Fans from TSC not working

[going_gray]

Hello! My husband and I bought two 18 inch corner County Line three speed fans from TSC two years ago. They were horrible for my husband to install into the two stalls that our horses use in our run in shed. But once he got them up and secure, the fans were wonderful in their output and our two horses loved being in the stalls the last two summers.

A week ago I could not get the fans to turn on using the chain pulls. And our weather here in western N. C. is now in the high 80’s. Our horses need those fans to be working. I checked the connection to our electric outlet and that is working just fine. We bought these two fans because the engines are incased and not open to the weather and dust.

My husband had surgery five weeks ago and is still recuperating. He had spinal surgery and is not allowed to climb, bend, or pick up anything heavy. He thought perhaps we needed to get some product called air in a can and just use that to get dust out of the engine.

After reading the reviews for these fans, I think we just ended up buying fans that are poor quality. They were $99 apiece so not cheap. I used two box fans back in MI in our barn which worked fine for several years. Did not want to use box fans again.

I need advice. Do we get new fans or try to clean them with pressurized air? Anyone else have problems with these fans? (We did not take out a warranty on them, sad to say!)

Thanks for any information!

[trubandloki]

If you need fans now, I would go buy new fans and then you can try to figure out what is wrong with these fans. That will (maybe) give you back-up fans.

This is what we do when a fan, heated bucket, trough heater, etc. stops working.

Edit to add - Did you buy the extended warranty when you bought the fans?

Edit to add 2 - I have three places where I have this specific fan in my place. I find that I typically get, on average, three years out of them. Mr. Trub takes them down every fall and blows all the bugs and webs and such off them. If they work again the next season is hit or miss.

[SusanO]

You can try with the pressurized air because it is cheap and might work. I would do that first but I would not be surprised if that doesn’t work. I have found that most of those type of fans usually last 2 years at most. Even with enclosed motors the dust and humidity takes its toll. There are some more expensive fans that might last longer but I have always bought cheaper enclosed fans knowing that I would need to replace them probably in year two or three. I know that is wasteful but I don’t want to risk the barn with older fans. Now mine plug in and are not wired directly and I have hooks and plugs up on the wall and I can get the old ones down and new ones up by myself. I do hate being on a ladder though and I hold my breath and work slowly and carefully.

TSC warranties in my experience were not worth it. I hope other people have had better experiences than I had.

[SusanO]

Yes. I have to take mine down mid summer and sometimes more frequently and blow the dust out of the blades. They always put out more air when I do that. Not my favorite job because I hate ladders and heights.

[clanter]

those pull chain switches can be replaced, disassembly may require some brutal work, I had to take a grinder to remove the screw heads since the cheap chinese screws would not come put, but once ground down the fan housing cover could be removed allowing access the pull chain switch which I replaced with a rotary switch from Taiwan ($3.35) bought from a mon pop hardware store rather than from some dude on the internet

[LCDR]

Wondering how you checked that power is getting from electrical outlet to fans’ pull switches but not through switches to fan motors?

[Annie10]

Did you hit the reset on the outlet? sometimes they get tripped

[endlessclimb]

Both of them pooping out at the same time seems a little sketchy.

As mentioned, what was your method of checking the electrical?

[SusanO]

If the fans are still up - maybe they blew a fuse? Especially if both went at the same time. It should be easy to check the fuse or circuit breaker if they are on their own circuit. If one went after the other - this is probably not the case. I don’t know how long the agricultural fans that cost $300 to $400 last, but I am usually buying in your price range and your time frame of them working is about the same as mine. I have sometimes been able to take them down and blow out the dust and get them working again but at that point I am wary of hanging them back up. So I save them for when the farrier is here and set them in the aisle to blow on him or use them for short limited uses when I am in the barn.