Ceiling fans are one of the best value things you can put in a Melbourne home. They cost a few cents a day to run, they make a room usable on a 30-degree night without the air conditioner working as hard, and in winter, reversed, they push warm air back down off the ceiling.
Here are the six questions we get asked most often when we’re quoting ceiling fan installation.
1. Do I need an electrician to install a ceiling fan?
Yes. In Victoria, connecting a ceiling fan to your home’s wiring is electrical work, and electrical work must be carried out by a licensed electrician. This isn’t a grey area — Energy Safe Victoria is clear on it.
Two practical reasons beyond the legal one.
Insurance. If unlicensed electrical work contributes to a fire or an injury, most home insurance policies won’t respond. That’s a large risk for a small saving.
The mounting. A ceiling fan is a few kilograms of spinning mass hanging above where people sleep. It has to be fixed to structural timber, not plasterboard, and it has to be balanced. We’ve been called to take down more than one fan that a previous owner mounted to a ceiling batten and that had been quietly working itself loose ever since.
Swapping a fan for an identical replacement on an existing, correctly-mounted point is still electrical work. Still needs a licensed electrician.
2. How long does it take?
Replacing an existing fan on an existing fan point: usually under an hour.
New fan where there’s an existing light point: typically one to two hours, depending on whether the existing point is fixed to something structural and whether you want separate switching for the light and the fan.
New fan with no existing ceiling point: half a day, roughly. We need roof access to run the cable and add the switching. In a single-storey home with a decent roof cavity this is straightforward. In a double-storey, or a home with a very shallow roof pitch — common in some 1970s builds — it takes longer.
We’ll tell you which of these you’re looking at before we quote, not after.
3. What size fan does my room need?
The blade span should match the room, and most people go too small.
Up to 3m × 3m (a small bedroom or study): 42 inch / 1,070mm.
3m × 3.5m (standard bedroom): 48 inch / 1,220mm.
Up to 4.5m × 4.5m (large bedroom, dining): 52 inch / 1,320mm.
Larger living areas: 56 inch / 1,420mm or above, or two fans.
A fan that’s too small has to spin faster to move the same air, which means it’s noisier for less effect. If you’re between sizes, go up.
4. How high does it need to be?
Australian Standards require a minimum of 2.1m from the floor to the blades. Practically, 2.4m is where fans work best — high enough to be safe, low enough to actually move air where people are.
Standard 2.4m ceilings: use a hugger or low-profile fan that mounts close to the ceiling.
Raked or high ceilings: you’ll need an extension rod to bring the fan down into the room. A fan sitting a metre above where it should be is a fan you’ll wonder why you bothered with.
Also worth checking: clearance to walls and, in bedrooms, whether the fan sits above a bed where someone might stand up. And if it’s going in a bathroom, laundry or covered outdoor area, it needs to be rated for that zone — an indoor fan in a damp location will corrode.
5. Light or no light?
Fan with integrated light works well in bedrooms and smaller rooms where you want one fitting doing both jobs and the ceiling isn’t cluttered.
Fan without light almost always looks better in a living area where you’ve got downlights or other lighting doing the work. A fan with a light in the middle of a room with downlights around it tends to fight with itself visually.
One thing worth doing either way: separate switching, so the fan and the light run independently. If we’re already running cable, adding a second switch is a small addition and you’ll appreciate it every day. Alternatively, wall controllers give you speed control and reverse without hunting for a remote — remotes get lost, wall controllers don’t.
6. DC or AC motor?
If you’re choosing between two fans and one has a DC motor, it’s usually worth the extra.
DC motors use around 60–70% less power, run noticeably quieter, offer more speed settings, and are typically thinner and better looking. The downside is cost, and they generally require a remote or wall controller rather than a simple switch.
AC motors are cheaper, simpler, and will run for decades. They’re louder at high speed and use more power, though “more power” for a ceiling fan is still trivial next to an air conditioner.
For a bedroom, where noise matters most and the fan runs all night, we’d go DC every time.
Fans versus air conditioning
They’re not competitors — they work best together. A ceiling fan running alongside your split system lets you set the thermostat two or three degrees higher for the same comfort, because moving air feels cooler than still air at the same temperature.
Given what electricity costs, that’s a meaningful saving over a Melbourne summer.
Remember though: a fan cools people, not rooms. There’s no benefit to leaving one running in an empty room.
Getting it done
We install ceiling fans across Melbourne’s eastern suburbs — Hawthorn, Kew, Camberwell, Balwyn, Richmond and surrounds. We’ll check the mounting is structural, get the balance right so it doesn’t wobble, tidy up the switching, and take the packaging with us when we go.
Over 200 five-star Google reviews. Lifetime workmanship warranty.
Get in touch and tell us the room — we’ll tell you what’ll work in it.