I cleaned out the stove today. When I fired it it, the fan stated making a tat tat squeal. I hadn't touched the fan. So I pull out the ash pan and did then clean the fan. Once the fire started, the squeal started back up. It ran about 4 min. Like that, then the squeal stopped. Sound now is similar to the sound I hear when rain hits the exhaust pipe. I'm going to turn it off when I go to bed. I'll try to get behind it in the morning and take a look. Very hard for me to get up and down, but at least I can do that now.
which fan does it seem to be, Save? Quite a lot of things can cause this, depending on which fan is tat-tatting. If it squeals only when feeding, its possible there's a pellet jammed between the end of the auger flight and the rear bearing of the auger.....and you wouldn't be able to tell unless you pulled the auger. This usually stops quite suddenly, after a bit (the pellet fragments). If its the combustion fan, it can be a pellet in the back of the motor hitting a fan blade, a misaligned impeller, a bent impeller, a broken impeller blade, a dead bird touching the impeller, etc. If its the distribution fan, it could be a bad bearing, pellets inside the fan, fuzz, dust, pet hair, wife hair, back hair, wife's back hair, etc., stuck in the squirrel cage causing it to be imbalanced and make a racket..... how do you tell the difference? Disconnect one motor at a time, leaving the rest connected, and isolate the squeal!
Sounds like you've definately seen it all! We bought a 1967 mobile home 25 years ago, the squirrel cage for the force air furnace had everything you mentioned caked on it, ewwww!
I feel certain that it is the distribution blower. I need to get down and back in there, but that is an issue for me. I'm too fat and have a bum knee so getting down and back up is a major task for me. However, I'm going to try even if it takes me a half hour to get back up.
Well, old barrel belly got down and in behind the stove. And what before my eyes did appear. One shinny tin foil wrapper plugging the gear! My cats love to play with those foil wrappings. I'm betting one of them took it back there hi hint it from the others. Surprised myself. I got back up in less than a minute. Trips to the gym are paying off.
I'm telling you, I just am so impressed how easy the stove is to get set thing for general maintence issues. I haven't done the leaf blower with this stove. Do I need to disconnect a vacuumed hose etc before I do? I don't want to mess up this stove.
I just leave the doors in the stove open. That way it won't pull much of a vacuum in the stove. There aren't any hidden passages in these Harman stove like some others.
