Review on Seville Classics UltraSlimline Oscillating Tower Fan With Fresh Air For Indoor, Bedroom And Home Office Use Bladeless Quiet Cooling With Remote, 40" 5-Speed, Black by Joel Norfork

I imagine like others, I originally purchased this because of good reviews here and elsewhere. I used it for about 2.5 summers, nearly daily almost entirely on the low speed to circulate air into my office room where I work. I used it 5 days a week for 4-5 months of the year. This past summer it started to slow down, and the motor was clearly struggling. It clearly wasn't working right, so I set it aside. I discovered that if I held the fan horizontally it worked fine. I tried to take it apart, but as others have noted it isn't designed to be disassembled. It sat for a few months, and I finally came back to it tonight. I managed to get the bottom compartment open where the motor lives. I broke some plastic tabs in the process, but nothing too bad. Once open I was able to lubricate the bottom of the shaft below the motor. I used a silicon lubricant, although I'm not sure if that was the best option -- just what I had on hand. After that the fan is operating like new. I was able to get it back together, and if I wanted to glue a couple pieces of the plastic it would be perfect, but I want to be able to take it apart again easily should I need to lubricate it again. Although I had purchased a replacement for this already, I plan to keep using this and see how well it keeps working.I bought this because I wanted a tower fan because it fit the space I had for the fan very well. Every other fan I owned is from another famous brand like a tornado vortex, and I've had some of those for 15+ years that only stopped working when I used them in an environment filled with drywall dust (note to self: get an industrial fan for that next time). Every other fan I own can be taken apart to clean relatively easily.The fan works well when new. I like the remote control, which lets me control it from sitting at my desk -- useful when on conference calls. However, I certainly would not recommend this to anyone given the reliability issues coupled with the lack of serviceability.