Enviro M55 insert Sunday is back....but I know what it is!!!

[bostonfan49]

**********SOUND! Not "Sunday" Me Bad!,,So after about 5 continuous hours the sound came back...I quickly took off both side panels and confirmed that the sound was about the same on both sides (which to me, eliminated the combustion blower) and put the sound squarely on the convection blower.....me thinks! Since I was lucky and only had a small flame at the time (toasty 72) I decided to unplug my stove from my UPC and see what happen to the sound! No power the fans must slow down and stop.....the convection blower where I believe the sound is coming from started to slow down.....and the sound slowed down.....until the very end where all I had was the tick, tick, ticking sound as the fan came to a stop.....a minute later, I plugged the stove back in and the ticking noise quickly spooled up as the fan speed quickly went from zero to fan speed....So me thinks, that there could be some obstruction that is hitting the blades.........but why after 5 hours? Even weirder, because I wanted to make sure that the stove cooled down properly, I plugged the stove back in.....the sound resumes but it is intermittent, I now have the stove in shutdown mode but the sound is there one minutes and not the next.....?? Could it be bearings....? The only thing I can think of is a bit of sheet metal along the length of part of the fan blade is expanding and touching the blade, but only at certain temperatures....Is that even possible? Can't pull the stove out until this afternoon! I might have to call Enviro...
Thanks, Bill

 

[stoveguy13]

Did you install the new blower yourself?

 

[bostonfan49]

Did you install the new blower yourself?

No.....the dealer where I bought the stove did the install, from the old style blower to the new blower, diverter bar and capacitor and that was a year ago. Long story short, they won't do any more business with me....I won't do any business with them....until ownership changes....but that's another story
*******I did just get off the phone with Mountain View Hearth products (Montana) very nice people......They suggested that I pull out the whole blower and check the squirrel cage. They also suggested that I check out all the sheet metal to make sure that nothing is bulging out...like the pellet feed impeller.......There is also the Vermont Pellet stove company that sells Enviro stoves.........

 

[stoveguy13]

the blower can get tweaked going in and may have just finally become unbalanced enough that it starting to make noise

 

[bostonfan49]

I am assuming that the blower went in correctly because it ran fine of a year. My original dealer no longer provides service for my stove....and my alternative dealer is closed on Monday and Tues. I am going to pull the blower and check out....and check out the sheet metal area around it. Right now it spins freely with no detectable wobble, but I will no more in 30 minutes....Thanks, Bill

 

[bostonfan49]

Here is what I found on one of the blower blades. I thought, maybe something is hitting it.......but if so, it should hit every blade which is not the case! This blade and all the blades are solid, none is loose...so do all of these style blowers have the same fin 1/2 circle cut out that I have? Or did something fall into the spinning blades and get stuck in that spot and cause the noise???? Probably not because it comes and goes......Before I took the blower out, I could see that it had lots of clearance everywhere except for the middle section which is closest to the pellet impeller on the other side of the sheet metal. I just checked the combustion blower blades and they seem fine and spin silently......What is confusing is that when the noise starts it starts softer and slower and then speeds up to a constant tinging buzzing. If the fan is moving at a set speed and the noise started....I would think that it would sound the same the whole time. But when I power off the stove and the blower blade slows down to a stop.....the sound does the same....Could it be blower motor bearings?????
Thanks, Bill

 

[stoveguy13]

that just looks like the slot to get the set screw out so the blade can be changed. i would say try running the blower outside the unit.

 

[Woody1911a1]

that looks like a cut made for balance purposes . does your controller have a "FAN" button ? if so that will shut off the convection blower and eliminate that from the equation .

 

[bostonfan49]

that looks like a cut made for balance purposes . does your controller have a "FAN" button ? if so that will shut off the convection blower and eliminate that from the equation .

Was able to take the blower to a wood stove company ( they sell 4 brands of pellet stoves, service only what they sell, no enviro) but they got it spinning and all they could verify is that it runs nice and quiet. When They asked how long before I heard the noise and I said about 4 hours......they unhooked the power and politely said....well, we can't wait that long...can we
The stove doesn't have a fan switch that can be turned on and off. Again, all I can tell you is that if and when it makes the sound again, I can do 3 things.... I can quickly unplug stove, and listen to the sound slowly spin done until I get the last few TING, TING,TING as the blower blades stop spinning......but I need to have the stove shut done properly and to dissipate the heat, so I plug the stove back in, switch it to manual, start it up/and push the power button again to have it go into shutdown mode......and one of two things happens, the stove goes into shutdown mode and the convection blower is spinning quietly......OR, it spins noisily..........unless the noise is coming from somewhere else?????? Except, it spools up and down with the fan depending on the speed.
***Back up and running, 45 minutes so far...putting out nice heat, blower is humming correctly for the moment......
Perplexed.......Bill

 

[vinny11950]

sorry it came back.

i am thinking it is something in the convection motor that goes out of balance with the heat.

if still covered under warranty call Enviro and see what they can do - probably going to put you in touch with regional distributor since you have issues with dealer. hopefully they know what to do - big if.

if not covered, see if you can find a cheap old convection blower (you don't have the old one?) and swap in to see what happens.

i have the old one and it clicks very quietly one level 2 and up. i have taken it out and greased the hell out of it, but the fix only lasts a week or two. then it is back. doesn't bother me much or my parents, as they have the TV blasting loudly most of the time. but it didn't do that for the first 2 months when new.

 

[bostonfan49]

sorry it came back.

i am thinking it is something in the convection motor that goes out of balance with the heat.

if still covered under warranty call Enviro and see what they can do - probably going to put you in touch with regional distributor since you have issues with dealer. hopefully they know what to do - big if.

if not covered, see if you can find a cheap old convection blower (you don't have the old one?) and swap in to see what happens.

i have the old one and it clicks very quietly one level 2 and up. i have taken it out and greased the hell out of it, but the fix only lasts a week or two. then it is back. doesn't bother me much or my parents, as they have the TV blasting loudly most of the time. but it didn't do that for the first 2 months when new.

Thanks Vinny, I don't have the old fan, but I am going to make a few calls to further investigate this issue. The stove is coming up on 5 hours again ( Hi-low) and knock on wood......no buzzing. The only difference is that I washed the fins free of crud......
Bill

 

[ChandlerR]

.until the very end where all I had was the tick, tick, ticking sound as the fan came to a stop.

Bill, that is key right there. A bearing will not tick. It groans or squeals. The tick tick tick is *one* of the blades hitting something. Perhaps something expanded and contact was made. Did you look real closely at the fan? Look for a shiny spot. Inside the housing too. Could there possibly be something on the flange that's cocking the fan a smidge? There is a little play when you loosen the mounting bolts so maybe when you put it on the last time, it's clear.

 

[bostonfan49]

Thanks, Chandler! So I ended the night with almost 8 hours of mostly continuous running with no noise. I want to think that the blower was originally seated correctly as I got a year out of it before the noise....The fan had never been removed until today. it did have some crud on the blades but after I washed it off, I made darn sure that the cage was seated properly when I put it back in......Hopefully, the problem is over.....
Bill

 

[ChandlerR]

Sounds good Bill! Here's hoping too! That's a cheap fix, and we love those!

 

[Monkfish]

I know this is an older thread - but for posterity - I was running into a similar issue with my M55 Cast FS. There was a hell of a racket for about 30 seconds and then a continuous metal on metal shrill "rubbing" sound. I powered it down, found that the sounds was coming from the convection blower and pulled it. It turns out in my case that the set screw in the squirrel cage of the blower had come loose and was lodged in one of the fan blades (I assume throwing it out of balance and causing the shrill sound.) I added some Loctite, reinserted the set screw and the thing is back up and running as normal.

FWIW to anyone else who may run across this.