The previous owners of my house had left an unopened ceiling fan in the closet of the one bedroom that didn’t already have one installed. So yesterday, I decided to take advantage of the freebie and open it up. Installation was no problem, went up like a charm and fired right up. Fan running, light working, everything was fine. About five minutes later, I checked on it and the fan blades were running very slowly and there was a bad smell brewing. Diagnosis? The fan motor was dead. Since I didn’t buy the fan and hadn’t seen the brand at the local home center, I was kind of up a creek as far as taking it back or exchanging. So I was off to Lowe’s to buy a new one.

The really annoying thing was the loss of productivity. Having to install it, diagnose the problem, remove it, and go purchase a replacement knocked about two or three hours out of my day. I was mildly perturbed by the whole situation to say the least.