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I have red-white-black wires coming from my switch and 2 sets of house wires (black-white-grnd). Can someone tell me how to tie these together with a new fan that has two white, one black and one blue wire?

Thanks.

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isherwood
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cribby
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  • Model # of fan, pictures of existing wiring and knowing what was there before (a different fan, a light, both?) would help. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Jul 28 '21 at 15:23
  • Nu Tone HB80RL is going in. Nu Tone fan/light removed. No model number but it had black/white going to the fan plug and red/white/yellow to the light. – cribby Jul 28 '21 at 17:50
  • New information belongs in your question, please, not down here. Take the [tour] to learn more. – isherwood Jul 28 '21 at 18:17
  • Yes, [edit] the question to add data. The first clue here is the black tape tagging the white wire in the /3 cable. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jul 28 '21 at 18:26
  • Thanks again for your time and expertise! One more thing. I like the single switch because it's a timer switch. Don't need my kids leaving things on all day and there is another light fixture in the room. So leaving it as is, how does the wiring go? – cribby Jul 28 '21 at 18:51

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Assuming everything was done the "usual" way:

Switch cable:

  • Black & Red = switched hots - connect one to fan black and one to fan blue (doesn't matter electrically, but which one you choose will determine which switch controls fan vs. light)
  • White = hot. Normally white is neutral, but if you have a cable with black/red/white being used for hot + two switched hot, white is used as the always hot and marked (as shown) with black tape or marker. Connect to the blacks in the other 2 cables.

Other cables:

  • All blacks together and connected to white-marked-black from switch cable.
  • All whites together and connected to whites from new fan/light.

One of those cables is incoming power. The other goes someplace else - e.g., another light or receptacle. There is almost certainly something else that stopped working when you took this all apart - i.e., if you capped all these wires instead of connecting together, and then turned the breaker on, you'd find something somewhere that doesn't work. But if you connect everything together again, whatever was disconnected will be reconnected and work.

Use wire nuts, not tape, to connect wires together. Tape is great for marking and for protecting but can't be used to make a permanent connection.

wire nuts

Wire nuts come in multiple sizes - in particular, the smallest typical wire nuts may not be enough for 4 white wires (neutrals from two cables + fan & light neutrals).

A little more based on comments:

Since you currently have just one switch for both light & fan, you may want to consider splitting to two switches, since you have a 3-wire cable. There are two reasons to do this:

  • Fan without light - with LED lighting using very little power, this is not a big deal, but it still saves a little energy if you want to run the fan for a while after you are done with a shower.
  • Light without fan - this can be very useful. A lot of people don't like the noise of fans, so if you are brushing your teeth or doing any other activity that doesn't generate a lot of humidity or strong odors, there really is no need to have the fan on.

Assuming you have a typical 1-gang switch (regular or Decora) and not already a combination switch/receptacle, you can replace it with a double switch:

Leviton double switch

manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
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