My ceiling fans are haunted.
We discovered this upon moving in, the very first night we stayed at the cabin.
Turn the lights out by the switch on the wall, go to bed.
Around 4 am, when I woke up to take a trip to the bathroom, there was the dining area fan, light blazing, fan whirring at top speed.
Strange.
I knew in my mind that there is a simple short somewhere, turned the fan and light off, and crawled back into bed for a couple more hours of blissful slumber in my new surroundings, the smell of pine walls, floors and ceilings carrying me back to dreamland.
It has happened several times since. It happened when Jason was here, and it was a hoot to watch him freak out just a bit. “What the HECK!?”
The fans make a beep beep beep sound when they turn on or off. And they only work on TURBO. There is no low, medium or high –just GALE FORCE. They are only operable by the switches on the wall, there is no pull-chain action to get them to go on and off.
When I arrived on Tuesday evening, the lights were on. The fan was not. The Hubster SWORE he turned everything off before leaving the last time he was up here.
This time though, I could tell the fan HAD been on – the napkins kept in a handmade basket on top of the dining table had swirled about the room encouraged by the fan, and were littered all over the floor on top of my new area rug.
Something HAS to be done. *I* am so overly DONE with these fans.
We were on a FAN mission and headed over to West Jefferson on a LOWES run. Something must be done.
Two fans, a shop light and assorted necessaries obtained!
It's a good thing. Because on Thursday night I was sitting in my comfy chair, binding to an elisode of Law & Order and I heard the beep from over the dining table, followed by the beep from the fan over the living area, and both went on Turbo at the same time, then one beeped off, the other beeped off and one bleeped back on again in some sort of hysterical game of on/off/on/off/on/off.
ENOUGH ALREADY! You guys are gone!
And the wiring will be rechecked once we get in there and see what was going on that made it do this in the first place.
And I am happy that the living area fan, which has NO light fixture will be replaced with one that DOES have light. I need light. More light is always better :)
And a side trip to Tractor Supply!
Oh my goodness, baby ducks!
There are things at Tractor Supply that you will not find at Lowes. Like a new 16’ gate because the other one is rusted and needs to be replaced. It’s always something.
Our little jaunt to town ended up taking 3 hours, but that was okay. I’d been up here since Tuesday. There is such a thing as cabin fever.
Back home on the mountain!
What’s this I see?
He is using it to check the angles on his roof trusses!
#hubbyofquilter #itaughthimwell
GOOD JOB!!
Yes, he has other carpentry tools and angles, but they are made out of metal or other materials that he can’t SEE through. As long as he isn’t cutting up against the ruler with the saw, I’m fine with it. Just as long as he remembers to bring it back to my cutting table when he is done.
After all, he did this for me:
There is now LIGHT in the cutting area!
My TV is hung on the wall!
From here I can watch DVDs with an HDMI cable from my old laptop with the CD player to the TV. And if I am lucky, and leave the phone in the kitchen where it gets a couple of bars of 4G – I can actually stream Netflix!
This is all thanks to the removal of the clump of 5 trees that were too close to the house at the side of the drive. I’m sorry that I had to sacrifice the trees. But not that sorry.
The trees themselves have become barrier logs lining our parking area so that we won’t go too far forward in the dark and pull over the edge.
Everything has a purpose!
Quiltville Quote of the Day!
Actions not only speak louder than words, they show where your heart is without speaking.
Vintage flower pot quilt top machine quilted by Allison Bayer and shared during my recent trip to Texas. I so love this quilt!
Have a wonderful Sunday, everyone!
PS...This announcement just in! Click the photo below, it's a video.
There are some openings remaining my upcoming workshops with the Stone House Quilt Guild in Manassas, VA for May 5th & 6th. We are doing Pfeffernusse and Moth in the Window!
Are you close enough to come join us? It's going to be a ton of fun and we will be meeting at the Hampton Inn in Manassas.
For more info contact Beth Flores I hope to see you there!
PS...This announcement just in! Click the photo below, it's a video.
There are some openings remaining my upcoming workshops with the Stone House Quilt Guild in Manassas, VA for May 5th & 6th. We are doing Pfeffernusse and Moth in the Window!
Are you close enough to come join us? It's going to be a ton of fun and we will be meeting at the Hampton Inn in Manassas.
For more info contact Beth Flores I hope to see you there!
32 comments:
Very weird on the fans!!! Hope you let us know what it was.
As for hubby....maybe gift him his own Essentional tool for Father's Day :-)
Could your fans have a remote control; that is being used somewhere?
Our bedroom ceiling fan does the same thing. However, it does have a remote as well as a wall switch. The theory is that when someone outside the house uses their remote control to open or close their garage door, it can signal the fan to go on or change speed. Apparently the fans have a similar radio signal as garage door openers. We just keep the switch turned off at the wall and only turn it on when we want to use the fan. Since apparently you don't have this remote control feature, or at least haven't found a remote control to go with the fan, this could be part of the problem. Although as remote as you are I question the garage door opener link. I just wonder if this fan doesn't have a remote control or did have one at some point since it is only operating at a top speed. I would have to think there is some way or at least there was some way to control the speed at some point. Replacing the fan seems like a good idea at this point.
Smudge the heck out of your new cabin with sage. Hopefully that will get rid of those mischievous little gremlins. Glad to see DH has found a use for your ruler. Now he will understand why we quilters must have so many tools.
I had a similar problem with the air conditioner in my sewing room. It would turn itself on and off and had a beep when it did! Had to unplug it until it could be replaced.
I know where your "Hubbster" can order a nice set of your rulers!!! Just saying! :) I just love a cabin by the lake or in the woods to enjoy some "un-wind" time! Glad to see that you're taking a little time for you!
Strange about your fans. My microwave has been turning on by itself when we are not even in the room. Very creepy and very unsafe!
Fans are a little scary. Sounds like an electrical issue glad you're getting them fixed. I did the same thing with the hanging lights in my sewing room. Bought some LED fixtures for the garage and my DH never hung them. I have track lighting so I bought a couple of super cheap fixtures and added the adapter that screws in and allows you to use a light fixture as an outlet. Hung my 48" fixture using cup hooks (wood ceiling)and chain and plugged them in. My DH was out of town on business. He looks for what mischief I might have gotten into when he's been traveling.
The beeps would drive me crazier than the fans actually turning on & off by themselves.
I concur that the fans have remote controls somewhere. Stray signsls are causing them to go on and off. The fan in my bedroom was doing the same thing. It needs a new remote/receiver pair.
must have a remote system and something with a similar signal is causing the off/on replace!
Cabin Fever works both ways! Too much or too little Cabin Time. Gremlins, haunted fans? Glad you're getting all the bugs worked out. Handy Hubby knows how hard you worked on that ruler! Yes, he needs one of his own. Happy Sunday!
Hooray for light over the cutting area!!!
I also have a haunted ceiling fan. It is in the den/great-room where the fireplace is, and has been unhooked from the electricity. Yet, still at odd times, I will come through the house and notice it is 'fanning' away, without slowing down. Then it will just stop on it's own. It really freaks everyone out, especially when I tell them there is no electricity going to it. Someday I will replace it, and maybe learn why it does it? Until then....haunted ceiling fan it is!
Your post made me smile! We have lived in our house for almost 36years and almost all the of that time we get a "swarm of bees" noise in the sitting room when the wind's in a certain direction. The wind appears to make the sides of the patio doors hum - LOUDLY! We had new doors fitted some years ago but t still have the same problem. I can't tell you how many people in our family and guests it has spooked over the years. So loud people have even heard it over the phone although the phone is a long way from ththe patio doors, in the hall!!!
With your fans acting so wonky it could be a short and that could be a fire hazard. It's a good thing you're replacing them & checking the wiring. Still, it would be funny to see people's reactions to your haunted fans kicking on by themselves.
Maybe your fans were haunted lol, but at least you got out of Texas before the tornados hit. I'm in Fort Worth, so we were safe, but Canton got creamed. I hope Stitchin Heaven didn't sustain any damage. They were WAY too close for comfort! Texas in springtime, what ya gonna do?
Your fans sound like what we have on our all weather room. There are 2 Casablanca fans with no lights and they are hard wired into the circuitry of the wall switches. Each fan has it's own switch. Ours have different speeds by holding down a button followed by a beep for each increase in speed. When there has been a storm or bad weather or anything that causes a power surge in the area, our fans will turn on full blast (even if they were not on at the time). Many times when we've come home from shopping they will be spinning at full force and it would be a sunny day. We attribute it to some overuse of electricity that our house is attached to. Maybe the power grid has lots of users and they all have turned on everything in their house that requires electricity. lol We never did think it was a ghost, though.
Your haunted fans cracked me up. Our log homes have many similarities! Our original fan did the same thing. Off to Lowes we went and bought a new fan and longer down rod. Installed a remote as the fan was way above the living room. Hubby got super inspired and bought a matching fan for our loft bedroom. Different remote. All is well unless we have a power outage. Then the lights and fans turn on. Lights are bright and the fans are on high. Great wake up at 0130!!! At least we figured out it is a power surge/outage and not the late Grand uncle Fester causing it!!! Enjoy your vacation and give Hubster his very own essential triangle tool! Hugs from AK. Joy
My wife is sitting across the room reading aloud about the haunted fans to me. The 'beep' sounds familiar, as I just replaced a ceiling fan that had beeps when changing settings. It had a wireless universal switch that allows a room not wired with the extra wire for a fan to have one. A radio frequency 'switch' replaced the original wall switch, above the fan is a radio receiver that is the actual switch for the light and fan control. On the Hunter fan page you will see that the wall remote works in a 75ft range, this is because it is operating by radio frequency.
http://www.hunterfan.com/Accessories/Controls/Universal-Ceiling-Fan-Wall-Control
Doing a Google search it appears that a number of fan controllers operate in the 300-325MHz frequency band, a band also shared by garage door remotes, car keyless entry systems, wireless outlet adapters and the list goes on and on. Here is a link to a list of devices operating in that range.
https://fccid.io/frequency-explorer.php?lower=303&upper=322
My alarm clock was haunted, it was in the off position and would go off at midnight, changed the tone and made sure it was off and it went off at 10pm. Hubby thought he had set it for am, I then made sure that it was in the off position and set for am. Next time it went off it went into the trash!!!
My fan sometimes comes on when I use my tv remote.
We have two Casablanca ceiling fans with lights that both turn on by themselves. Same thing as your fans - wall switch only. It seems to happen during period of wind. It is helpful to hear other people also have this problem, thus it seems less likely to be in the wiring.We do not use a garage door opener and I see no signs of our neighbors doing so either. Quite the mystery.
Very weird about the fans. My mother moved into a new home some 4 years ago. 2 years ago she had a bedroom ceiling light that kept switching itself on - at first she thought she'd forgotten not to turn it off (she is almost 90), but when a relation came to visit it played up again. The electrician was called in and there is no reason as to why it happened. It's behaved for the past few months. She reckons it must be my dad trying to contact her from the other side! Well who knows? LOL!
Love the fluffy babes.
I have not read all the posts, so if this is redundant, apologies. First: the wiring must be checked... fire hazard big time, esp. since this happens whether you are home or not... Second fans can be fitted w/remote control sensors, lights and fan, as well as fan speed... sometimes you just need a gentle air circulation... no turbo... and no need for all those wall switches-- just a thought before you do the install thru-out. Good Luck and no hauntings! xo xo Cats
Another thing to check on with your fan situation - your breaker box. We had a few things in our house that acted up in strange ways when we first moved in. There are a couple of breaker panel brands - Federal Pacific is one, your electrician will know the other - that are super bad fire hazards. They lost their UL certification many years ago due to the danger they pose. We had our box replaced and all of the strange electrical stuff stopped completely.
The fan in our cabin was possessed when we first bought the place, too! It didn't turn on and off by itself, but it ran only one speed: cyclone and the lights were super brignt and would't dim like they were supposed to. It turned out that something was wired wrong, and once the electrician spent about 5 minutes fiddling with it, the problem was solved. Hopefully you've got a simple fix, too.
Loved this post... between the ghosts in the pans and your hubby using your essential triangle... it made my day! Thanks for sharing!
Hi Bonnie. I see others have noted the possibility of a missing Remote controller, that you need. I strongly suspect this is the problem and you evidently weren't blessed with it upon the departure of the former owners. We also live in a "remote" area on the TX gulf coast. Our living room fan is controlled by a wall switch, primarily for on and off, and a Remote that controls speed, but can also do on and off. We have found that any little change in the electricity, such as power surges, storms, or when power goes off and then when electricity comes back on the light and fan will come on, sometimes lightening in the area will do it. Out here we have a lot of power surges and power outages. Our fan usually comes back on at what ever speed it was when it went down. It may be that former owners kept it on high (turbo) since it was up so high, in order to feel like the air was moving. I don't know if you can get another Remote. If it's a Hunter fan, like ours, it's possible you can get another Remote, if you inquire. Good luck, but I don't think the wee gremlins are working your fan, just unreliable power like we have. If you have electronics you value I suggest you also be sure to use a serge protector. Anne on the Texas Riviera Gulf Coast.
My DH suggested that perhaps there is a temperature sensor somewhere that is triggering the fans to turn on (or off). He says to have this looked at when you put the new fans in, because the sensor may be in the wiring, inside or under the fan mounting basket. Make sure it is removed - otherwise the new fans might do the same thing!
@Richard Craver: I do believe that you just cleared up a lot of mysteries for a lot of people!! Great info!!
@Chris Simon: Also, great info! I didn't know that about breaker boxes. I'm going to inform my sister as she lives in a home that is well over 100 years old (125??)
@Bonnie: We call our 'ghost "Chief Flippem' Horse". Lol. He is very sassy and I never, EVER, believed in such things until we bought this house.... Way too many incidents with zero explanation. And believe me, I tried!!!
Your fan story reminds me of when I first moved into my house and the front doorbell would ring and no one would ever be there. Turns out bees were getting in the doorbell button area and somehow set off the bell!
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