What ceiling fan installation involves

Every summer the same call comes in. Someone has bought a fan, the box has been in the hallway since November, and they want to know what it costs to get it up.

The honest answer is that it depends entirely on what is already in the ceiling. Three very different jobs all get described as "installing a ceiling fan", and knowing which one you have tells you most of what you need to know about the price.

The three jobs hiding inside one request

• There is already a fan there. The easiest version. The wiring, the switching and the mounting are all in place and we are swapping hardware. Usually an hour or so.
• There is a light there, but never a fan. The common one. There is power at the ceiling, but a fan needs its own control, and most fans want more than the two wires a light point has. That often means running additional cable back to the switch.
• There is nothing there at all. New cable has to get from an existing circuit to a point in the middle of the ceiling. In a single storey place with roof access that is straightforward. Under a second storey, or with a concrete or raked ceiling above you, it is a bigger job.

When you ring, the most useful thing you can tell us is which of those three you are looking at. Stand in the room and look up.

Whether the ceiling can actually hold it

This is the part people do not think about, and it is the part that matters most.

A light fitting weighs very little and hangs off the plasterboard. A ceiling fan weighs several kilos and then spins, so it has to be fixed to something structural, usually a joist or a batten put in for the purpose. Plasterboard on its own will not do, no matter how convincing the plug looks going in.

If there is no timber where the fan needs to go, one has to be added from above, which means roof access. It is routine in most Reservoir and Preston weatherboards. It is less routine in a townhouse where the ceiling is someone else's floor.

How you want to control it

Fans come with a few options and they are not equally easy to install after the fact.

• Remote control. Usually the least disruptive. A receiver sits in the fan housing and no new switch wiring is needed.
• Wall control. Tidier to live with, harder to retrofit, because a wall plate needs a run back to it.
• Pull cord. Cheapest, and fine in a bedroom with a low ceiling. Less fine three metres up.
• Fan with a light. Needs separate switching for the fan and the light if you want them independent, which most people do once they have lived with the alternative.

Outdoor and alfresco areas

An indoor fan under an eave is not an outdoor fan. Covered or not, anything outside is exposed to moisture and needs a fan rated for it, otherwise the motor and the fixings do not last.

It is worth saying because the price difference on the fan itself tempts people, and replacing a seized outdoor fan two summers later costs more than buying the right one at the start.

What moves the price

• Whether cable has to be run, and how far
• Whether there is roof access above the room
• Ceiling height, and whether scaffold or a platform is needed
• Whether a mounting point has to be added
• How many fans. Doing three in one visit is cheaper per fan than three separate visits
• Whether the switchboard can take the addition, which matters more in older places on original wiring

We quote a fixed price before any work starts, so the number is agreed before we pick up a tool, and there is no call-out fee for coming to look.

Do it before it gets hot

Fans are the most seasonal job in the trade. Every electrician in Melbourne is booked out the week of the first thirty degree day, and nobody is available on the day you actually want the fan.

October and November are the quiet window. If the box is already in the hallway, that is the time to get it out of there.

We fit fans across Reservoir, Preston, Thornbury, Coburg, Bundoora and the rest of Melbourne's inner north, and we are happy to supply the fan or fit the one you have already bought. If you are not sure the one in the box suits the room, ask before you open it.

More in our guides, including what it means when lights flicker in more than one room, which is worth ruling out before you add anything to an older circuit.