No voltage detected at black wire, voltage detected only at red wire coming from ceiling outlet

Question

Moved into a new construction, I was recently trying to install a ceiling fan. There are 4 wires coming out of the ceiling outlet box,

1. Black wire
2. White wire
3. Red wire
4. Bare copper wire

Wired the ceiling fan as instructed, black from ceiling to black from receiver, however this doesn't work.

My assumption was that black wire from ceiling is hot. When I use a non contact voltage tester, there is no voltage detected at the black wire, there is voltage detected only at the red wire. Is this normal?

Answer 1

In the US there is no standard specified if the red or black is the hot for a ceiling fixture fed from the switch location.

I usually do use black for a light ,and the red for a fan but I have reversed it this in the past. Both the red and black can be hot and or switched fixtures.

If the power was at the ceiling it is now common to take the black down as hot and the red is a switched hot but not all electricians do this because there is no code requirement to do it.

So if the red is hot with the switch on and not hot with the switch off cap the black and connect to the red,,, electrons don’t care what color the insulation in and the NEC has no requirement in this case for the red or black but black is more common so the mfg showed that.