Loud Fan - Heat n Glo Escape 135 FB

[TerpCJ]

Hi,

We purchased a home in 2011 with an old wood-burning fireplace with a broken metal heatilator. Found out after moving in that heavy rain would actually spatter onto the stone hearth in front of the fireplace. Hired a chimney and stove company to put in a new chimney "crown" - with a stainless steel multi flu around the top and retrofit it for the direct vent Heat n Glo Escape 135 FBLP unit.

We have been unhappy with the blower/fan since it was installed. It is very loud on the lowest setting. The installer told us that was the normal sound. So, we almost never used the unit with the fan turned on. Two years later we used the fan it was louder and we called for service. We were told it was broken and would cost $300 to fix. The warranty would not cover it so we said forget it.

Now this year (the fireplace is 4 years old) we decided to get the fan/blower fixed last week. Well, the new fan/blower is just as loud and the second day we turned it on it started making a high-pitched squealing noise after about 5 mins.
The company representative was here and heard it and they are scheduled to come back next week to look at it again.

Now today, the high-pitched sound has not come back again - it is just loud. I don't know if this is normal? I see other posts on the forum where their fan is quiet on the lowest setting... ours is so loud it is annoying. I asked the owner of the company it is occurring because the unit is sitting on cinder blocks and maybe it needs some kind of sound-dampening underneath and around the original firebox. He said he has never heard of doing that, but can add some insulation under the unit.

I'm really not happy with this product or the installing company at this point. The original cost was $7,000

The dual blower fan system is part nmbr HNG GFK-210
Vent is LINK-DV30B for DVIK 30 Insert vent kit by Quadra Fire

The fireplace is located in a living room, 30 x 20 with 8' ceilings. It's been running for 2 hours and temp is 71 in the room, and 24 degrees outside. So it is not putting out a ton of heat either. We have central heating system in addition to the fireplace - so we are not heating the whole house with the fireplace...

Comments or Suggestions?

 

[DAKSY]

That's a pretty good unit, but the install is only as good as the install crew...
The blower (blowers make noise - fans don't) won't usually be noisy unless if it's not installed correctly.
You don't want to dampen the entire insert body, just the blower. Most HNG blowers are held in place with magnets.
In the fireplace units, they're pushed against the back sheet metal & then pulled forward a half inch or so...
If it's against the back wall, it'll cause a harmonic & sheet metal will vibrate. You can try putting some thin
foam rubber under the magnets as a dampener. Thin enough that the magnets with still hold it in place.
Make sure no other parts of the blower body are contacting anything.

 

[TerpCJ]

The owner of the company is coming to our house today to fix the problem -
Thursday the blower had a high-pitched noise coming out of it - and it only had a loud and louder setting.
Saturday it started out loud, then after a few hours, I noticed the unit was QUIET. I went closer and could just barely hear the fan...so the low blower setting seemed to have found itself. I called my husband to the room and then in 5 minutes it seemed to turn itself up on it's own and get loud again.
So, it DOES have a lower setting, but it isn't "obeying" the remote control setting. Even when I go through the remote and try to manually change from lowest to highest, it has never replicated the quiet blower setting we heard that one time on Saturday.

So, is there anything else I could be missing, is there any manual setting on the actual unit that is over-riding the remote control? Should I call Heat n Glo?

Just would like to hear some advice before the owner of the company arrives.

Thanks!

 

[TerpCJ]

The blower is quiet finally!
The sheet metal in the back surround and the access panel were screwed together with metal touching metal. This blower does not attach with magnets, but with screws. They inserted a thin material where the metal pieces overlapped, added insulation behind the unit, and also replaced the auxiliary box as the interior lights stopped working after they moved the insert around a couple of times. When all was said and done the unit now runs quiet in the lowest setting and the higher settings no longer have the metallic vibrations.

 

[hans747]

Glad you figured this out. I had the same problem, but mine was attached with magnets like someone else mentioned. If anything was touching the fan, the whole fireplace acted like a speaker box, amplifying the vibrations. Yes, it's very annoying. I can only imagine what a fan screwed directly to the sheet metal sounded like. Good grief...