Fireplace Insert Fan Blower Question

[Country Lady]

Dust can make our fireplace wood stove insert fan start making a noise. Previously, DH has used a long thin brush we use for cleaning under the fridge or stove and manage to swish it around a little and the noise would stop. Well, he was using the brush yesterday and it started sparking. He assumes he's knocked a wire loose. It's a Buck Stove and home office is closed until the 6th of January. The local fireplace store didn't answer yesterday or today (New Year's Day). We're hoping they'll be open tomorrow, but we'll see. Granted this is an electrical problem, but just an electrician doesn't have the equipment to pull the insert out. You might know this has happened just as extremely cold weather is predicted. Does anyone have suggestions what we need to do to get this blower fixed so we won't have to use the expensive propane during the freezing weather that's coming?

[Fire-Man]

Originally Posted by Country Lady

Dust can make our fireplace wood stove insert fan start making a noise. Previously, DH has used a long thin brush we use for cleaning under the fridge or stove and manage to swish it around a little and the noise would stop. Well, he was using the brush yesterday and it started sparking. He assumes he's knocked a wire loose. It's a Buck Stove and home office is closed until the 6th of January. The local fireplace store didn't answer yesterday or today (New Year's Day). We're hoping they'll be open tomorrow, but we'll see. Granted this is an electrical problem, but just an electrician doesn't have the equipment to pull the insert out. You might know this has happened just as extremely cold weather is predicted. Does anyone have suggestions what we need to do to get this blower fixed so we won't have to use the expensive propane during the freezing weather that's coming?

See if this link helps---if not do a search. http://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/b...problem.23807/

[Country Lady]

Our is a Buck Model 81. We have a neighbor that's an electrician but he nor my DH has the equipment to pull that heavy thing out. We're assuming it will have to be pulled out. Does anyone know? I suppose we might could get the guy that cleans our chimney. He'll be able to pull it out without causing damage to the hearth or physical damage. That thing is heavy!

[TheMartianChick]

I'm not familiar with your particular model of insert, but we have one made by Avalon. The blower is located underneath our stove, but we've never had to pull the stove out in order to service it. Hubby just removes the grate (where the air blows out) and repairs the fan from that point. We had a situation a couple of years ago where the fan made a lot of noise. Hubby took it apart and applied WD-40 to the moving parts with a saturated Q-tip. The noise stopped. He also took that opportunity to move the cord to the other side of the unit, so it would be less visible.

Another time, the fan stopped working and we were wasting a lot of wood. He opened the blower up again and found that the sensor had come loose from the bottom of the stove (probably due to vibrations) and just re-attached the piece. He took that opportunity to vacuum out the blower and put a little WD-40 on it again to keep everything running smoothly.