Question:
I have a ceiling fan with light and it has a remote with pre-wired remote receiver in fan. This is powered from one wall switch. Wiring from the switch is black, red, white and ground. The ceiling fan has black, white and ground wired to the remote receiver and then from the receiver two fanouts to light and fan. My issue is that if I have the fan and light “on” as soon as I turn off power/off at switch, when I turn switch back to “on” the fan and light are both “off” necessitating the use of the remote again to turn them “on”. I have other ceiling fans w/lights in my home and they remember their last status when using the wall switch.
Is there a way to change the behavior I’m having with this fan? Thanks in advance!
Answer:
The solution may be to get a new remote receiver module to replace the existing one. The problem with that is making sure, in advance, that the remote receiver remembers the fan and light state.
I think an even better solution is to:
Remove the remote receiver
Wire up two switches (they might be two switches that are part of one unit) so that one controls the fan and the other controls the light, possibly with fan speed control and dimming included. Note that fan speed control is conceptually similar to dimming but electrically quite different.
If you need true remote control, install switches that support remote control of some type.
The problem with replacing the switches is wires. To control the fan and light separately, you need two switched hot wires. Black/red/white could be two switched hot wires plus neutral heading up to the fan/light. However, if that is the only cable in the switch box then that is actually hot, switched hot, neutral going to the switch (neutral not needed for a simple switch). If you don’t already have the required extra switched hot wire then you would need to run a new cable to replace the existing cable. A new cable is often a lot of work, and as a result the fan manufacturers now include a remote control that, while not perfect, adds only a few dollars to the cost of the fan and provides extra features but with a loss of simple wired switch on/off capability.