Are BOX fans dangerous????

Well I had a fan, all metal with a flat metal plate as a base, and a two-blade blade. Maybe made in the 30's. It was clearly once mounted to some big piece of machinery like a railroad engine and the rivets holding it were drilled out. I probably got it at a yard sale.

I used it at work. The motor would start, but the blade was on very loosely and it would take 20 or 30 seconds before the blade caught up, during which time it made sort of a ringing noise. The people at work felt sorry for me and bought me a new plastic fan, so I took it home and nailed one corner to the window sill above my head, for summer time.

I put a switch in the cord and when on my back I could reach up and turn it on without looking at it. I also took a thermostat from a box fan, mounted into a big plastic cap from an aerosol can, so the fan turned off when it cooled off in the middle of the night.

It needed oiling, and as the years went on, it needed oiling more often. One time, I looked up and the oil in the motor was on fire. And the motor too. I guess I was lucky to put the fire out with no more damage.

But I think this story is rare, and I doubt fans cause many fires. Don't all their motors have thermal fuses? (Mine didn't.)

It used a bathroom fan, shaded pole motor to run it, but one size bigger than what those fans use, and I could never find a motor the right size, so now I have a big 3-speed plastic fan at the foot of my bed, controlled by a remote switch in my bed. I still have the fan parts for the future. Plastic fans take up more space than metal fans do.

Hmmph. 87.13%

Actually there is a basis to the rumour. A LOT of cheap chinese box fans were produced without thermal protection in the motors, and were not "impedence protected" to prevent them from overheating, and when the bearings seized up they WERE prone to throwing smoke and flames