One of my hearth maintenance issues I have been doing that I have seldom (never) read about in this forum is that of cleaning the blower fans on the wood stove or insert.
I have read a number of post where people were complaining about the noise that they make, but never read about anybody doing anything about it.
Well I just finished my mid season cleaning of this thing and it made a huge difference in the noise level. It was starting to rattle when the fan was set on high and even the low setting seemed to be quite noisy. After cleaning the noise on the high fan setting is now acceptable and it's hard to tell if it's even running at the low setting. Big improvement
On my stove the job takes about 10 minutes, requires removing 2 screw to remove it from the stove and 2 screws to take off the cover plate of the fan box, then I use an air compressor to blow all the dust out of the little squirrel cages and inside the box and that's basically it, except when I put it back together again I use a little silicon on the parts where metal fits against metal. The silicon acts as a sort of rubber gasket to stop any potential rattling noises. Last time I didn't use any silicon where the stove fits on the back of the stove and of course this is where the rattling started.
The dust that builds up inside the squirrel cage fans reduces performance and can build up unevenly causing them to be out of balance and vibrate.
Here is a picture link of how much dust can build up in just a few months.
Dust Bunnies in the cage
Anybody else clean their blowers?
I have read a number of post where people were complaining about the noise that they make, but never read about anybody doing anything about it.
Well I just finished my mid season cleaning of this thing and it made a huge difference in the noise level. It was starting to rattle when the fan was set on high and even the low setting seemed to be quite noisy. After cleaning the noise on the high fan setting is now acceptable and it's hard to tell if it's even running at the low setting. Big improvement
On my stove the job takes about 10 minutes, requires removing 2 screw to remove it from the stove and 2 screws to take off the cover plate of the fan box, then I use an air compressor to blow all the dust out of the little squirrel cages and inside the box and that's basically it, except when I put it back together again I use a little silicon on the parts where metal fits against metal. The silicon acts as a sort of rubber gasket to stop any potential rattling noises. Last time I didn't use any silicon where the stove fits on the back of the stove and of course this is where the rattling started.
The dust that builds up inside the squirrel cage fans reduces performance and can build up unevenly causing them to be out of balance and vibrate.
Here is a picture link of how much dust can build up in just a few months.
Dust Bunnies in the cage
Anybody else clean their blowers?
Not to much different from car blowers "was a GM dealer tech for 13 years" If you let it run like crap and slow down it pulls extra amps causing the electronics to burn out, and I assume the heat from the stove would sure help with that.
