Any Electricians in the house?

Get one of those tools that you stick on it and it tells you the voltage/wattage, the hot one is higher (I think). Sorry I forget what they are called. That is weird that they are both black, I have never seen that, even on an older house.

lowsound

 

Usually, digital multimeters will let you know by indicating a "-" if you have the probes on the reversed wires. So, if it reads voltage with no -, you have the positive lead to your house's positive wire.

 

Oh, and you are right about those control units. Don't hook them up backwards, and make sure you get the fan set up on the "high" setting, then lose the chain so that nobody can mess with it. It'll kill it up that way, as well.

 

That works great for a DC Voltage.
I'm assuming Chunk-O is talking 120VAC.

 

Yep... although I had a cheap radio shack special that didn't read negative. But if it's good enough for a professional to keep in the toolbox, chances are that it's at least decent.

 

Holy cow.... thanks for the correction, JimK. Been working on a circuitboard all day and had DC stuff on the brain.

I guess the best way it to test each lead to a known ground and see if you get voltage.

 

You could do what I do . . . I just don't turn the power off to those wires I'm working on. The one that bites is the hot.

It's only 110.

 

Yeah, sorry about that. I popped some capacitors on my trusty old motherboard last weekend, and I just got it fired back up this afternoon. I've been using my multimeter on the DC settings to double check my work, and just had the DC settings in my mind..... even though I knew that the house wiring was 120VAC.

Your test light will do the trick.

 

+1 You need a "voltage detector screwdriver" like this one:
Handheld Voltage Detector

Touch it to each wire. Only the hot wire will make it light up.

 

My friend and I were installing a ceiling fan in our fraternity house the other day. I believe he used something called a "Wiggy", but I'm sure thats not the scientific name for it.

Funny story though. This house was built in the 1890's and has a bunch of circuit breaker boxes in addition to switch gears, many of which aren't labeled. Instead of doing trial and error, he connected some of the wires to his screwdriver, causing a shower of sparks. This tripped the appropriate breaker and saved us a good deal of time.

 

I've done that as well, but I just can't give advice like that. Of course, wrong advice on a multimeter? I can do that.

 

Well, I've picked up so much junk in my pea-sized brain, that I'm lucky to recall my name half of the time.

But yes.... hot to black.

And for the old outlets vs. new outlets/ tester issue, I get the same problem alot. I haven't ever figured out whether the problem is in the construction of the outlets, the grounding of the outlets, or the way some electricians like to use the holes in the back for the connection vs. the screw terminal lugs on the side of the outlets.

 

Without looking it up in the wiring code, I can tell you that I've seen alot of it both ways. I prefer it to be switched on the hot, because I can work on the fixture without messing with the breaker box/fuse panel.

For your particular fan/light controller, double check whatever installation documentation is there for mention of stuff like, MAKE SURE THE HOT IS CONSTANT/ NEUTRAL SWITCHED. If there is no mention (I'm gonna bet there isn't), you are in good shape.