Ceiling fan installation built for salt air and raked ceilings

If your place is anywhere near the water, choose the fan for the salt before you choose it for the look. Salt air is what kills ceiling fans on the coast, not use. An unsealed motor housing and painted steel blades will pit, stain and seize inside a couple of wet seasons on a beachfront block. Once the bearings are gone you get the wobble and the hum that everyone rings us about. A coastal rated fan with sealed bearings, a marine grade finish and polycarbonate blades costs more on day one and lasts several times longer. That is the single most useful thing we can tell you.

Ceiling fans are our third biggest line of work. We have done 3,751 of them since 2020, across houses, units, resorts and holiday lets from Craiglie and Port Douglas up to Mossman and out on the acreage blocks.

What the blades are made of

Polycarbonate is what we fit almost everywhere now. It is a moulded plastic blade rather than a coated metal one, so there is nothing in it for salt air to corrode. It does not rust, it will never run a rust stain down your ceiling, and it wipes clean with a damp cloth instead of wanting oiling or refinishing. You will see the same blade sold as ABS. Both are moulded plastics and both beat metal and timber anywhere near the water.

The alternatives each have a catch in this climate. Painted or powder-coated steel pits and stains, and once the coating is broken the salt works underneath it. Aluminium holds up better than steel but still corrodes on an exposed coastal block, particularly where a stainless fixing meets an aluminium blade. Timber looks the best of them and fares the worst, because it takes up moisture through the wet season, and a blade that has warped or started to delaminate is what throws a fan out of balance and gives you the wobble. That is the whole reason polycarbonate has become the default here rather than the cheap option.

DC or AC motor

DC fans draw roughly a third of the power of an older AC fan, run quieter, and give you six speeds instead of three. They come with a remote as standard. AC fans are simpler and cheaper, and they suit a wall control setup or a covered outdoor area where a remote will get lost or cooked. In a bedroom, the quiet of a DC motor is worth the extra. On a patio, a solid coastal rated AC fan is often the smarter buy.

Raked and high ceilings

A raked ceiling needs a different mount. Most standard canopies only hang true up to a mild pitch. Past that you need a sloped ceiling adaptor and a longer down rod so the blades clear the ceiling and the fan sits level instead of leaning. Too short a rod on a high raked ceiling and the fan just stirs air near the ridge and you feel nothing at floor level. We work out the rod length on site so you get proper clearance underneath and enough gap above for the fan to actually move air.

Wall control or remote

Remote only is the quickest option on a retrofit because nothing in the wall changes. The catch is holiday lets and rentals, where remotes walk. Wall control gives you a fixed switch that guests cannot lose, though depending on what cable is sitting in the wall we may need to run a new one. Plenty of our resort and letting clients go with a wall control and keep the remote in the drawer as a backup.

Replacing an old fan versus a new point

Swapping a fan on an existing point is usually a short job, but we always check what is holding it up. In older places around Port Douglas and Mossman we still find fans screwed to a batten that was never meant to carry the load, and cable insulation that has gone hard and brittle in the roof heat. A brand new point means running cable, fixing a proper mounting to a joist or a fan brace, and setting up the switching. It takes longer, so it is worth deciding the fan position before we start rather than after.

BH Electrics is a licensed Queensland electrical contractor, licence 82270, with four electricians and two apprentices on the tools. We are fully insured and we clean up after ourselves. Installation work comes with a Certificate of Testing and Compliance, issued by us as the licensed contractor. Same Day Service Guarantee for our commercial customers, meaning a call by 2pm on a business day is attended that day, and 24/7 for emergencies.

Source: WorkSafe Queensland, issuing certificates of compliance.