wall-e wrote:

Was at Mom's house today and noticed that her furnace fan makes a kind of
vibrating/humming noise the first few seconds as it starts up. It's a Gas
furnace (Trane) and a 10 year old house.

Recently I had to replace the blower motor in my 22 year old Trane and
cleaned everything. When I start my fan, there's an initial buzzing from
the transformer and the fan comes on right away. The transformer buzzing
gets quieter after 2 seconds.

I know that blower motors may need oil from time to time, but then if it's
in need of lube, why does it make a noise only on start? After it gets
spinning I only hear air blowing.

The noise from Mom's sounds "wobbly", very much like a fan that isn't
aligned or attached right but then evens out from centrifugal force as the
rpm's increase.

Could the blower have come a bit loose from the frame or the frame from the
housing? I won't be back there for a few days but wanted to get some ideas
on what to look for if possible. Or could dust just be gumming up the works
and making the motor work harder. I'm not sure if it's ever been cleaned.

Also, the labored startup of the fan seems to last a little longer each
time, like whatever is going wrong is getting worse.




Sometimes the motor capacitor will fail and cause the motor to labor on
startup.

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form .