Fan issues: Open motors and VFD's mounted inside fans need to be eliminated.

Two things we have found in the field with upblast fans and to a lesser degree, utility set (Cage) fans in grease exhaust systems since the introduction of the direct drive fans. This also applies to belt driven fans but not as critical with the motors being offset from the shaft hole. One issue is the amount of grease and other contamination inside the motor housing particularly coming up through the shaft hole between the fan wheel and the motor. The other is the heat on these rooftops plus moisture from the weather than can enter through various openings in the motor cap or even from the air intake.  Both of these issues cause havoc with the electrical components inside the fan motor housing including any open motors and the Variable Frequency Drives (VFD).  Remember that these VFD's are basically computers thus should be kept out of the weather and mounted inside the stores and not outside in the fan housing. All direct drive fans must have enclosed motors installed. This avoids issues from cleaning effluent, contamination the plugs up the motor air intakes, and also from weather related issues. Please see attached recent pictures showing what the inside of the motors housings look like in an upblast fan at a hamburger concept. 

IKECA Annual Meeting

 Looking forward to seeing everyone in Reno this week at the IKECA annual owners meeting. in addition to all of the educational sessions and great speakers Thursday and Friday, we also will have the IKECA Consensus Body meeting on Wednesday. Please feel free to check IKECA out and look up Don Pfleiderer, our company president/CEO, while there. He is always willing to chat and help others out in the fire protection industry. Also check out Don's blog at https://talesofthegreaser.blogspot.com/

More information for IKECA can be found at https://www.ikeca.org

Exciting news! New larger shops and more crews and rigs!

 Exciting news! After adding addition crews and rigs the past year, our lack of space was finally addressed this year with the purchase of a new beautiful (and much larger) Dallas building, moving to larger buildings in Sunshine FL(From our smaller Ft Lauderdale shop), Kansas City (Lees Summit, just down the street from our long time office),  and San Antonio TX (from our smaller Austin shop). Also this spring we expanded our Houston Regional office taking over additional space.  We now have room for all of our additional staff and rigs for the short term. This is allowing us to keep up with our ever growing portfolio of customers. Looking forward to servicing all for many years in the future! 

Virofest 2023 National conference at our Bloomington MN Headquarters

Virofest 2023 was an outstanding success bringing together everyone Viro from across the country for our first ever company wide conference and trainees seminars. Richard Flint was our keynote speaker and he brought the house down with his wisdom and profound insight into human behavior. In addition to Richard, there were training programs for inspections, proper picture protocols, deficiency reporting, fan repair and rebuilding, equipment maintenance, hood setups, safety, insurance, etc. I want to personally thank our outstanding staff for all of their efforts to make the conference even better than any of us could have imagined. The teams enjoyed food from Scott Jamama's BBQ for lunch, and Taco Taxi Food Truck visited for dinner, and the famous wood fired pizza from Red Wagon Pizza Truck and Trailer on Friday. 

 

Accomplishing the impossible once again! Other KEC vendors and mechanic contractors recommended replacing the plugged grease duct. Instead the FM turned to VIRO!!

Last week Viro received a call for help. The exhaust systems at their location was not longer exhausting air. It was completely plugged up with decades of grease.  The FM's and management of the location were told the systems were inaccessible and needed to be replaced. Looking at closing for several weeks(Or months) for redesign and installation of 2 new systems, they turned to Viro. 3 days later, the store can now reopen as the "inaccessible" ductwork could indeed be accessed with our equipment. The after pictures are almost shocking as many thought it was unbelievable that the system could be cleaned like that.  The 2 teams that traveled to this location faced the impossible and came through with their normal flying colors!  Like Viro's owner has always said in his seminars, "There is no such thing as inaccessible ductwork, only ductwork people choose not to access" Companies stating there is inaccessible ductwork are simply stating they did not clean the system and it is still a fire danger. 

Looking up from hood 1

Looking down into hood from access plate

Looking into the horizontal duct above hood(Before)

Looking onto 2nd horizontal

Looking up from the hood getting closer to end of job

Looking into horizontal duct above hood (after)

Look what we found!! A lot of ductwork behind the grease

Looking down into the hood from the access plate (After)

Looking further into the horizontal

Looking down first system from the roof

Looking down the 2nd system from roof (After)

Fan bowl after

Looking at the back of the fan blades (after)

Fan intake (After)

Fire Inspection training Nov 2nd on Salam Oregon

 Who:

Oregon Fire Marshal’s Association

 What:

TEC Conference

 When:

November 2, 2022 08:15-16:30 

Course – Detailed overview of grease exhaust system design, construction, maintenance and inspections along with recommendations and inspection training. Presented by Don Pfleiderer CECS, CESI 

 Location:

Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards & Training

4190 Aumsville Hwy SE

Salem OR 97317

Fan motors- Make sure to keep the air intakes clean!

 With the newer direct drive fans on grease exhaust systems that do not have belts to service, many technicians are not checking inside the motor housings. That is a mistake as the open style motors can plug up and overheat. That can lead to numerous other issues and possible a grease exhaust fire.  We do not recommend using open style motors on grease exhaust fans. Always choose an enclosed motor (TEFC) and where possible, move the VFD's (controls) away from the fan and inside the building. This keeps them away from the weather. See picture of a plugged up fan motor that overheated.