Cleaning Shop Fan Screens?

Ox · Jun 22, 2019

24 - 48" fans:

I have tried taking them to the car worsh, and while they doo eventually come clean, I end up having grease all over the worsh bay when done.
Yeah, I run another $2 through to clean THAT mess up, but would rather NOT take them up there again.

I tried brake cleaner, and that doesn't hardly seem to touch it.

Have some soap that we got that foams up to clean the machine sheet metal, but that doesn't seem to help much either.

So - I'm down to fetchin' an old skewl type steam jenny and taking them out in the driveway.

Anyone got a better process?

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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Larry Dickman · Jun 22, 2019

I'm having the same problem. A good solution is welcome.
I fear the insides of my lungs look the same as my fan screens.

Bill D · Jun 22, 2019

There are companies that come to you to steam clean your commercial kitchen vent systems. The filters they take down and clean outside the ducting and hoods are steamed in place. Do this maybe two times a year. I think fire insurance requires it?
Bil lD

jhruska · Jun 22, 2019

Shop used soluble oil with spray misters. The thirty human filters could not keep the fans and screens clean. Changed to synthetic coolant.

thermite · Jun 22, 2019

Ox said:
Anyone got a better process?

Dermestid beetles ?

Buggers can strip an entire cetacean to the bone in short order, and that's a whale of a lot of oily-tissue.

TDegenhart · Jun 22, 2019

If the fans are that bad, how about your lungs?

Tom

Limy Sami · Jun 22, 2019

Can you hot wash (as in boil ) them in a washing soda (sodium carbonate) solution - maybe in a big tray over a barbecue? ………….lot less messy than steam pressure cleaning.

DDoug · Jun 22, 2019

I would find a beeg pan (maybe something from HD for mixing mortar ?)
and let them soak for a week.

TSP or some kind of degreaser, etc.

Milland · Jun 22, 2019

We're talking larger (24" plus) pedestal fans? Or smaller electronics enclosure fans?

Either way, what I'd suggest is adding some decent furnace filters to the inlet side by making an adapter frame of some sort. It'll cut down airflow a bit, but the upside is actual removal of a lot of the junk in the air (even mist), not just pushing it around and having some of it coat the blades.

I do that here with a couple of fans, will be doing more as I have time. It's sobering when you see how quickly the filter changes from white, to gray, to black. But better it than my lungs!

This is in addition to existent machine enclosures with their own filtered mist collectors, more is betterer...

Ox · Jun 22, 2019

I'm talking about large pedestal to larger roll-away fans.

You've put filter material on the inlet side before?

Hmmmm....

I recently picked up a couple larger boxes of bulk filter material at an auction with no clue what I was gunna doo with it.

That doesn't solve the issue of cleaning the current tho....

I think you guys are overplaying the whole "lung" thing....

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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

TDegenhart · Jun 22, 2019

How about something like engine cleaner, Gunk or whatever?

Hope you are right about the lung thing.

Tom

Milland · Jun 22, 2019

TDegenhart said:
Hope you are right about the lung thing.

Tom

Heck, I'm a known worry-wart. I mean, humans evolved over thousands of years for their lungs to clean up complex hydrocarbons in the air, so why waste air filters on something like that??

CarbideBob · Jun 22, 2019

It's kind a gooey mess that does not come off easily.
Solvent type degreaser first, kerosene, wd-40, gumout engine cleaner, pick your poison. You need to cut the dried on oils.
A hose blast and then soap like diluted tide in a spray bottle, fantastic, or such.
Rinse and repeat. Back to the solvent then the soap.

A filter of the normal cheap furnace filter mesh on the input side helps to not have to do this so often.
It does make the air flow less.
Bob

Tony Quiring · Jun 22, 2019

Greased lightening or other concentrated degreaser works miracles in these messes.

Let it soak then mix strong dawn in garden sprayer to rinse as this will need crud in suspension then final with water

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

yardbird · Jun 22, 2019

We have these but it just prolongs the inevitable. I'm not certain but I believe the outfit that does the uniforms and rags also does the covers.

Eventually all the fans end up in the steam booth. Steam booth makes them (the metal parts of the fan) look brand new. Steam is the trick, along with high pressure spray of course.

Brent

Ox · Jun 23, 2019

Any idea where those came from?

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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Steve in SoCal · Jun 23, 2019

If the grills are steel a kiddie pool with a caustic soda bath. Simple green has a caustic version mix it pretty rich.

Steve

thermite · Jun 23, 2019

yardbird said:
We have these but it just prolongs the inevitable.

Not for very long, it won't!

That type of fan "stall"s - spins but moves no significant air - "Real Soon, NOW" with any restriction on the "intake" side.

If y'all really doo have a chronic maintenance challenge, might be money ahead to invest in fans that CAN pull a bit of vacuum through a filter. Boxed "squirrel cage" types as used for HVAC or commercial kitchen grease-trapping walls and hoods, spray booths and such.

Those can use all manner of filter types effectively, "active" as well as passive.

Milland · Jun 23, 2019

thermite said:
Not for very long, it won't!

That type of fan "stall"s - spins but moves no significant air - "Real Soon, NOW" with any restriction on the "intake" side.

Dammit Bill, you know how much I hate it when I have to agree with you!

It's true, it does work better with the higher pressure drop capacity of a squirrel cage style blower. That's what my filtered fans are. But with a decent blade design and motor a prop style fan with a filter is still much better than nothing, just keep track of the lessening airflow.

I would still recommend a paper style furnace filter over the "hairnet" shown by yardbird.

thermite · Jun 23, 2019

Milland said:
Dammit Bill, you know how much I hate it when I have to agree with you!

How's about a rain-check for some later disagreement, then?

It's true, it does work better with the higher pressure drop capacity of a squirrel cage style blower. That's what my filtered fans are. But with a decent blade design and motor a prop style fan with a filter is still much better than nothing, just keep track of the lessening airflow.

I would still recommend a paper style furnace filter over the "hairnet" shown by yardbird.

LOL! MUCH smaller shop here than y'all have.... And "I Got Mine" by fortuitous accident.

Went to pick up five Gerardi Modular vises, and the PM member selling also had TWO Micoaire uber-filter rigs for small-change. 24" square, so they fit side-by-side into my T&C Touring van.

These aren't for cooling so much as keeping the air CLEAN, but pull a goodly manometer head, they can surely do, given a "pre-filter", four paper HEPA stacked in-series, then a deep-deep "bag" filter all on the intake side of the blower:

https://www.microaironline.com/media/L804.pdf

And they even use the same 24 X 24 X 1 filters as my existing central air. Four of those stacked,

For my use, I don't even need the bag filter atall. Nor even all four pleated paper, really. Went and ordered-up some of the more basic paint-booth extraction system pre-cut filters. Those are pretty cheap.

HVAC supply outfits have boxed blowers and all that as would be suitable to at least run a parallel trial and see which was lower-cost. Squirrel-cage+filters. Or blade-type+downtime and cleaning labour.

Cleaning Shop Fan Screens?

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