Stove hood motor spins the wrong way.

I noticed our new stove hood exhaust fan seems to be blowing rather than sucking. The wiring of the kitchen and the installation of the hood were done by a bit of an amateur electrician, so I was wondering if maybe the live and neutral were swapped. Would this cause the motor to spin the wrong way? Any other ideas what else might cause this? I live in Italy but I think the wiring is pretty similar to the UK - they have blue, brown and yellow/green which I think are neutral, live and earth respectively.

Thanks for your help,
Phil

 

Hi

The fan won't be running the wrong way because line and neutral are reversed. It will run the same way regardless of how they are connected.

It's important that they are connected the right way according to the device's instructions though.

The cable colours are "harmonised" i.e. the same in the UK as in Europe. Brown is line or live, blue neutral and yellow / green is CPC or earth.

Is it possible the fan itself is the wrong way round?

 

Thanks Gareth.

I don't think the fan can be the wrong way, because it all comes preassembled in plastic casing.

Anyway, thanks again

 

I had similar problem with ice cream maker. Cure was so easy could kick myself. Switch it off and back on again and it reversed.

 

It could still have been fitted the wrong way round at the factory. Another possibility is it's something like a capacitor-start motor and there's a faulty connection so that the start winding isn't being brought into use. Does it consistently appear to run backwards every time you switch it on? Try switching on multiple times (from completely stationary) and see if it spins one way some times and the opposite way other times.

 

How do you know the fan's rotating the wrong way?
Is it just because air is blowing out of the hood?

It's also unlikely the fan's fitted incorrectly. Usually they're a Centrifugal fan i.e. looks like a hamster wheel. They can only be fitted one way.
It would be very unusual for a cooker hood to have an axial fan, and even those are impossible to fit the wrong way as the rotor usually has only one possible way of fitting it to the rotor to the axel!

It's quite likely that it's not an electrical problem or a fan problem at all.

A lot of cooker hoods have adjustable dampers that allow you to either exhaust the air out through a duct, or if you have grease and active charcoal filters fitted, recirculate it back into the room again.

Make sure these are set correctly.

 

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