Hova-bator not holding temp like it used to...suggestions?

[Western Chick]

I just fired up my Turbo-fan Hovabator for the third year in a row and the temp seems to be fluctuating more than it ever has.

The past two years it ran nearly constantly from spring to fall with little to no adjustment in the thermostat, I have a LG still air that I use for hatching so the hova stays clean.

I set up the hova last week, got the temp up for a day, set the eggs and the temp dropped initially (like always) then came up for a couple days. Then, out of the blue the temp dropped to 95 for two days, I tried adjusting and the next day the temp was up to 103! I've been trying to get it to stabilize ever since (threw the eggs out

)

It's been sitting at 99* for the last couple days but seems to have a hard time staying there (min-max thermometer shows it's been ranging from 98-101).

I've got the incubator in the basement where it stays cool (60*) but that's where I've always had it- never had this problem before.

How long do these incubators last? My only explanation is that it's dying of old age. Any other suggestions?

 

[coffeemama]

Which hova bator is it? It sounds like maybe the room temps are flux'ing. Could this be a possibilty? It doesn't seem that it should die at 3 years, but who knows?!

 

[Buck Creek Chickens]

do you have a waffer? they need to be replaced every so often. a bad one will make the temp go up and down.

 

[twigg]

Quote:
That would be the first thing to check.

Hovas are simple critters. The heater either works, or it doesn't work. The wafers can go bad with depressing regularity, or work for 20 years

The wiring connections can come loose and that's about it.

Room temp can cause very real problems ... check this too.

 

[lavenderman]

We have found that a room temperature around 60 deg leads to wide temperature swings in our hovabator 1602, whereas the 1588 seems to handle it a bit better. Increasing the room temperature to 70 deg seemed to smooth the variation right out. Good idea though to get a new wafer also.

 

[Akane]

Mine has been having a heck of a time with spring weather. We've had up to 60F and down to 32F outside. It was running low for awhile and then today I saw the thermometer in the middle was looking high. I hit the min/max on the digital to the side and it said it had hit a max temp of 105F.

It did fine all winter and all last summer and fall but with the wide temp swings this spring it's having issues. Even though I keep my house temp pretty stable.