Fans; High is next to Off on purpose
Why Home Improvement Stack Exchange recommends it
DIY Stack Exchange answerers point people to it for the reason fans start on High and for how single-phase motors behave at startup.
Recommended by 3 people across 3 different months, 2020 to 2023.
What it is
Technology Connections explains why ceiling fan pull-chain switches go Off, High, Medium, Low instead of rising from Low to High. The video covers how single-phase induction motors need extra help to start and how fan makers cheat with capacitors and windings to get them going. It is presented as a clear, well-illustrated explainer by Alec Watson.
What people said
Recommends user30371 · 2020-11 · Home Improvement Stack Exchange · on “What is causing a motor to trip my GCFI on every OTHER start?”
Single phase electric motors (which is what you have unless you have a fancy 3-phase motor, which requires 3-phase power) behave differently on startup than they do after they've started. Essentially they can't start themselves, so there's some tricks that the electronics need to to do get the motor started. This youtube video [this video] does a decent job of explaining this. So that may explain why you sometimes get a trip on startup, and once it actually starts, it behaves without tripping. It's possible something is wrong with the internal electronics that's causing a trip after the device is on. It could be a capacitor that's charged, it could be a solder joint warmed up and is arcing across
Recommends manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact · 2022-07 · Home Improvement Stack Exchange · on “How do I reverse the speed control on my ceiling fan?”
Actually, there is a technical reason why many fans are Off->High->Medium->Low instead of the seemingly more logical Off->Low->Medium->High. The short answer is: motors need something special to get started, and doing that on the high-speed setting is more reliable. For the long answer, watch this video [this video] . As to whether it is possible to change it, that depends on the design of the switch. A possible "maybe".
Recommends Harper - Reinstate Monica · 2023-01 · Home Improvement Stack Exchange · on “Switch loop issues and properly fixing”
That didn't actually work. The outlet is now in series with the ceiling fan. That will semi-work for a very small load like a cell phone charger. For any larger load, turning on the load will run the fan but the load won't work. This is a dangerous configuration because there's no telling how either load (fan or plug-in) will respond to the low-voltage situation. For intance most likely the fan will fail to start, and will sit there stalled, overheating its coils. The first setting on a fan is "HIGH" for a reason [this video] . So this needs to be dismantled and decommissioned. It was never legal and it never worked. So how does one do this properly? Generally, in any lamp/switch group (e.g. 1 la
Cites Harper - Reinstate Monica · 2021-06 · Home Improvement Stack Exchange · on “How do I fix a ceiling fan that won't turn off?”
It has multiple speeds. The sequences is Off-High-Medium-Low-Off (repeating). High is first for reasons [this video] . The problem is, the fan doesn't have an "emergency brake" to INSTANTLY stop the blades when you reach the "off" position. When you click from "high" to "Medium", the fan will slllllowly reduce speed, and eventually it will settle out at the "medium" speed. But long before that happens, you get impatient and pull the cord again. You've commanded "low" but it hasn't even slowed to "medium" yet. So no noticeable effect: it just continues decelerating, now with "low" speed as the destination. And you get impatient and pull it again , setting it to "OFF". It hasn't even reached "low"