UPDATE:
I was able to get the new fan blade installed. It helped, a little. The machine is still noisy, but since it dries food so well we just deal with it.
END UPDATE

I am SO frustrated with the Excalibur people. I received an Excalibur 3900 as a gift last Christmas (2010). What an awesome gift, right?! I love how quickly and evenly it dries food.

My biggest complaint is how loud it is. We can’t run it at night because even with it shut in the laundry room downstairs it is so loud it wakes us up upstairs. I had just accepted that the noise was part of it when I heard a friend’s Excalibur running. Or rather, didn’t hear. It was quite noiseless. Especially compared to the grinding hum that mine produces.

So I called Excalibur. After all, it had made this noise since the day I received it, which had been less than 6 months at the time I called. To begin the saga, they weren’t able to ship a replacement part (fan blade is what they said after no more than 10 seconds of my description) to me because I wasn’t the purchaser. They weren’t going to cover it under warranty at all since I wasn’t the original purchaser (even though it was a gift) but eventually agreed that we would just do this under the name of the person that gifted it to me. Which also meant that the part had to be shipped to that person. And I had to pay for shipping too – almost $8 – on a part for something that has never worked correctly.

So I relented and figured that it was worth $8 to have the quiet and be able to actually use it. So yesterday I finally got the part from the gifter (who lives an hour and half away from me) and opened it up. Yep, it’s a fan blade. With zero instructions.

Now, I am a technical person. I dismantled and fixed computers both as a hobby and at a previous job. So I figured I would tackle this and get it done since I happened to have a child-free day today. I got the back off of the dehydrator and can see the fan blade. Inside a cage. Where the screws are ridiculously tight. And one screw is missing.

And then I got frustrated. I am dismantling a very expensive piece of electrical kitchen equipment that was defective on purchase. At my expense. And they couldn’t even bother to send instructions.

So I did a search online and all I can find is to call them and they will walk me through it.

Thanks.

So there it sits, unfixed. And I’m feeling bitter about having to fix something that should have worked from the get go. In my search for directions on replacing the fan blade I came across many accounts of people saying their Excalibur dehydrator was so noisy it was unusable at night or when family was home because they couldn’t talk over it. I’m starting to think that quality control at this company must be seriously lacking.

Ugh.

If you’re listening Excalibur, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Shipping defective products then expecting your customers to fix them with no printed instructions and eat the shipping expense on the parts. What a disappointment.

Side note – I am an affiliate at Cultures for Health, and that is where my dehydrator was purchased. You won’t find any affiliate links in this post. With the issues I’ve had with this dehydrator I can’t say that I would recommend an Excalibur at this time. I do still love Cultures for Health though. 🙂

photo credit: Living Fitness UK via photopin cc