Rowing Machine Maintenance: Keeping Any Rower Running

A rowing machine is one of the lower-maintenance pieces of equipment you can own — there is no motor, and on most types nothing that wears quickly. But “low” is not “none,” and the small routine below is the difference between a machine that feels new in year five and one that squeaks, drags and gets abandoned. Most of it takes minutes.

Every machine, regardless of type

Three things apply to all of them:

• Wipe the rail and seat after each session. Sweat and grit on the rail are what make a seat start to drag and what wears the rollers. A dry or lightly damp cloth after each row is the single highest-value habit here.
• Check the bolts monthly. Vibration slowly backs off the footplate, seat and handle fixings. A minute with the supplied tool once a month keeps everything tight and quiet.
• Mind the monitor battery. A dim or blank display is nearly always a flat battery rather than a fault — keep spares. Our monitor troubleshooting guide covers the rest.

Air rowers: the chain

An air rower’s one real maintenance item is the chain. It needs a light oil periodically — Concept2 recommends a small amount of oil wiped along the chain every 50 hours or so of use — and the flywheel screen wants keeping clear of dust, because a clogged screen quietly changes the machine’s drag factor over time. On a belt-drive air or magnetic machine there is no chain to oil, which is one fewer job. The Concept2-specific routine is here in full.

Water rowers: the tank

A water rower’s upkeep is the water. Left alone, a tank will eventually grow algae, so you add a purification tablet periodically and change the water occasionally — a small but real running cost, and the one thing a water rower asks that the others do not. The full water-tank routine is here. The wooden frame itself simply wants keeping out of damp and direct sun.

Magnetic and hydraulic rowers

Magnetic machines are the lowest-maintenance of all: nothing touches the flywheel, so there is no chain to oil and no water to treat — just the universal rail, bolt and battery checks. Hydraulic machines have one thing to watch: the cylinders wear over years and their resistance can fade, and unlike a chain or a battery they are not usually a user-replaceable part, so a hydraulic machine is more of a replace-than-repair proposition when it finally tires.

The part that is really about the machine you bought

Maintenance keeps a machine running; whether you can repair it when a part finally fails is decided at purchase. This is the quiet argument for a machine with a real parts chain — a Concept2 seat roller or chain can be bought and fitted a decade later, where a no-name budget machine often cannot be, which turns a small fault into a whole new machine. It is a large part of what the commercial-grade machines are really selling.