On Tue, 25 Jun 2013 22:39:27 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Over the years, the fans I buy are getting worse and worse smelling. Some will smell like machine oil, others will smell heavily like plastic, and some will smell like diesel (of course it's not diesel, but that's the closest thing I can compare it to).

It gets worse. One of my fan smells of uranium, the other of
plutonium.

These smells do not fade with the months or years. I'm quite sensitive to these fumes, and end up coughing like crazy for hours after. The phenomena of increasingly smelly products seems to be well known, judging from what I've found on the web. It doesn't matter how high end you try to buy, the smell doesn't seem to be correlated. Even mostly metal fans are afflicted with this problem.

I believe you. The notion that spending more money gets one
something better is not so true anymore. More features, probably, but
quality, not always.

Although my nose is not sensitive and I haven't noticed any smells.

The fan that I found to be the least obnoxious in the past was Sunbeam SSF1600RC oscillating stand fan: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001R1XJ9A
http://www.amazon.com/Sunbeam-SSF160.../dp/B001R1XJ9A

However, the more recent ones I've bought exude the oil/plastic smell, especially when the ambient temperature is hot and/or it has been running for an hour or so. No worse than other fans. But it gets me worried. Either join the ranks of large quantity electricity users and get A/C (and banish fresh air from my apartment forever), swelter in unimaginable heat, or breath the fumes and eventually die. As I do not know what is causing the smell, I am not sure whether I can do anything about it. If it is hot plastic, likely not. If it's bad oil, maybe I can oil the motor and hope that the good quality oil I use will displace the bad original oil.

Cheap motors would have sleeve bearings, just a tube, and a place in
the front and rear for oiling them. A little hole in the top of the
rear, and an upward facing scoop just above the shaft in the front.

Better motors, and I don't know if this includes fans without oil
holes, have oil impregnated bearings. The bearing material (metal)
is made porous or mixed with oil somehow and when the bearing gets
hot, oil comes to the surface, at the rotating shaft. This is
considered good because you don't have to oil the motor.

I know, it's more likely they will mix and stay there forever, but I'm really out of options.

I haven't given it a look-see and try. I've been trying to find instructions, pictures, or videos on the web showing how to get at the inside. Would anyone know of such material? I have no fear that I will void the warranty (which I certainly will) -- when you can't breathe, a warranty becomes unimportant. As far as maiming myself in the process, there is nothing in the instruction booklet warning about dangers of self servicing (most other products these days say that there are no consumer-servicable parts, but this one doesn't say that).

Apart from how to take it apart, can any respiratorily challenged person recommend a fan that does *not* have such a smell? It seems impossible to find these days as they all come from the same place.

I would look for older fans at thrift shops. Don't be afraid to
plug them in before you buy one, at thrift shops or retail stores.
Let it spin for 10 minutes or however long it takes other fans to make
the smells.

Fans do wear out, but most of them from the 30's -70's have another
20 years left in them.

I finally burned out my fan from 1932 iirc,** but I have other fans
from the 30's or 40's. I'd have more but my father left us a couple
from his office when he died in 1955, I bought a couple at yard sales,
and I figure I have enough. Especially since I find new fans
acceptable.

**I found a 4" fan that would sit on my window sill and blow fresh air
on me when I'm sleeping.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Optimus-F-...l-Fan/25209563
I hate to mention walmart but last August it was the only store nearby
that had a 4" fan in stock. In fact they had 20 and they were marked
down.

It turns oout the same fan is sold under more than one brand name for
prices ranging from 12 to 24 dollars, and it's the ONLY 4" fan for
sale. This was true last September and it's still true today. It's
angle is adjustable, supposedly, but it is loose (even after I tried 6
of them and picked the best) and I don't see a good way to tighten it
that is likely to stay tight. Plus it gets knocked off the window
sill when I close the window (of course in the really hot nights, I
won't be closing the window. I'm going to nail the wire frame to the
sill when i have some time and more experience where it shoudl go.