Good evening. Santa Fe Quadrafire. Blower will not engage

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Courtney

Member
Jan 27, 2013
54
Westminster, MD
Hi I have 2 Santa Fe's. Basement stove will not engage the blower. Start up is great, but blower never engages. This is a new issue last year no problems, never had an issue with my stoves. Tried all the usual things, got a service co to come out late nov. Any advice for me to be sure I get this problem solved? THanks!
 
Have you checked to see if the snap switch is giving the fan motor any juice. I would bet the snap is shot. If not then its down to the motor. When was the last time you cleaned and serviced it? Many upgrade to an adjustable snap if I remember right. There was a hack to get the fan to run immediately. Hopefully kap will catch the post. Been a few years since I had a Santa Fe.
 
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Hi Courtney,

Depending on your level of electrical knowledge / comfort-ability, that will determine how much you want to get into the electrical 'guts' of your stove. It really isn't that difficult, but the caveat is that you are working around 110V power, which certainly can bite you, or worse if it fibrillates you during your heart's electrical circuit re-polarization phase (sorry - my Paramedic side talking there) ! And you have a $270 - $300 control box that is intolerant of getting defibrillated as well in an electrical test *misadventure*, so just a standard disclaimer as a forewarning. My apologies if you're an electrician, but on a self-help forum like this it's better to give more detail than less, to avoid having something bad happen to you or your stove !

The #1 snap disc turns on the convection blower, which is behind the right side access panel, on the heat exchanger box. If it's like most Quads the #1 snap disc should have 2 purple wires that connect to it. As always, UNPLUG the stove before you do any electrical checks or tests. The first thing to do would be to check the quality of the connections on the electrical spade connectors that go to the #1 snap disc. Make sure they aren't loose, or the wires partially broken at the female spade connection, as a recent Quad poster found. You might just need to pinch the female electrical connectors together gently with a needle nose pliers so it makes a tight connection to the snap disc male connectors. If the connections are good then the next check, which Bioburner mentioned, is to bypass the snap disc to see if it is bad.

The idea is to take the potentially bad #1 snap disc out of the stove circuit by connecting the two purple wires together with a jumper wire. The safest is to make a pre-fab jumper wire with male electrical spade connectors spliced to each end of a short section of similar gauge electrical wire, (see pic below) that you then plug into each female connector on the end of each purple wire, which closes the blower circuit. In a pinch, you can use a short piece of electrical wire trimmed back enough to be able to stick the bare wire ends into the female connectors, or a straightened out paper clip will work too.

The #1 disc has 110 V power going to it all the time, so the risk of not using a pre-fab jumper is if one end of the bare ended electrical wire, or the straightened out paper clip, falls out. If it or one of the purple wire connectors grounds out onto stove metal, it can and likely will crisp your expen$ive control box. So if you decide to go the 'quick and dirty' route I would strongly suggest wrapping the connections, and the entire paper clip if you're using that as the jumper, with electrical tape. Auto parts stores sell pre-fab jumper wires with alligator clips on each end that you could use, but I would wrap the clips as well with electrical tape where they clip to the purple wire connectors to insulate them from any possible metal contact with the stove.

It's easy to bump the paper clip or bare wire improvised jumper by mistake, or have the jumpered wires sag and touch metal on the stove, so it's better to be safe than $orry and wrap them with tape ! :oops: Once you've bypassed the snap disc you can plug the stove back in. The blower should turn right on, as the 110 degree #1 snap disc is now out of the circuit. If the blower turns on, then your snap disc is bad. All the snap discs are built in safety components of the stove, so I wouldn't run the stove without replacing the disc.

If the blower still doesn't turn on, then the problem could either be in the the blower motor, the wire harness, or your control box. You can try re-seating the control box, again with the stove UNPLUGGED, as Quads have a habit of vibrating enough that the control box contacts degrade. If your convection blower still won't turn on, then either your blower motor is bad, or your control box could be bad. If so, you could swap the blower or the control board into your other Santa Fe and see if it reproduces the problem in that stove. Try the above, and post back on how it goes, OK ? Good luck ! DK

Jumper wire.jpg
 
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Pass DMKNLD a non rebreather, very good detailed explaination :)
 
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Don't need to add anything except there is always power to the #1 snap disc when stove is plugged in. Saved my fingers a lot of typing. kap
 
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Hi Courtney,

Depending on your level of electrical knowledge / comfort-ability, that will determine how much you want to get into the electrical 'guts' of your stove. It really isn't that difficult, but the caveat is that you are working around 110V power, which certainly can bite you, or worse if it fibrillates you during your heart's electrical circuit re-polarization phase (sorry - my Paramedic side talking there) ! And you have a $270 - $300 control box that is intolerant of getting defibrillated as well in an electrical test *misadventure*, so just a standard disclaimer as a forewarning. My apologies if you're an electrician, but on a self-help forum like this it's better to give more detail than less, to avoid having something bad happen to you or your stove !

The #1 snap disc turns on the convection blower, which is behind the right side access panel, on the heat exchanger box. If it's like most Quads the #1 snap disc should have 2 purple wires that connect to it. As always, UNPLUG the stove before you do any electrical checks or tests. The first thing to do would be to check the quality of the connections on the electrical spade connectors that go to the #1 snap disc. Make sure they aren't loose, or the wires partially broken at the female spade connection, as a recent Quad poster found. You might just need to pinch the female electrical connectors together gently with a needle nose pliers so it makes a tight connection to the snap disc male connectors. If the connections are good then the next check, which Bioburner mentioned, is to bypass the snap disc to see if it is bad.

The idea is to take the potentially bad #1 snap disc out of the stove circuit by connecting the two purple wires together with a jumper wire. The safest is to make a pre-fab jumper wire with male electrical spade connectors spliced to each end of a short section of similar gauge electrical wire, (see pic below) that you then plug into each female connector on the end of each purple wire, which closes the blower circuit. In a pinch, you can use a short piece of electrical wire trimmed back enough to be able to stick the bare wire ends into the female connectors, or a straightened out paper clip will work too.

The #1 disc has 110 V power going to it all the time, so the risk of not using a pre-fab jumper is if one end of the bare ended electrical wire, or the straightened out paper clip, falls out. If it or one of the purple wire connectors grounds out onto stove metal, it can and likely will crisp your expen$ive control box. So if you decide to go the 'quick and dirty' route I would strongly suggest wrapping the connections, and the entire paper clip if you're using that as the jumper, with electrical tape. Auto parts stores sell pre-fab jumper wires with alligator clips on each end that you could use, but I would wrap the clips as well with electrical tape where they clip to the purple wire connectors to insulate them from any possible metal contact with the stove.

It's easy to bump the paper clip or bare wire improvised jumper by mistake, or have the jumpered wires sag and touch metal on the stove, so it's better to be safe than $orry and wrap them with tape ! :oops: Once you've bypassed the snap disc you can plug the stove back in. The blower should turn right on, as the 110 degree #1 snap disc is now out of the circuit. If the blower turns on, then your snap disc is bad. All the snap discs are built in safety components of the stove, so I wouldn't run the stove without replacing the disc.

If the blower still doesn't turn on, then the problem could either be in the the blower motor, the wire harness, or your control box. You can try re-seating the control box, again with the stove UNPLUGGED, as Quads have a habit of vibrating enough that the control box contacts degrade. If your convection blower still won't turn on, then either your blower motor is bad, or your control box could be bad. If so, you could swap the blower or the control board into your other Santa Fe and see if it reproduces the problem in that stove. Try the above, and post back on how it goes, OK ? Good luck ! DK

View attachment 167015
 
THANK YOU! It was running on our first start up but not putting out much air flow, now nothing. I am not comfortable doing any electrical work on the unit (I'm an RN) I just do the usual maintenance. Since it did run a little, now nothing, I'm going to assume it is the motor - bummer - strange it just crapped out so suddenly after running well last year. It's on the transplant list now!
 
What year stove is it, and have you ever removed the blower and cleaned it? I wouldn't be ready to pitch it yet as they are a bit expensive. kap
 
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What year stove is it, and have you ever removed the blower and cleaned it? I wouldn't be ready to pitch it yet as they are a bit expensive. kap
 
2011 santa fe. No blower has never been completely removed from the unit. Is that something I can do without botching up other components? The T piece was replaced last year by the service co, a previous servicer cracked it when cleaning it....(I won't go there...) I have not been back inside the unit since then.
 
T pc.? You should be able to open side doors and look at squirrel cages on blower(left and right side) to see how dirty they are or not. Could be plugged with pet hair. Pulling it depends on your capabilities. Look it up on page 32 of your manual and see if it something you want to tackle. kap
 
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And if the service co does sell you a new blower, I would insist on keeping the old one to make sure it is bad. Maybe you have a neighbor that can play with electricity a bit. You can make an electrical cord out of an old lamp cord. Just put spade conn. on the wires, and then you can plug it into the fan wires and plug it in to see if it runs. IF it is good, you at least have a spare. kap
 
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Thank you I'm going to look today! (oh the t piece of the pipe got cracked when they tried to force open the clean out cap....sigh)
 
Common issue and can be lubed with some never seize-graphite grease to keep the corrosion from making it stick. Graphite and molybdenum are a pellets stove good friends
 
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