I want to put a ceiling fan in my room, but my ceiling is not wired for a fan/light. I was told to use something called a "swag light". What is this and how does it work? I tried to research it on the Internet, but it just shows a picture of a long chain. Please help – thanks!
An electrician called it a "swag light kit"
Buy a fan. Buy a swag light kit. Buy a ratcheting cross member to hang the fan inside your ceiling. The electrician can put a small hole in your ceiling, then he will slide the cross member up through the hole, turn it sideways so the ends fit between the joists, then ratchet it open until it is very tight between the joists. Your ceiling fan will be mounted to this cross member.
The swag light kit is a cord run through a chain. The electrician will take the cord and connect it to the wires in the ceiling fan. He will then put a couple small hooks (like you use to hang plants from the ceiling) across the ceiling. From these hooks he will hang your swag chain. Plug the swag cord into the wall and the ceiling fan should come on.
Just imagine your ceiling fan that has a really long cord running from the fan, across the ceiling, and down the wall to the receptacle. Swag kits are inexpensive, but make sure the cord is long enough to reach from the fan site across the ceiling and down the wall to the receptacle.
a swag lamp looks like a cup on a chain with the opening facing the ground. It is a lighting fixture that can be ‘hard wired’ to your ceiling and attached to the wires in the ceiling, or purchased with a plug on the end of the chain so you can plug it into the wall outlet and let the chain hang from a special hook scrued into the ceiling. A swag does NOT go with a ceiling fan.
If you want a light on a ceiling fan, you use a light kit meant for ceiling fans. Someone probably said you can’t have a ceiling fan because those things have to installed on a ceiling beam because fans are heavy and vibrate enough to fall down on you if you simply screw them into the ceiling like a swag lamp.
If you can’t have a celing fan, try one of those ’slim tower’ fans that rotate. They dont take much space, move air real well, and you don’t need an electrician to install them.
To have a ceiling fan you need two things:
1. A strong electrical box to mount the fan on
2 Electrical power at the fan location
The ceiling box can easily be mounted by screwing a fan mounting box to a ceiling rafter.Home Depot sells such a box made by Westinghouse.
If you have a ceiling light in the room already, this power can be used to power the fan. If you dont have power at the ceiling, the easy thing to do is use what is commonly called "Wiremold" It is a plastic or metal (your choice) duct which mounts on the ceiling and runs down the wall and connects to the nearest electrical receptacle. The other choice would be to run wires in the wall which would require much more effort.
The swag light reference makes absolutely no sense.