2 inch width difference

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Nov 22, 2017 at 16:01	comment	added	Ed Beal		I agree with speedy petey if you do not own the home or are a close relative all the jurisdictions I have lived required a qualified installer.
Jan 12, 2016 at 23:59	comment	added	Speedy Petey		What @BillyC. said. Tear the place down and have the owner re-build with fan boxes installed. I'm glad this comment was made as it is the most intelligent thing I have read here in a long time.
Jan 12, 2016 at 23:54	comment	added	Billy left SE for Codidact		Changing out a fan is easy labor, and this is not codeenforcement.stackexchange.com, nor hireapro.stackexchange.com. You may be able to fashion some sort of support bracket that you could lagbolt to an adjacent stud, or you could modify the bracket or box that does not fit, so that it does. Or drive screws at an angle into the sidewalls of the box. (Especially if you don't own or care about the place.) The most proper way would be to make the landlord demolish and rebuild the building for your new fan. But DIY if you like, and especially if the owner said it was ok!
Nov 5, 2015 at 3:20	comment	added	DMoore		Being a master chef takes immense practice and expertise as does being a good electrician. Changing out a ceiling fan is more on par with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Can a master chef do it? Sure. Needed? No. Also you answer implies that the box isn't rated. If it doesn't imply that then you don't have an answer. I am saying that you are probably wrong and your assumption on the size is probably wrong. The old fan worked for years. I would also assume (after dealing with these old fans) that this bracket is probably 10X more sturdy that the cheap rated crap from HD.
Nov 5, 2015 at 2:47	comment	added	Speedy Petey		........ Secondly, please read what I wrote before replying. I never said anything about old boxes. It was specifically and clearly about fan rated boxes, which are only around a few years in the scope of things. I also never said anything about dimensions from the NEC. Not that an NEC reference would mean anything to you.
Nov 5, 2015 at 2:46	comment	added	Speedy Petey		...........And I never said anything about being licensed. Being qualified and knowing what you are doing is what is important. And in a rental setting having proper liability insurance is most important. I do this every day, and the hack work I see from situations like this is staggering. .....
Nov 5, 2015 at 2:46	comment	added	Speedy Petey		@DMoore, in most places you are wrong about doing electrical work. Also, your allusion to this work being chimp work is both insulting and detrimental to the trade. Installing a ceiling fan in an old setting is absolutely NOT "chimp work" in that a ceiling fan must now be mounted to an approved fan box or be supported directly to the structure. Why do you think this is? Could it be that some fans have fallen and injured folks? No, couldn't be that, could it? ....
Nov 5, 2015 at 2:37	comment	added	DMoore		If your landlord allows you to change a ceiling fan you can - I would trust my wife with changing out a ceiling fan before baking a pie. It is chimp work and you shouldn't act like someone needs a license to perform this. And you are not right about ceiling box sizes. I have seen plenty of smaller ones when rehabbing old homes - luckily I just throw up old fan with new motor. Where in the NEC does it give the dimensions you are talking about?
Nov 5, 2015 at 1:42	comment	added	Speedy Petey		Thanks @DMoore, but I'll CAPS whatever I want to. Sure, a homeowner can do pretty much whatever they want in a house they own and occupy, but if you read the question the poster is the RENTER, not the owner, so tell me how my advice is incorrect? Also, my point about the box size is that every fan rated box I have ever seen has been the size of a 4" octagon box at the smallest.
Nov 5, 2015 at 1:33	comment	added	jloco		Yeah here is what I found today. In California we have Home Depot and Lowes. Competing large scale hardware stores. Home Depot carries Hunter brand Ceiling Fans and Lowes carries Harbor Breeze. The Hunter brand has 3" and larger brackets, Harbor Breeze carriers 2.5" and larger. All I needed to do was purchase the Harbor Breeze fan and the bracket fits right in there.
Nov 4, 2015 at 16:17	comment	added	DMoore		This simply isn't always true. The size of the fan rated box has no bearing on how well it holds up a fan - that would be on the bracket outside the box. If you have installed a lot of older fans you often have to buy a special bracket to mount them to new boxes - because they have narrower bindings. I have seen and used a similar bracket to what OP needs to hang sconce on a smaller box. Also every city I have lived in allows you to change out your own fans and lights so I would cool off on the CAPS unless your advice is correct. Remember this is DIY not hire an electrician.
Nov 4, 2015 at 15:54	comment	added	Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight		Is this a case of the code having changed over the intervening years; or was the old undersized bracket something a previous idiot hacked up to mount a fan somewhere that originally only had a light?
Nov 4, 2015 at 13:40	comment	added	JPhi1618		This is one of those great situations where parts are made incompatible on purpose to prevent people from installing a fan in an unsafe box. I'm sure there's not any adapters because of this too.
Nov 4, 2015 at 12:06	history	answered	Speedy Petey	CC BY-SA 3.0