I rent an apartment in an old building, likely 1920s. I would like to replace the ceiling light in our bedroom with a fan. The junction box has no weight rating on it, and seems so old that I’m afraid to start taking things apart to inspect further.
To me the box looks like it is barred between 2 joists (sorry for my poor terminology).
No idea if it is safe to install a 20 lbs ceiling fan to this box? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
If the ceiling box is next to a joist, there are fans that allow the box to stay in place to serve as the electric junction box, but the fan is hung from the joist. The shroud is large enough to cover the box so it is not visible.
The new Hunter fans I have installed have special designed ~ 3 inch long wood screws with washers which clamp the fan suspension bracket to the drywall under the joist. The drywall around the box is not modified except for predrilling for the two wood screws. This is to allow easy DIY installation of these fans without the installer having to deal with any changes to the wiring except to diconnect the old fixture and reconnect either to the fan directly or to a wirelessly controlled receiver whose output is connected to the fan and light, if there is one.
The receivers I have installed have as inputs one hot and one neutral. The outputs are one neutral and two switched hots one for the fan and one for the lightkit if one is installed. This allows separate control of the fan and the light with the wireless remote fed by only one wall switch.
Usually the wall switch is left on and the remote can be kept in a little holder which mounts to the wall switch. It is cleverly designed to cover the switch but leave the switch operable if the remote is removed.
Despite the minimal modification of the ceiling (drilling two holes through drywall into the ceiling joist), it would be advisable to get permission from the landlord before doing this. If you would install the fan and leave it in place when you left, maybe the landlord would even pay for the fan.