yeah good afternoon youtube so this is my hutch fireplace insert it's what they call their double
wall insert i purchased this i think in like 1987 and i had it installed by a local chimney sweep
fireplace company i really haven't touched this thing since it was put in when they installed
the insert they put a six inch diameter stainless steel liner in the chimney and that's real easy
to clean you just run a brush down and pull it back up and it's cleaned out ready to go several
years ago i made a video showing the insert with a fire in it and i use this from time to time i
mainly heat the house with solar hot air panels and then this fireplace insert is my backup heat
so the only problem with using this is my backup heat source is that periodically the local air
quality district issues what they call spare the air days and they don't allow any wood burning
fires that means i can't run the fireplace insert in the winter we tend to get these spare the air
days now luckily those spare the air days are usually clear and sunny and you just get the
temperature inversion which traps the pollutants down at ground level and that's when they have
to spare the air days but i get enough sun on those days for the solar heat to work
when it gets cloudy and windy when there's a storm i don't get the solar but typically i
can run the stove because there's no spare the air day there's enough air circulation to keep
the air clear and they don't have a spare of the air days anyway i've had a few viewers ask how to
get to the blower that's in here so this insert has the blower in this front part there's a single
squirrel cage blower that's right in the middle there and then on this side you've got a switch
so anyway i've got that unplugged and the way you get in there is there's a panel on each side
and there's three screws you take off with a nut driver there and you can take the panel off of
both sides in the back there right about there and about there on the other side there's a screw like
this takes a 7 16 socket those two screws hold the fan enclosure to the fireplace insert so i've got
those out and now the whole thing just slides out there and then we'll see if we can get into the
fan because i felt in from this side and i could feel there's a bunch of leaves and pine needles
when this fan runs it just sucks stuff up in those grills and then it gets caught inside the squirrel
cage on the blower got the blower housing flipped overs like i said a bunch of leaves and junk got
sucked up inside there that's all the stuff that got sucked up inside of here just all these leaves
and whatnot so i'll get that cleaned up afterwards but there's just two screws there's one right here
and then one on the other side just need a nut driver there okay there's the fan out of
there yeah you can see how the the squirrel cage part is just full of debris in there okay yeah
that's what i suspected i was looking around for replacement fans for this and it is a fasco model
7063-6568 oh oil every six months that was one thing i was wondering was if you could oil the
bearings in here and apparently every six months it's been over 30 years this thing's always had
a little bit of vibration it's probably because all that junk packed in there because this sits
up and so anything that gets sucked in here gets sucked into the wheel right here and you can see
how it just packs in with all sorts of debris okay used my air hose and blew the blower out
the video i saw said you need to take the blower off so i pulled off these three nuts they're
5 16 and i marked where the wires came out here so i can get this back on
yeah there we go set screw right there and then you can pull the fan off yeah just eight
inch uh allen key got the blower wheel out and then there's the end of the fan motor
and you can see there's a good bit of junk on there this end is welded here
so what you need to do is pull these four clips here out and then you can lift the top of the
motor out there's one bearing here and then of course there's one bearing down here yeah
i think this this screwdriver might work a little better it's just a narrower blade
you just want to catch the very t end of it there we go there's three clips
this one is a little tricky because it's got all the wires you have to kind of get off to the side
and if you can see that one there's like a piece of metal behind there
that's why i couldn't get in just barely under the end there we go there are the two oil ports
i didn't even see that one on the bottom okay we'll see if this uh this oiler works in there
yeah it's going down there in fact let's just take a peek here see if i got oil in there oh
okay that's that's the oil port right there that must be the oil reservoir actually what i might do
while i have this end out yeah you could put a lot of oil in there then
and just get some more soak that in there good and supposedly this whole thing will lift right out
there you go yeah i might actually want to blow that out a little bit get some of that dirt out
of there okay yeah blew out the inside as much as i could shaft looks okay i don't see any
any wear on it you can drop this back down inside there and then that one right there
and then you're going to clip that in get the bottom
or the side clipped in get the clip in there so you got that hanging over the top
and then you want to get your clamp on there squeeze it in there we go okay not sure if
that shows up but you can see the little ring where the set screw end was and so what i did
was i removed the set screw from the blower wheel and i want to just see how far down
this has to go yeah right about right about there you know there's the the grilles on the side here
we'll keep the big stuff out but this sits up off of the ground there's kind of a gap here
and i think what happens is leaves and debris gets sucked underneath here and they go up and and get
into the blower because this blower is sitting up so it just sucks everything up off the ground
maybe he's put some weather stripping maybe that's what i'll do put a little bit of weather
stripping on here just so it seals down tight against the hearth because the problem is the
hearth is made out of bricks and it's it's uneven right here there's the thermoswitch
so this is the bi-metallic switch that runs the fan if you're in the automatic position
so this piece here touches the firebox and when it gets hot it'll turn on the fan and then
it runs and then once it cools off it'll shut off yeah one other thing i want to take care of before
i put this back together this is the screw that goes right up in there to hold this to the firebox
and that's their grounding point so here's the ground wire from the motor and then this is the
incoming one that one is fine they used a large enough ring terminal it's a quarter inch screw
and it looks like they probably used a 3 8 ring terminal but the motor end you can see
they used like a star-shaped one and the problem is the screw threads into those seerations there
as you try to turn the screw the wire wants to turn with you and it gets all twisted up
and it starts fighting you you know you turn the screw part way and then it turns back
so i think what i'm going to do is i've got a step drill there i'm going to try to drill
that out hold this with a pair of pliers and see if i can open up that hole a little bit
okay i think that did the trick now i can turn the screw inside of the ring terminal and it doesn't
catch yeah that'll make putting this back together quite a bit easier i think
yeah so anyway last night i was looking at this and there was a few spots on here where
i don't know if some water got on here and it it started to rust and kind of bubble
the paint up a little bit so i wire brushed off all the rough spots so i took some sandpaper and
sanded off some of the rougher areas and gave this a coat of paint and let's take off my masking tape
here so i kept the hutch logo got that kind of polished up with the wire brush and so then i put
some weather stripping along the bottom and on the sides there you can probably see that a little bit
okay youtube there we go i think that weather stripping is actually going to be just about
right i think that was half inch thick it fills in the gap here between the the bricks there's
a little bit of a gap down here yeah as far as the switch i think that if you go all the way
forward it's off and then there's three automatic speeds so there's like low medium and high
with the thermostat and then if you go all the way back that's the high speed manual there we
go it's blowing air but none of the vibration that i was getting before all nice and smooth
so i think i need to pick up some high temperature barbecue paint and paint the rest of this thing
maybe do that this summer when i can open up the room here and my wire brush wire wheel
on the angle grinder and kind of clean this off yeah i think at least the blower is all sorted out
yeah it is possible to service these and yeah it was really nice putting this back together
since i opened up the hole in that one round terminal that one was so tight
as you turn the bolt it was turning the ground wire because it was stuck in the threads and the
tighter it got it kept unwinding the bolt so now you can just shove the bolt in and i found like
one of these gear wrenches worked really well this one's got a slight bend to it because you can get
that on the head of the bolt and then just work it up and down yeah so i'll put a link to the blower
and i think that link also has some links to the thermoswitch and in case you need to replace those
i think these things are pretty generic a company like hutch didn't go out and design some brand new
parts they used a standard thermostat a standard switch a standard blower so the
part number has been superseded so like i say i'll put a link in the video description to the
blower part number if you need to replace that but they seem to be pretty easy to service oh and my
solar heat just kicked on so yeah we're getting a little bit of heat today before the storm blows in
so i got to go open up the air vents and let the hot air get in the house but yeah that's
how to how to fix up one of these hutch double wall insert and it's still working today i still
use it a couple times a year so anyway yeah if you have any questions or have any tips or tricks
go ahead and post that up i'll put a link to my previous video with a fire in here
over on the left hand side and as always thanks for watching