My ceiling fan started wobbling last summer, and at full speed it sounded like a helicopter landing in the living room. I was ready to replace the whole thing. Then I spent twenty minutes on it with a ladder and a paperclip, and now it spins smooth and silent. The fix is almost always stupidly simple.

The Three Usual Suspects

1. Loose blade screws. Nine times out of ten, this is it. The screws that hold the blades to the motor work loose over time and one blade ends up at a different angle.
2. Dust build-up on the blades. An uneven dust layer changes the blade weight. Clean them before you do anything else.
3. An unbalanced blade. One blade is slightly heavier or more bent than the others.

The Fix

First, turn the fan off and let it stop completely. Then:

1. Tighten every blade screw, including the ones on the underside of the motor housing. This fixes most wobbles.
2. Clean all the blades. Dust on one side of a blade throws the balance.
3. Still wobbly? Grab a balancing kit. Most fans come with one taped inside the box, a little clip and some sticky weights. Clip it to a blade, run the fan, and move the clip until the wobble stops. Then stick a weight where the clip was.

What Not to Do

• Do not bend blades to fix them. Bending creates a new problem. A bent blade should be replaced.
• Do not run the fan on high while you are testing with the clip. Medium speed shows the wobble clearly enough.
• If the wobble is violent and the fan sounds like it is grinding, stop. That is a motor mount issue, call a pro.

The Paperclip Trick

If you do not have a balancing kit, a paperclip and a small piece of tape work as a test weight. Tape the clip to the top center of a blade, run the fan, and move it blade to blade until the shaking calms down. That tells you which blade is off, and roughly where.

My wobble was two loose screws, one on each of two blades. Tightened both, cleaned the blades, and the fan has been silent for a year. Before you spend money on a new fan, spend ten minutes on the screws.