The ceiling fan in my office gets a lot of use in the summer days. The other day it was time to turn on the house AC, and I turned on my ceiling fan. On low, it was OK, but the medium setting and it started making a horrid noise. Crap.
I ran it on low that afternoon, and a screw literally fell out. Oh boy. So I decided to investigate it today. The screws on the blades themself were fine. The loose parts were screws that the factory starts assembly with attaching the metal blade holders in place. There is zero access without a complete, take it down, and strip it down.
The light kit has to come off first. They are held in place with a ring that tightens onto threads on the bulb holders.
This is the outer threads of ceramic composition, and the ring that goes on is ceramic as well.
The ring goes way up inside the decorative glass shade. My large human hands have little chance of getting it apart, much less back together. I had to make a tool from PVC to grab the ring and remove it, and to re-install it.
That was not the hard part yet!
The metal cover to make the small motor look "pretty" has to come apart. It is a total monkey puzzle to get it back together, but that is later. I finally had access the to screws, and tightened them up, and reinstalled the screw that fell out. It took both hands and a headlamp to get it back together.
Another simple 10 minute task made into a four hour, almost impossible to do, by some engineer. Between the ceramic ring in an crazy tight area, and the no access to the screws is something that designer deserves a hard kick between his legs, even two kicks! If thay had used a drop of Locktight blue, all would have been fine.
I to use a slew of various screwdrivers, Phillips, slotted, and some Torx just to get the dang screws tight.
If any other ceiling fan in our house has the noisy issue (we have 6 of them in the house, and two on the back porch) it will go in the trash, and I will just go get a new fan. I have two old ceiling fans in my garage that I was gifted for removing them and installing new one at a relatives house. They work great.
What a boondoggle.
Oh yea, I had to dig the aluminum ladder from the storage shed, to be able to reach the mount point. And the credenza of my office desk sticks out under the fan, so I was working at my arm's length to R&R the fan from the ceiling. And the credenze has a glass top, so I could not stand on it, just reach around it.