Help! - I've seen some posts lately seeming to indicate that the h...

HOMEOWNER CRIES FOR HELP...

posted: September 8th, 2008 - 2:04pm

QUESTION:
I've seen some posts lately seeming to indicate that the height of the condenser fan is important. The problem I have is that I don't know what the correct height is supposed to be. The unit was maintained in the past by a handy-man type guy and I'm sure when he reinstalled the fan, he just put it where he thought was good. The unit is a 34 year old York with a flat horizontal coil.
The fan is currently protruding up out of the cowl about 20% of the fan blade height. Does this sound right? Also, is the motor height in the belly band important? The only reason I could think that this might be important is to minimize torque on the motor bearings. The higher up the motor is mounted, the lower the fan blade can be on the motor shaft. The lower the fan blade is on the shaft, the lower the moment of torque on the bearings. Am I over analyzing this? Are these things important?

ANSWER: The fan blade position is important and the motor position is therefore important because it affects fan blade position the cowl you speak of is a venturi that concentrates the airflow and acts as a seperation between the positive and negative sides of the fan if I come upon a unit that I know is not factory setup I always put the peak of the venturi at the midpont of the fan blade to get max air flow this practice has not caused me a problem in 25 years