Richard Gillespie
02-16-2004, 5:58 PM
I've been awake since 1 am this morning. My wife woke me up and asked me what the strange sounds were by the return air duct in the hall. They were strange harmonics and clicking noises. I knew right away that the squirrel cage motor was failing.
It quit running at 7:45 am and I called a heating contractor at 8 am. They were here in one hour. The tech pulled the squirrel cage and showed me that the unit failed because of dust build up around the motor and on the fan blades. The heating system fan has been run 24/7 for 16 years since installed new. There were two filter systems prior to the "A" coil plus an electric filter. I changed filters every 4 - 6 weeks since it was new. Therefore, I thought that there wouldn't be any down stream dust problems, wrong!
In our conversation, as he worked, I told him that I was a wood worker. He told me that, if I had the shop in the house with all of the sanding dust, I would have had larger problems, sooner. I'm passing this information on for anyone else who thinks that the pre-filters take all of the dust out of the air stream. You need to pm the system to ensure that the dust doesn't build up on the fan components.
It quit running at 7:45 am and I called a heating contractor at 8 am. They were here in one hour. The tech pulled the squirrel cage and showed me that the unit failed because of dust build up around the motor and on the fan blades. The heating system fan has been run 24/7 for 16 years since installed new. There were two filter systems prior to the "A" coil plus an electric filter. I changed filters every 4 - 6 weeks since it was new. Therefore, I thought that there wouldn't be any down stream dust problems, wrong!
In our conversation, as he worked, I told him that I was a wood worker. He told me that, if I had the shop in the house with all of the sanding dust, I would have had larger problems, sooner. I'm passing this information on for anyone else who thinks that the pre-filters take all of the dust out of the air stream. You need to pm the system to ensure that the dust doesn't build up on the fan components.