How come my ceiling fan sometimes turns on automatically?

Answer 1

Joe v is wrong: A lot of fans do not have remote switch's hooked into them. You have a short in your fan and you should have it disconnected now or your going to have a fire.
Do not take the advice of anyone that your fan is wired for this unless you know for sure that it is, because that advice could kill you in your sleep some night, that's for sure.

Find the breaker and kick it out, then disconnect the fan and find out whats wrong. It might be just a loose wire. With all the vibrations from the fan that's probably what's wrong.

Answer 2

Is it a remote control fan? A lot of fans now have a wireless remote switch to work the fan and light seperately. If so, have you noticed that when the fan comes on by itself your cell phone is close to the remote or the wall switch for the fan? I know my cell phone turns on our touch lamps in the bedroom, the house intercom system, and even my rechargeable electric shaver. My wife's cell open our garage door.

If you google "remote control ceiling fan" you'll get 1,160,000 hits. So there really are a lot of ceiling fans out there that have the remote control switch.

A short circuit is a break in the normal path of an electrical current and results when a hot current comes into contact with either a neutral or ground. It will cause your appliance to shut off, but not come on by itself. It will also cause your breaker to flip.

Answer 3

it could be that there's a short....or, if you have an agreement with your electric company to help you save on electricity then each time the switches at the electric company's station switch back on your fan will start up. My printer used to start during the middle of the night and I had my electricity checked out and it was fine so I called the electric company and they verified it's their switches doing that.