I’m not really mechanically inclined …

… but sometimes being stubborn and a tad OCD makes up for that.

My “genuine” Amish electric fireplace (and I’m hardly the first to notice how ridiculous that claim is) heats just fine and looks pretty with its red glow and nice oak cabinet. But something is missing; “genuine” faux flame effects.

It had some shiny ray-like glints in the background above the logset, but they didn’t move. Oh, occasionally they’d take it into their little Amish (actually Chinese; are there such things as Chinese Amish?) minds to dance noisily for a few seconds. Then they’d reverse, as if the faux logs were sucking the faux flames back into their faux woody little hearts. Then they’d freeze and stay that way. The thing was still pretty and functional enough with no motion, but it bugged me.

Several online videos told how to get into the main controls and fan of the heating unit, but I found nothing that explained how to get deep into the guts of the thing where (I learned) the “flame tube” resided.

So I just started unscrewing bits.

Had to unscrew every, single bit except the light bulbs to get to the problem. Doesn’t it just figure? The problem was this thing, the synchro motor. Which turns the flame tube. Or doesn’t turn it, as the case may be.

And to think that just yesterday I had no idea that such things as flame tubes and synchro motors existed.

The flame tube is a clear plastic cylinder filled with bits of crinkly foil.

When the motor rotates the tube, the foil picks up reflections from a pair of light bulbs in the bottom of the unit and casts sparkle onto a translucent red screen behind the faux logs. The motor was dead (and yes, guys, I did check the wiring and tighten up all the connections before drawing that conclusion).

With shipping, the new part costs about what I paid for the fireplace. Oh well. So I’m not quite as brilliant a garage saler as I believed myself to be two days ago. But today I get to be Handy Harriet. That’s good, too, right?

Feeling so smart for being able to disassemble the thing, I decided to preserve my illusion of smartness while I can by bagging up and labeling the parts and writing out directions for re-doing everything I just undid. Next week: flames!

BTW, you can get all kinds of genuinely faux flaming electric fireplaces on Amazon. And most of them don’t have the vaguely (or not so vaguely) scammish origins of this one. But of course you won’t get the sense of victory you get from scoring something cool at a garage sale — or the sense of accomplishment you get from tearing apart and diagnosing the broken thing you scored at the sale.