On Sat, 05 Oct 2013 15:22:17 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Sat, 05 Oct 2013 12:39:49 -0700, croy
wrote:

Alot of fans/motors are used in commercial applications. I can't imagine
them going up in flames at the end of their lives.

The motor in a swamp-cooler of mine quietly stopped in the
middle of the night a few years back. I woke up and
happened to notice that it wasn't running, and went to
investigate. Thick, dark smoke was roiling from the
swamp-cooler. I immediately unplugged it and went back out
to take the shrouds off. I got the hose and started
squirting the motor down, but it took about 15 minutes
before it stopped spitting and steaming.

This cooler was on a 1950s 15a circuit shared with other
outlets and lighting. The breaker didn't pop.

I don't leave swamp-coolers on overnite anymore!

So you had no fire on the motor. By "unplugged", you mean a portable
unit? Long term, house swamp coolers are normally hard-wired in to the
house wiring.

can't speak for the rest of teh country but here in AZ, at least in
the "old days" when most people had swamp coolers, they were not
hardwired. There was a hardwired receptacle placed on the wall where
the cooler was hung and the cooler was plugged into that. Even for
two speed coolers they had a multiple prong outlet that the cooler
plugged into. It was not unusual to buy a new cooler every ten years
due to them corroding away. You bought a new one, plopped it into the
metal frame that hung on the side of the house, screwed the duct back
on, plugged it in and away you went.