On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:43:12 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

On Feb 18, 7:31Â*pm, kansascats wrote:
The blower is making a horrible noise -- sounds like bearings to me,
but on the net I saw mention of possibly some water? Â* This is the
induced draft assembly, not the big squirrel cage at the bottom. Â*The
blower is right in front of the firebox.

Depends if you have a 80 percent or 90 percent furnace as to the draft
inducer seeing condensate or not. If you dont hear a 'swishing of
water sound' then you can rule that out. If the sound is a high
pitched sort, then it does appear the bearings are failing....although
I found a small dead bird in a draft inducer assembly which created a
higher pitched whine. Shut off the power to the furnace then turn the
inducer fan by hand/small screwdriver ....and see if you can duplicate
the sound with the power off. Its more than likely bad bearings which
requires replacedment of the entire draft inducer assembly : $$$


I would have sworn my draft blower bearings were bad on my furnace so
I took it off to check and the bearings were PERFECT. The chirp was
still there, so I looked more deeply into it - and noticed a bit of
red "rust" around the hub of the blower squirrel cage. The disk of the
blower was just a bit loose in the hub - the crimp was bad.
I hit it with a bit of brass and the acetelene torch and no more
chirp.

Just goes to show you sometimes need to look for the unlikely.