Why Fans Die Faster Here
Heat, mostly. A radon fan runs 24/7 for its entire life, and when that life is spent in a 140-degree attic or on a west-facing wall in full sun, bearings dry out and capacitors drift years ahead of schedule. Manufacturers talk about ten-year fan life; in the Valley we tell people to expect six to eight and consider anything past that a bonus. Monsoon dust doesn't help either, it works into motor housings on exterior installs and turns bearings gritty.
The Warning Signs
A healthy fan hums so quietly you have to put a hand on the pipe to feel it. Call us when you notice any of these: the manometer sitting level, a new humming-but-not-spinning sound (seized rotor, fire risk if the motor keeps trying), rattling or grinding (bearings), a loud drone the neighbors can hear (failing balance), water sloshing sounds after a storm (condensate or slope problem, not always the fan), or a breaker that trips when the fan circuit energizes. And if your system was installed before 2018 and has never had the fan touched, a $95 diagnostic now beats a mystery later; the fee is waived against any repair.
What a Replacement Looks Like
We stock RadonAway RP145s, the workhorse size that fits most residential systems, plus the common Fantech models in the van, so a standard swap is one visit: cut out the old fan, check the pipe for UV damage and the couplings for rot, mount the new unit on fresh rubber couplings, verify airflow and suction with a gauge rather than a guess, and reset the manometer marks so you can see what "good" looks like from now on. $325 to $575 including the fan for standard swaps, quoted exactly before we drive out. Wrong-size or specialty fans take a day to order.
If the fan is fine but the number crept up anyway, that's a system problem, not a fan problem: settled soil, a failed seal, a renovation that added conditioned space over unsealed slab. That's a mitigation diagnostic, and we do those on systems we didn't install, no attitude about someone else's pipe layout. Mostly.
Get the system running again: (520) 423-5900.
