Last few days the fan on my Drolet has been making serious noise. I figured, well time for a new one. Bearings must be shot. So I took it off the stove and disassembled it...wow! Filthy! There was a mixture of ashes, kindling chips, black coals, dog hair dust, and many other bits of debris that I didn't recognize or would prefer not to mention. You can't just vacuum it out... I should have taken pictures but I was expecting it to still make noise afterwards so I didn't. Guess what? It's quiet as a mouse after cleaning... And a modification. You have to remove the drum fans and motor from the emclosure. It's simple. 3 screws and nuts, and two wire connections. It won't just lift out... The rubber mounts had become stuck to the metal. Wiggle gently and eventually they come loose. Vacuum everything with a shup vac. Then reverse the shop vac so it blows air and point it into the drum fans. Inlets and exhaust do it several times. I had a built up chunk on one drum that I think started out as a spiders baby sac and just grew from there. It's was in the vanes good. Had to use qtips to remove..I think it was unbalancing the drum. Wiped everything with windex, and put it back together. On one corner-left back-the fan housing was really close to the enclosure and I could see evidence of contact in the past. I shoved a piece of the high density weather stripping material in there and remounted it Amazing! Whisper quiet now even turned way up. So, sorry no pics, but go clean your fans! Took about 20 minutes and didn't have to use any oil and just two tools. A small box wrench and a philips screwdriver.
Good call. I fired up the compressor on Sunday and blew out my fans on my wood stove. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I have been cleaning my fans every time I clean out ash from my Travis industries hybrid fyre insert. You are right A lot of junk builds up in there.
Thanks Suburban wood snob I will surely bookmark this for when I fully clean mine. I know already some ash and chips are falling into it! Good stuff, thanks!
I just cleaned my blower on my quadrafire. While it works better now, it still makes too much noise due to bad bearings. Oh well, it's at least clean for when my new blower arrives.
Bedroom fans when not cleaned gives a lot of problems! As my bedroom fan is just above my head I cannot really sleep as I look at it and when it makes noise.
Ceiling fan, huh? We used to place a tiny machine screw and a couple drops of oil on the secretary's desk that was right underneath a ceiling fan......
