Sealing the Ceiling Fan opening in the King's room

Gap all around ceiling box, especially on the left

The weekend before my cataract surgery on September 18 I was very busy.  Tom and his nephew had just finished remodeling the King's Room and installing the two new doors, curtain rods, and TV mount.  I was still occupying the Queen's room, which was actually quite ok, even with my larger bed, and a friend suggested I not bother to move back until two weeks *after* my eye surgery...which would have been just last weekend.  Not knowing exactly how well I would be even then, and thinking that the more time to move into my room gradually the better, I decided to move back into the King's room right away instead, which was the weekend before my eye surgery...

This was as daunting a task, or nearly as daunting, as moving out of the King's room had been two weekends earlier.  And you could say the job still isn't done, three weeks later, since the living room is still loaded with stuff.  But you should have seen the living room the weekend before the 18th, it was not just loaded but stacked.  And the Queen's room as well.

Anyway, I did a pretty good job of moving my stuff back into the King's room.  Unfortunately, I missed the Audio Society meeting, knowing it would be pedal to the metal all weekend.  And there was one little job that might have been better done first.  But I couldn't do it first because my help for moving the bed was on Saturday afternoon--essentially the beginning of the weekend.  So that had to get done first, and I hurredly did the rest of the major furniture moving, and some of the CD moving.  But what lagged was that little job--sealing the ceiling fan opening as I have done with the two other ceiling fan openings I've had ceiling fans installed in recently, using OSI acoustical caulk.

Attempted use of Duct Seal, each new glob pushes the previous one up

Builders and electricians typically leave a large gap between the ceiling drywall and the ceiling fan box.  Inside Lyndhurst, the drywall subcontractors left a gap from 1/4 to 5/8 inch, so large I bought two pieces of wood dowel to enable the caulk to hold better.  I had no such difficulty with the Queen's room  sealing, which was a comparative piece of cake, since John Jones made the ceiling hole in the first place, and they do the finest work, there wasn't that much gap that needed sealing.

I was exhausted on Sunday evening and lay down about 9pm to rest.  I woke up around 12:30am.  That was when I finally got around to starting the sealing job.  It was also set back by the fact I had forgotten to get new drop cloths for this project on Friday night.  So I had to do it with ad-hoc drop cloths.  And after cutting off the room breaker, I had to wire in the main lamp and tensor lamp with extension cords from the bathroom, which I had to be careful not to trip over.  And though I had moved the matress and box springs on their end leaning on the dresser, I didn't have time to deal with the bed frame.  So I put the 8ft ladder (always tricky to move around) inside the bed frame.

It was stressful all around.  I decided not to use the caulk because of the limited drop cloth coverage.  I went ahead and tried to use duct seal, a product specially made for sealing around electrical boxes.  But it is really intended for sealing around from the back side of horizontal electrical boxes, it is very hard to use from the front and from underneath especially.

I discovered just how hard this was to do.  Despite pulling off large pieces that could still into the large gap (this was a pre-existing hole with electric box replaced the previous week) they didn't hold well.  What happened was that as I was pushing in each new piece, it dislodged the previous piece, pushing it upward into the ceiling.

Cardboard cover for now

I struggled with this far too long, hoping I would get the knack to get the job done.  But it was not getting done, so around 4:30am in the morning I called the project off.  And then I fashioned a cardboard cover for the box so that the air, dust, and now globs of duct seal wouldn't fall out of the hole and potentially get into my eyes, just after the eye surgery (!).  I added an extra lip on the bottom side of the cardboard to catch any dust that was coming through the hole.  The lip was made from 14 day painter's tape, but I did not have it touch the ceiling at all, just a few millimeters beneath it.  Then I moved the ladder out of way and set the bed up, and got to bed around 6 am.  It worked out OK since I slept until about 12:30 PM on Monday.

But the job had not been done, and until the job did get done, I could not order ceiling fan, and I could not order new bed until I had ceiling fan installed.  And my friend was suggesting I should drop other priorities (such as the new audio amplifier I am thinking of buying) until I got the new adjustable bed.

So I had to get this done, and I got to it on the third weekend after my eye surgery.  On the first weekend after surgery, I was struggling with frequent eyedrops, taping on an eye shield even for the briefest rest, and so on, I just barely drove my car home from work on Saturday, can't remember what I did on Sunday but it was likely just moving around very light stuff like CD's, possibly setting up cell phone charger.  On the second weekend, I hooked up my bedroom stereo, a very complicated job, dusting equipment off while moving it in, digging through boxes of cables, cutting new speaker cables, arranging power strips, and so on.  And I battled ants which started swarming inside the house on a very rainy Saturday night.  On that Sunday, which would have been my monthly party, I went to Camerata San Antonio with my friend, which I hadn't done in several years because it nearly always conflicted with my monthly party.  But though I moved some heavy unused equipment back from the Queen's Room   into the King's room, I couldn't move all of it yet, my eye started hurting just before I could move the 30 pound PS Power Plant Premier.

Full setup with bed out of way

Finally by the third weekend, first weekend in October, I got to the ceiling fan hole sealing.  This required temporarily moving mattress and fittings to the Queen's room temporarily for resting on Saturday and sleeping on Saturday night.  Then moving the box springs and bed frame completely out of the way.  This time I had purchased two drop cloths, I put the cloth one down first then the plastic one on top of it.  Then I moved in the 8 foot ladder from Lyndhurst--always a challenging job not because of weight but because it's so long you nearly always almost break something, you have to watch both ends at once, and it doesn't fit through doors except at some kind of angle, likewise around corners.  Finally I had everything set up by 3:30 PM including a discardable box for squeezing out excess caulk.  I did the caulking quite quickly after all, the acoustical caulk was much easier to work with than the duct seal, the hardest part was cleaning the excess out of the electrical box without damaging the fresh caulking.  I then had dinner and went to the Symphony on Saturday night, unfortunately my friend couldn't make it, but she came over afterwards and we watched TV in bed with wine and strawberries until 1:30 AM.  We were using the Queen's Room bed, and actually my friend liked having the mattress on the floor and asked why I didn't do it that way in the King's Room.  It's actually inconvenient to have to get down so low, and the box springs can't sit on the floor because it has heavy duty staples underneath which could scratch the floor.  So the bed frame, which we both hate, will remain in use until I get the new adjustable bed.

First day reseal, still some gaps which occured while cleaning excess

The next day I carefully put electrical tape in tiny pieces over the holes in the back of the electrical box. I used Scotch 33+ electrical tape.  I figured the duct seal would be just as hopeless as before, and the electrical tape was legal, you can have electrical tape inside an electrical box, but not caulk.

I also resealed some of the small gaps in the caulk, which had occurred mainly when I had been cleaning out the excess caulk the day before.  The result was nearly perfect.  I debated for nearly 30 minutes whether I should do the re-sealing at all, but in the end it was easy.  As I had started working on this, a friend I planned to visit that afternoon called and re-scheduled our visit to 7:30 PM.  So I had plenty of time.  I got back home around 10PM and did some initial cleaning.  Then my other friend came over and help with the critical and difficult parts of moving the bed, getting the box spring on top of the frame (which is nearly impossible for one person because if you don't land it perfectly, the adjustable size frame will expand, and you'll have no way to get it back down to size without taking it off again), and moving the mattress (which I could have done by myself, but my friend always insists I shouldn't.  We then watched TV on the bed back in the King's Room, with wine and strawberries.  It must have been more comfortable and convenient, she got up and came back at least once, and ultimately even slept for a few minutes.  You can camp for awhile without it, but ultimately a proper bed height helps.

Small pieces of 33+ harmless even if they do fall

So it was a very eventful and productive weekend, getting the sealing done, going to the Symphony, and visiting with friends three times.  That night, actually into wee hours of Monday morning, I ordered the Haiku fan.  I had started looking for reviews, but then after seeing all the praise I just decided to order it.  It won a design award and gets favorable marks everywhere I could find (though I wonder how many people actually own one) and is used by an impressive set of homes on Housez, chosen by major architects and designers, etc.  It must reasonably good as well as the coolest ever, the main remaining questions being about reliability.  Oh and I also wonder if rather than having the nice ball mount that the Casablanca fan in the queen's room has, it might have a hook mount where a round pipe is pushing up to the ceiling, possibly knocking off microscopic bits of drywall if it shakes.  Well most fans these days have the latter style of mount, the drywall knocked off over time probably reduces to near nothing because essentially all that's going to get knocked off gets knocked off right away, then leaving a microscopic gap, and much less than any gap would allow drywall and insulation from the attic to be emitted if the hole had not been sealed.  So in any case, it's best to have sealed the box opening, and especially if it doesn't have the kind of ball mount that the Casablanca fan has.

Finished and almost perfect seal, no need for cover

Standard measure is to put bead of caulk around pipe after it has been set up, I think now.  That's the old fashioned way to use caulk around any kind of fitting. That would both seal the opening and rubberize the vicinity and keep any drywall debris from dropping.