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My lil' Vornado VFAN Jr. Vintage

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My experience with the Jr. Vornado Fan



A pretty small purchase in the bigger picture but this has been in my top 10 purchases of the past few years.  Just think about the amount of hours something like this spends actually on, running, working constantly.  1000's of hours just chugging along being a silent rockstar in the background of your life.

We had one of the hottest summers on record here in Portland a few years back.  I lived in a small south side closet of a room in a friends house.  Wasn't making a ton of money but did my research to find something reliable and aesthetically pleasing. (The curse of being a designer of course)

What I found wasn't a 10 dollar box fan, and admittedly that is your better bet for moving lots of air quickly for a season or two.  The results were strongly biased towards small, sturdy, well built fans such as Vornado brand fans.  These lil' guys work in a different way.  They are focused at circulating air around a space more efficiently with less power and noise than standard fans.  You don't generally point this fan on you and just bask in it (though always an option on hot days), you actually put it in a corner and let it do it's thing.  This is a great alternative to a ceiling fan at getting air layers moving inside a space in where oscillation or box fans seem to fail.


What I have found over years is that THIS is what makes our heat or cooling sources more efficient in our big old uninsulated house.  It is a power horse even on low.  It's nearly silent on and unless it's a really hot day low is generally all I use to keep the heat or cool properly mixing all hours of the day.

What really prompted this write up however is not how much I love this retro little fan but actually what happened 2 years into it when my old one was making  a clinking sound.  It started harmless enough, a small rubbing or knocking sound that wasn't too distracting.  Over months though it started to become a normal background noise.  When I really started to notice how loud it had become was when friends visiting would say "What is that sound and where is it coming from?!".  Oh... yeah, I guess it has gotten a little loud eh? So I did some research and took it apart as well as I could, gave it a full cleaning without actually taking apart anything within the turbine as to not void a warranty or damage the mechanisms that run it.  Put it all back together and it was better, but still there.  So I let it run a few more weeks to see if it would get any worse and we'll just say it didn't get any better.  So I did some more digging and found an easy customer support link for Vornado and emailed them with my story and a short video of the noise knowing full well it had been purchased over two years before not expecting much of a response.

Not only did they respond but they asked for a few bits of verifying information as to the purchase and model/serial information and then told me if I would dispose of the old fan properly into electronic recycling and cut the power cable at the body of the fan they would gladly send me a new one.  What? Seriously?!  These kinds of warranties still exist?!  Turns out they do.  I buy quality clothes, hiking products etc that are generally guaranteed for life for the same reasons.  These little fans are warrantied for 5 years from purchase!  FIVE years!  So for something you use nearly daily or year round for 1000's of hours of use you can be assured it is backed by a company who believes in their product.

So now I have a new little work horse fan quietly doing it's job in the corner of our old Portland home.  It makes me smile every time I look at it.  I'm not terribly attached to things per say, but stories yes.  And I'm excited to have a lot more with this one over the next few years.  Keep going strong Vornado Jr.


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