I should have known better. 5 Minute Fan? Come on. I was skeptical going into it, and I was right. I cussed at this ceiling fan more than I have at any product of late.
Don’t get me wrong, Hunter makes a really good fan, but to market this product as a five minute install is a very misleading.
The fan is beautiful and works fine. That is all the nice stuff I can say.
I got this fan as a sample from the manufacturer. They wanted me to talk about it on the radio show. I even interviewed a guy from Hunter and we talked about how I would let the listeners know what I think. I am going to have a hard time holding back my tongue.
First, I took the approach of a novice. I have put up probably 20 fans over the years, but I thought I should go about it as a first time do-it-yourselfer should. I opened the box and found the installation manual. “Read this entire manual carefully before beginning installation”. That right there took 9 minutes. I then separated the parts and modified the fan as instructed to fit my hugger style mounting application. 10 more minutes. Hanging bracket and test fit, 4 minutes.
The wiring instructions were not very clear. In my ceiling I had a black wire and a white wire. The fan had a black, a white, and a black with a white stripe. The instructions did not say what to do with the stripe wire. I hung the fan on the mounting bracket with the black and white. No lights. Take the fan down, I tried the two blacks together, and the lights worked. Would have been nice to have this noted in the instructions. 15 more minutes.
The snap on blades worked pretty good. Not great. And then the %&$#@*! light kit. Whoever thought it was a good idea to fish the pull chains through these little plastic grommets, through the glass and then through a trim piece with more little plastic grommets should be suspended from a ceiling fan and put on twirl for hours. Not good. I fumbled with this trying to feed chains and snap connectors together for almost 15 more minutes.
Total time? 53 minutes. Note to Hunter- Change your packaging and tell the truth.
