ceiling fan in a great room with a high ceiling. My ceiling is 18.5 feet high and I am contemplating how to get up there:
(My wife thinks I'm nuts. "Get an electrician for God's sake and mine!" she typed that no privacy!
1) use a 28 foot extension ladder leaned against a exposed glue lam. I was thinking I need to roll up the carpet to get a solid footing for the ladder, the area carpet is 12 x 20 on a rubber pad. The guy who stained it when the house was built did it that way.
2) rent a 16 foot step ladder
3) rent a scaffold
4) hire someone to do it my wife's choice.
The fan I bought has a built in remote control. I am lazy and I was going to put an on off switch in the second floor balcony which overlooks the Great room. Or I was going to be completely lazy put switch in the attic or skip the switch in the attic. Or follow my brothers recommendation and do the switch with a X10 receiver, transmitter, which seems sorta redundant since it comes with remote anyway.
Going with a 60" fan though I see some 72" fans. Is bigger better. Main use is for winter with the stove to get the heat back out of the volume space in the house.
Any comments?
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Hanging Ceiling Fan in Great room
Dennis would your floor support a heavy manlift if you could get through the doorway? There are some small electric ones that hold one man. You push it around then get in and raise it straight up. The issue I see with using a ladder safety aside is the up and down with bulky parts.
I have a 40' telescoping manlift I use to to repair old barns. I made a small platform or "third hand" that bolts to the basket so I can raise and place heavy wood beams easily. So whatever you use, you might want to prefab a work surface to put things on up there.
A small verticle manlift I feel is perfect for the job. The rental cost will more than offset any safety issues, and speed installation.
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Hanging Ceiling Fan in Great room
Dennis; Maybe the Mrs. should drug you with something while she hires someone to do this. Man that is high. Who is going to dust the blades, maybe hang it on a small winch to lower it for cleaning and service. Frank.
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Hanging Ceiling Fan in Great room
We've got a 60" Casablanca on a 12' downrod in the 24' vaulted ceiling in our 15x20 great room. It quietly moves a lot of air and we never have to run it on high. The guys who installed it used scaffolding. It really doesn't take that long to set up and gives a lot of workspace to walk around and store tools on. If you use scaffolding you'll want to set it up on some plywood to protect the floor. If you got a Casablanca I hope your remote works better than ours. Ours is one of those fancy automatic temperature adjusting remotes but it only works when sitting on the left arm rest of the sofa and the replacement didn't do any better.
Be sure to put in VERY long life bulbs if it has a light. We used some of those capsule style bulbs (can't remember the name but they're not typical incandescent) that should last for five years at least.
And for Frank, with a 12 foot downrod and 12 foot stepladder it's not a big deal to clean it out. Only need to do it once a year or so and a quick vacuum can be done from the upstairs balcony with three vacuum pipes stuck together and a brush on the end.
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Hanging Ceiling Fan in Great room
It is going to hang on a 6 foot pole so it will be 12.5 feet when it is up. They also make special extension dusters for fans
I thought you guys were going to say piece of cake what are you worried about.
I guess it will even be hard to raise an extension ladder as the ceiling will make it impossible to raise it in the vertical position.
I will calculate the spread on a 16 foot step ladder tomorrow, maybe that is better.
EW when the house was built before the floors were finished the painters used a lift, but we have a sunken Great Room and we have steps from the outside as well so temp ramps would have to be made up.
I checked into renting scaffolds a while ago, I seem to remember that I flub it up on day one and need day two I would be better off buying the scaffolding  .
I need to drive Harvey's tractor in with the boom on the loader that he has That should make it easy.
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Hanging Ceiling Fan in Great room
Hey Dennis, no problem. What are you worried about? Rent large step ladder. Have all parts of fan out and inspected. Do use long life bulbs. Be sure you have wire for drop tube. One advantage a step ladder has over scaffolding is the cost and set up time. If you have a quality ladder it should be very stable. You are going to have to install this in pieces anyhow so you are not picking up that much weight. Just place ladder where you can pull the fan up the off side. May want a rope or such to hold it while you connect it. You just may want to wire this fan up and test it before installing to be sure all works first. They do rent step ladders that have an extension center section that is totally vertical. Stay away from the extension ladder. Unless you have an extra brother in law. kt
Remember you can do it, we can help!
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Hanging Ceiling Fan in Great room
KT,
Thanks for your confidence, good if one of us has some
I called the local rental place and the biggest step ladder they have is 14 feet.
They have scaffolding (2 sections make 12 feet) for $36 a day, they say it takes Houdini 15 minutes to assemble. So I think I will go with that.
But now the wife says she's not so sure she likes the fan I bought on sale and wants to look around, so my DIY savings will shortly go up in smoke as usual .
Dennis
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Hanging Ceiling Fan in Great room
I purchased a 12' step ladder for my skylights. The neighbor has had it for the last few months. It was a great investment for me - but I can see where a 16' would be hard to get hold of. I wish you luck. I spend lots of time figuring how to get to the high spots in and around my house. I still haven't figured how to stain my 2 story wooden stack chimney ( that extends from basement to above 2nd story which would require a 50' ladder).
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Hanging Ceiling Fan in Great room
Crunch, only one way to do that safely. You need a boom lift like a Genie Z-45 with articulating jib. That puppy will give you a 51 foot working height on all four sides of the chimney. Our house is similar to yours with three floors, all with 9 foot ceilings, and a 12/12 roof. We rented a Z-45 for a week and I was in hog heaven. All kinds of high work got done that week and I plan on renting one of those babies every year or two. Less than $1k delivered for an entire week and it was money very well spent.
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Hanging Ceiling Fan in Great room
Dennis, check with other rental companies, taller ladders are out there. Small hardware store also rents the extra tall ladder. If you decided to go with scaffolding you may want to see what comes with the rental price. Also be sure you know what the working height is. I ended up buying scaffolding fold up unit for less for my need but that was a 12 foot ceiling.
Now thinking on this, rent scaffolding or ladder ($36), 4 hours to unpackage fan and translate to English and be sure fan works, 2 hours to pickup scaffolding or ladder and 2 more to return, 2 hours to clean up after the job, and 2 hours to intall. How much would it cost to hire an electrician on his own to do this? kt
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