Eskimo 081003 Window Fan | Initial Checkout

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]Hello viewers. Here is an Eskimo branded single window fan likely from around the 1950s.

[00:00:09]This is the Eskimo model number 08 1003 window fan by good old McGraw-Edison.

[00:00:22]So, that tells us all we need to know about the quality of the bearings.

[00:00:26]It's rated for 40 W, so it's not very powerful.

[00:00:29]I think it's more or less the same as a basic desktop dime store fan, but inside a different form factor.

[00:00:38]The paint is in pretty impressive condition for the age. You can see it still has the majority of its luster to it including a nice shiny reflection.

[00:00:49]I'm surprised paint of this good quality was even used in the first place.

[00:00:55]This was likely a very, very inexpensive fan relatively speaking.

[00:01:01]I guess well I guess we're seeing the difference here between something that was cheap 75 years ago and something that was cheap today.

[00:01:11]The standards were still much better back then.

[00:01:23]Looks like it probably uses a two-pole shaded pole motor.

[00:01:31]Looks fairly clean inside considering how dirty and grimy the outside is.

[00:01:36]We do still have oil ports. There's one there.

[00:01:40]And there is also one in the front as well.

[00:01:43]Right above the shaft.

[00:01:46]It's kind of hard to see. There it is.

[00:01:50]It's kind of an interesting design to the guard.

[00:01:54]It's almost like spherical.

[00:01:59]It's very thick and it doesn't need to be.

[00:02:07]It does have some legs on the bottom, kind of like the Marvins.

[00:02:12]I wonder if this is what the Marvins were designed after.

[00:02:16]It's very, very similar design.

[00:02:22]Now, it has a hole down at the bottom, which I can only imagine it's for passing the cord through.

[00:02:36]Which is kind of neat.

[00:02:39]It's got a single single-speed rotary switch.

[00:02:44]It's a Leviton switch.

[00:02:51]I don't really like that type of switch, at least the ones made today are very cheap and cheesy. This one might be considerably better.

[00:02:59]Here's the plug.

[00:03:01]This looks like this would be the original plug to me.

[00:03:05]Very early molded plug.

[00:03:08]And the wire you can feel that this wire is definitely getting very old.

[00:03:13]It's not cracked or dry rotted yet, but it's definitely on its way.

[00:03:19]But, I think it's still good enough to use for now.

[00:03:25]Bearings are still pretty free in this.

[00:03:27]If they're quiet or not, that's a whole different story.

[00:03:31]This looks like it's been used quite a bit over the years. There's a lot of dust accumulated on the inside of the guard there.

[00:03:38]You can see the blades have been cleaned at some point, but there's a lot of residue under it. Maybe this was used in a kitchen or something of that nature, where the dust is kind of sticky and grimy.

[00:03:50]Well, let's go ahead and shut this and see how it works.

[00:03:55]So, we'll test it with 118 V volts to start with, which is what we've got coming in from the street today.

[00:04:02]It's a little bit low.

[00:04:05]Probably because everybody has the air conditioner on cuz it's so humid out.

[00:04:11]All right, here we go.

[00:04:19]That has an excellent startup sound to it.

[00:04:25]And that actually is pushing quite a bit of air.

[00:04:29]It's loud.

[00:04:30]It is very, very loud.

[00:04:48]Very noisy fan, but when this came out, not many people had an air conditioner yet, so you wanted to cool the house down, you would use this and shout or just sit there and sweat.

[00:05:02]Now, ironically, many of the air conditioners sold at the time this was sold were probably a fair bit quieter than this.

[00:05:18]Oh, some of that noise was from the uh a screwdriver rattling against the back. Now, it's a little bit quieter.

[00:05:26]It moves a lot more air than I was expecting it to.

[00:05:35]That's not too bad.

[00:05:40]But, the problem with this is the same problem with like the Holmes HAWF2021, for instance.

[00:05:47]It's a very, very small fan, and so this the actual volume of air moved is quite minimal.

[00:05:54]It's about an 8-in blade, so the CFM of this is not going to be very high.

[00:06:00]It would be interesting to calculate it at some point.

[00:06:04]But it does push out a surprisingly good breeze.

[00:06:08]I can feel it clear across the room.

[00:06:11]And the output is is very wide. It's not like a small concentrated stream. It feels like it's a much bigger fan than it is.

[00:06:24]It's pretty cool looking, too.

[00:06:42]I imagine the whole [music] thing was a mirror finish at one point.

[00:06:46]Probably an aluminum blade, and it was [music] likely polished to a shine when it was new.

[00:07:05]It's in actually pretty good balance.

[00:07:09]I don't feel much vibration at all.

[00:07:12]Probably why the bearings are still so good.

[00:07:16]That's taking that 48 amps, 38.4 the watts, so the power factor about 66.

[00:07:24]I'm surprised it's only 38.4 the watts because we're testing it at a higher voltage than what it was designed for.

[00:07:31]I'll tone the voltage down now.

[00:07:40]That's about 115 versus 120.

[00:07:47]There is a difference.

[00:07:50]Especially if you go down to 110, which wasn't unheard of at the time, either.

[00:07:58]That's about 110.

[00:08:04]That's 110 versus 120.

[00:08:10]It makes a considerable difference.

[00:08:12]That's why some of these units that are multi-speed that are this old, people say, "Oh, the speed variance is poor."

[00:08:20]A lot of times that's because it's running on 120 versus 110. And if you hook up to a variac and run it on 110, you'll find that the speed the speed variance comes back and isn't bad.