Case Study: Leave No Fan Unturned
Impacts
Saved $1,700 on purchasing a new exhaust fan (with shipping cost included).
Saved close to $400 on labor to come out and replace the motor.
Issue was quickly resolved before restaurant opened; prevented hood capture problems.
Avoided finger pointing between parties had issue gone unresolved.
Overview
A very unexpected and relatively inexpensive issue caught by our technician could have resulted in the client paying thousands of dollars had he not adopted a “leave no stone unturned” mentality to solving the problem.
NTi arrived on site to balance a restaurant in central Florida. The technician noticed they were getting low airflow readings on the hood and began to troubleshoot the problem. There were two identical exhaust fans; one was performing at design, while the other was low – even though it was running at a higher speed than the one at design. What would turn out to be a minor—but very unexpected—issue could have sent the customer on a wild goose chase to figure it out and cost them thousands of dollars.
Our tech worked to uncover the issue by starting with basic things to check off his list: ductwork problems, ductwork curb issues, leakage around the curb, and if the motor was operating at the correct RPM. Once the boxes for all these items were checked off as working properly, he investigated further.
The next step was to call technical support for the exhaust fan manufacturer. After walking through all the troubleshooting steps, technical support was still stumped as to what was causing the problem and advised the tech to call their salesperson.
Figure 1
Spot the difference between these two identical model fans.
The fan on the left has the correct wheel size installed, whereas the fan on the right has the wrong size installed.
The issue was finally uncovered when the NTi tech tilted the fan wheel up to look at it and noticed it was smaller than the others. It turns out that the wrong size wheel had been installed on the fan from the factory. The tech put this finding in his report, which was later confirmed by the manufacturer as the cause of the problem.
The part was under warranty and able to be replaced. It would have caused major issues had it gone unsolved. This defect is the proverbial "needle in the haystack" – had NTi not been there to perform a very thorough inspection, the issue may not have been found and could have cost the client upwards of $1,700.
This was a rare issue that was solved thanks to attention to detail and digging in. Our tech followed his training by starting with the most basic things and crossing them off the list first. His familiarity with the type of equipment and perseverance to uncover the issue rather than leave the jobsite and log it in his report saved the customer long-term headaches and unnecessary expenses. NTi prides itself on having a leave no stone unturned (or in this case, fan!) mentality when it comes to issues and not leaving the site until we have a solution or the next best steps.
