How to Prevent a Wobbling Ceiling Fan

To prevent wobbling fans and warped blades, it’s actually quite simple. What happens is over time, dust and dirt will accumulate on top of the ceiling fan. This is actually unknown to many. It may not look like a lot of dust or dirt, but because the fan blades have to be perfectly aligned when spinning, the dust & dirt accumulation over time will cause the blades to warp. Go figure, right? It’s not really known by many homeowners that ths is the reason why the blades or arms may eventually bend on a fan.

So, in order to prevent this from happening, the easiest way is to clean the fan every 6 months or so. If it gets heavy use, you may need to do this twice a quarter. The easiest way to clean the fan blades is just use a Kleenex or a cloth, with water. A damp cloth is actually fine too. If you have an electrostatic cloth that picks up dust really well, that’s the best way to go. Just some water or a damp cloth and you’re good – you don’t need to use soap or other chemicals. Depending upon the finish of your fan, it’s likely that chemicals (or even soap) could damage the finish. Kleenex also tends to rip, so use a cloth – that’s the easiest way to go. Make sure the cloth is clean so you’re not wiping things onto the fan.

Once you clean the tops and bottoms of the fan blades, why not just wipe down the rest of the fan too. You don’t need to remove the fan from the ceiling, but you can wipe down the motor housing, motor mount and whatever else is visible. Wiping down the fan and the blades often (especially the top of the blades) helps cut down on the dust and dirt buildup. It’s the stuff that remains on top of the fan blades; this is what warps the blades and will cause you the most amount of harm.

Using a Blade Balancing Kit to resolve a wobbling fan issue

If your fan has started experiencing wobbles, a blade balancing kit may help to resolve the issue. A blade balancing kit comes with some weights and instructions how to use them. The objective is to figure out via using the balancing kit, which blade is warped. It could be difficult to see to the human eye because it only requires the blade be unbalanced by a few fractions of an inch, in order to make the whole fan wobble when spinning. Take a look at the fan and have it spin slowly, on the first speed setting – can you see any blades that look out of alignment with the rest? If you take a look at the wobble, it may be possible to also notice which blade is causing the wobble.

Try using the blade balancing kit to figure out what blade is causing the problem. Once you’ve discovered the blade which is the issue, try to repair it by tightening nuts and bolts, cleaning the top of the fan blades, etc. In a worse case scenario, you may need to purchase replacement fan blades to replace the warped ones. Replacing a warped blade is pretty easy, just remove the correct screws and/or the blade bracket as required.