Journey with Confidence RV GPS App RV Trip Planner RV LIFE Campground Reviews RV Maintenance Take a Speed Test Free 7 Day Trial ×
RV Trip Planning Discussions

Go Back   iRV2 Forums > THE OWNER'S CORNER FORUMS > Country Coach Owners Forum
Click Here to Login
Join iRV2 Today

Mission Statement: Supporting thoughtful exchange of knowledge, values and experience among RV enthusiasts.
Reply
  This discussion is proudly sponsored by:
Please support our sponsors and let them know you heard about their products on iRV2
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
 
Old 01-08-2021, 10:11 AM   #1
Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Houston, Tx
Posts: 93
Aqua-Hot Fan in under bathroom sink

Hi there. I have a 2004 Intrigue with Aqua-Hot. The fan which is mounted under the bathroom sink is rattling quite a bit till everything heats up. Sounds like a bearing going out. How do I get to that fan? Under the sink there is a cabinet with a carpet floor. The fan is under the carpet floor with no sign of access.

TIA! -Dan
__________________
2004 Country Coach Intrigue - C12
Houston, Texas
dan.sherwin is offline   Reply With Quote
Join the #1 RV Forum Today - It's Totally Free!

iRV2.com RV Community - Are you about to start a new improvement on your RV or need some help with some maintenance? Do you need advice on what products to buy? Or maybe you can give others some advice? No matter where you fit in you'll find that iRV2 is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with other RV owners, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create an RV blog, send private messages and so much, much more!

Old 01-08-2021, 10:22 AM   #2
Senior Member
 
Old-Biscuit's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 26,689
Quote:
Originally Posted by dan.sherwin View Post
Hi there. I have a 2004 Intrigue with Aqua-Hot. The fan which is mounted under the bathroom sink is rattling quite a bit till everything heats up. Sounds like a bearing going out. How do I get to that fan? Under the sink there is a cabinet with a carpet floor. The fan is under the carpet floor with no sign of access.

TIA! -Dan
that carpeted panel is most likely just stabled and can be pried up/out
__________________
I took my Medication today. HAVE YOU?
Dodge 3500 w/Tractor Motor
US NAVY---USS Decatur DDG-31
Old-Biscuit is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 01-08-2021, 10:27 AM   #3
Community Moderator
 
CountryFit's Avatar


 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Between the Oceans
Posts: 8,026
Blog Entries: 4
Under the floor, it is the ceiling of the wet bay on our coach. There is a heat exchanger there to keep the wet bay from frozen up in bad weather. If yours is similar, guess that is where the fan bearing makes noise. We don't have a fan but just an aluminum tubing with fins around it. Nevertheless you can access it from under, the wet bay.
__________________
Steven & Polly
2000 Country Coach Intrigue 40' ISC 350
2018 Ford Explorer 4WD
CountryFit is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-08-2021, 10:35 AM   #4
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Traveling
Posts: 553
My bathroom-area fan isn't under the sink like yours, but it is also under a carpeted floor under a cabinet. On mine, there is a cutout in the carpet and a small hole to grab with a finger to lift out the carpeted access panel. If you don't see something like that, perhaps the toe-kick panel is removable? In our galley we have a toe-kick that comes out after removing screws that are in the carpeted cabinet floor directly above (the screw heads are hard to find at first, because they're hidden by the carpet fibers). Hope this give you some ideas.
__________________
-Dave
2003 Country Coach Allure First Avenue 36; 2012 Honda CR-V
DJ55 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-08-2021, 11:10 AM   #5
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 85
I have been through the exact scenario on my 04 Magna. Maybe it's similar enough to apply here. Under the stapled carpet is a thin wood cover. There are many small phillips screws around the perimeter. Remove the screws and the panel comes out easily giving excellent access to the heat exchanger. I replaced all of the original squirrel cage fanned units with the updated ones from AquaHot due to annoying bearing noise. The new ones seem to move just a bit less air but they are near silent in comparison.
__________________
Sam

2004 Country Coach Magna Chalet/ Cat C15
Samdon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-08-2021, 10:53 PM   #6
Senior Member
 
BrianGlenn's Avatar
 
Country Coach Owners Club
Join Date: Apr 2015
Location: Alberta
Posts: 1,591
In my vanity I had to remove the side panels first to remove floor panel. Reverse order of how they were installed originally at factory. Side panel bottom edges were resting on floor panel.
__________________
Towr: 2007 Country Coach Allure 470 - 37 Sunset Bay Cummins 400 ISL, Coach #31563
Toad: 2016 F150 King Ranch - 3.5L EcoBoost 4x4 Supercrew (curb weight 4,775 lbs)
Toad: SOLD 2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee (yes, it has a Hemi) (curb weight 4,720 lbs)
BrianGlenn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-09-2021, 04:28 PM   #7
Senior Member
 
Windward's Avatar
 
Country Coach Owners Club
Join Date: Jan 2020
Location: Central Washington
Posts: 159
I have complained about the noise levels when the Heat Craft heat exchangers are blowing. Those fans are junk, all plastic and noisy. I saw some guys had converted to computer cooling fans so I did the same. The floor boards under the sink lift up to access the heat exchanger on my 04 Allure. Here is a pic of the bathroom heat exchanger after I removed the stock fan before pulling the exchanger clear out.

I pulled bathroom heat exchanger apart to install new fans. Removed heater core and flushed it out. A few chunks of scale came out, but it was pretty clean considering how old the glycol is and that it is not really the right type. Squirrel cage fan is mounted on angled piece of aluminum that is wide enough for three axial fans but it cannot be mounted vertical. Using stock plate would leave fans not blowing directly at heater core. The stock fan blows through a 3” x 5” hole pointed at the center of the heater core. I mounted two 92mm axial fans on piece of 1/2” plywood installed vertically in heat exchanger, held in place with flex caulk and several screws. I also used a metal 4” 90 deg for the one discharge that goes to the hallway as the flex was kinked restricting airflow. Retesting sound levels it now is at 56 dB and a much lower frequency. The stock fan ran at 400 MHz, 67 Db, surged and rumbled for some reason. New fans run at 40 MHz, 56 Db do not surge or rumble and put out the same amount of air flow.

Temperature measured with blowers on, boiler on, 55 deg coach temp = 125 deg in fins of exchanger and 116 deg discharge air just in front of exchanger. After flushing, correct glycol, cleaning the core, the temps did not change.

With much reduced sound levels in bathroom zone conversion, I converted the front zones’ two heat exchangers and installed 3 axial fans in each of them for higher air flow in the larger space. The sound levels are much reduced and good airflow but not sure if 3 fans make that much difference in air flow as I don’t have a balometer air flow hood to measure it.

My Hydro Hot needed some attention so I replaced fan shaft bearings which didn't help the noise level. After consulting Roger Burke I replaced the plastic clutch between the motor and fan shaft. That still didn't fix the noise so I got to looking at how much end play was between the clutch halves. There was over 1/4" which allowed the clutch halves to separate and rattle. I put some stainless washers behind the fan side of the clutch to nearly eliminate the end play. That stopped the rattle/growl the combustion blower made.

I took some sound level readings using a Db app on my phone before and after working on fans and boiler to see numerically what reductions I achieved (see chart).

Overall it is about a $25 conversion per exchanger to replace with 2 computer fans and takes about 2 hours. You can pinch off the glycol lines if you want to remove and flush core out or just blow the fins out with compressed air. This inexpensive upgrade made a huge reduction in noise levels. If you have bad fans don't replace with the stock ones.
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	1BathExchanger.jpg
Views:	24
Size:	410.2 KB
ID:	313983   Click image for larger version

Name:	1StockFan2.jpg
Views:	31
Size:	630.1 KB
ID:	313984  

Click image for larger version

Name:	1BathExchangerFans.jpg
Views:	32
Size:	620.3 KB
ID:	313985   Click image for larger version

Name:	1ClutchShims.jpg
Views:	28
Size:	209.3 KB
ID:	313991  

Click image for larger version

Name:	NoiseLevels.jpg
Views:	33
Size:	235.9 KB
ID:	313992  
__________________
2019 Outdoors RV Blackstone 270RKS Titanium
04 Country Coach 33' Allure Seaside ISL 400
24' Wildcat 5th Wheel -- Lance Truck Camper x 2
Windward is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-15-2021, 05:37 AM   #8
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2020
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 59
Excellent write-up!!
JDaveB is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-16-2021, 08:22 AM   #9
Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Houston, Tx
Posts: 93
Quote:
Originally Posted by Windward View Post
I have complained about the noise levels when the Heat Craft heat exchangers are blowing. Those fans are junk, all plastic and noisy. I saw some guys had converted to computer cooling fans so I did the same. The floor boards under the sink lift up to access the heat exchanger on my 04 Allure. Here is a pic of the bathroom heat exchanger after I removed the stock fan before pulling the exchanger clear out.

I pulled bathroom heat exchanger apart to install new fans. Removed heater core and flushed it out. A few chunks of scale came out, but it was pretty clean considering how old the glycol is and that it is not really the right type. Squirrel cage fan is mounted on angled piece of aluminum that is wide enough for three axial fans but it cannot be mounted vertical. Using stock plate would leave fans not blowing directly at heater core. The stock fan blows through a 3” x 5” hole pointed at the center of the heater core. I mounted two 92mm axial fans on piece of 1/2” plywood installed vertically in heat exchanger, held in place with flex caulk and several screws. I also used a metal 4” 90 deg for the one discharge that goes to the hallway as the flex was kinked restricting airflow. Retesting sound levels it now is at 56 dB and a much lower frequency. The stock fan ran at 400 MHz, 67 Db, surged and rumbled for some reason. New fans run at 40 MHz, 56 Db do not surge or rumble and put out the same amount of air flow.

Temperature measured with blowers on, boiler on, 55 deg coach temp = 125 deg in fins of exchanger and 116 deg discharge air just in front of exchanger. After flushing, correct glycol, cleaning the core, the temps did not change.

With much reduced sound levels in bathroom zone conversion, I converted the front zones’ two heat exchangers and installed 3 axial fans in each of them for higher air flow in the larger space. The sound levels are much reduced and good airflow but not sure if 3 fans make that much difference in air flow as I don’t have a balometer air flow hood to measure it.

My Hydro Hot needed some attention so I replaced fan shaft bearings which didn't help the noise level. After consulting Roger Burke I replaced the plastic clutch between the motor and fan shaft. That still didn't fix the noise so I got to looking at how much end play was between the clutch halves. There was over 1/4" which allowed the clutch halves to separate and rattle. I put some stainless washers behind the fan side of the clutch to nearly eliminate the end play. That stopped the rattle/growl the combustion blower made.

I took some sound level readings using a Db app on my phone before and after working on fans and boiler to see numerically what reductions I achieved (see chart).

Overall it is about a $25 conversion per exchanger to replace with 2 computer fans and takes about 2 hours. You can pinch off the glycol lines if you want to remove and flush core out or just blow the fins out with compressed air. This inexpensive upgrade made a huge reduction in noise levels. If you have bad fans don't replace with the stock ones.

Thank you!!!!! Excellent write-up. Headed to the bus not to take out that fan. -Dan
__________________
2004 Country Coach Intrigue - C12
Houston, Texas
dan.sherwin is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
fan, sink



Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Discovery low water pressure bathroom sink & bedroom sink EMPIRE231 Fleetwood Owner's Forum 1 08-15-2016 12:30 PM
Water leak under bathroom sink rucksack 5th Wheel Discussion 9 02-04-2010 02:14 PM
vacuum breaker under bathroom sink Daddy's truck Winnebago Industries Owner's Forum 16 04-12-2009 07:19 AM
Leak under bathroom sink basin: Fakrwee Winnebago Industries Owner's Forum 8 10-07-2008 04:26 PM
Plumbing Vent under bathroom sink LK23 Winnebago Industries Owner's Forum 11 04-06-2006 02:43 PM

» Featured Campgrounds

Reviews provided by


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 09:56 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.