How long should blowers last?

[slate]

Jotul Kennebec C450, 10 years old. Blower seems much louder than last year and way way louder than my neighbor with newer Jotul insert.

I've take the whole thing out cleaned and oiled every possible place but I'm convinced the bearings are sealed.

Should I just replace it?

 

[DAKSY]

Probably time to replace it. 10 years is a long time for a blower. Many fail much sooner than that.

 

[slate]

And by failing you mean making noise, or just stopping all together? Thanks for your reply.

 

[velvetfoot]

And, would this be a spare part to buy in advance? The insert would be useless without one, and I can see a week delivery time. On a wood insert, I can't see needing too many other spare parts.

 

[DAKSY]

I haven't seen many just STOP, but those that do, the cause is generally due to electrical component failure. Many will start making noise after a few burning seasons, but most of that is related to cleaning. Dog & Cat hair, dust, ashes. The hair being the worst as it gets wrapped around the axles. If you don't stay on top of them, the crap that gets in them will definitely cause premature failure of bearings. You got 10 years out of a small electric motor. It owes you nothing, IMHO. Time for a new one.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

How about just replacing the bearings? That's what I was going to do on my free standing wood stove blower. The new blower was $300 from the dealer, the bearings were less than $20 from the one online bearing source I found.
However, in between the time I removed my blower, took it apart and tracked down the bearings online I hooked up a little wall mounted fan that I got for $14. I found that little wall mounted fan works way better for blowing the heat off the stove than the factory blower ever did, and the cost of the little wall fan was less than new bearings for the blower, so I never did bother to order new bearings for the blower.

 

[begreen]

Agreed, especially if the motor has ball bearings. A rebuild at an electric motorshop should be under $100 and should make the motor like new.

To oil the bearings often one has to carefully drill into the felt surrounding the bearings to create an oil port. I've resurrected several motors this way.

 

[slate]

Doesn't seen to me like anyone could get to the bearings w/o damaging the housing for the motor. They have it sealed up nicely. Maybe an electrical shop knows how.

I might order a replacement and then bring the old one to an electrical shop. If they can fix it then I'll have a backup.

Thanks everyone.

 

[begreen]

I have done it to lots of motors. Typically the motor housing on these motors is pot metal or zinc. It drills pretty easily. You just need to know where the oil wick or felt is surrounding the bearing and drill into it, carefully. I don't have any pictures of motors I've drilled but will look online to see if I can find some examples. If uncomfortable with this procedure, that's understandable. I took a lot of these apart as a kid and got familiar with them. Taking it to a motor shop is a good plan too.

 

[simple.serf]

I typically take the approach that "It's already broke, you can't break it anymore than it is!". I fix ovens at work, and sometimes all a motor needs is to be cleaned up and lubed. If you try drilling out the seal to get some oil in, the worst that will happen is that the bearing will be shot. Unless you can get some lube into it, it already is shot.

Worst case scenario, you have to buy a blower. Best case, you get it running again with a little time and a few drops of oil.