I used Dayton motors in several products my old employer made years ago and never had one fail while we warranted the product line.
They're not a domestic product anymore though, most are probably made in Mexico. Grainger sells them and those I clicked on were Mexican built. I suspect the quality isn't what it used to be in the 70's. The Dayton plant in IL is closed now.
Most Dayton motors are reversible in their rotation. Check the model on the fan you buy and it should show you how to reverse the polarity to run either way if it was built as a CW/CCW motor.
All three phase motors can be reversed by just reversing the red and white wires on the starter you use, at least that's my experience wiring a thousand motors over ten years. I suspect most of those systems are still running somewhere! We built a real tank of a portable ventilation unit.. Almost too good, they never broke so we never made any sales in the parts department!
Man, if I had a dollar for every motor I've wired......... from 1/4hp single phase to 250hp three-phase.
On
some single phase motors (depending on brand) the access panel on the end where the pigtail wires in has a couple of wires that are on push terminals that can be swapped to change rotation. Some have terminals with screws. I've even seen a few with provision to just remove a jumper wire to reverse rotation.
Single phase motors have two windings, the main winding and the auxilliary winding.
Reversing a single phase motor cannot be done by just reversing the polarity of the supply to the entire motor. To reverse the single phase motor, the polarity of the supply to only one of the windings needs to be changed.
You would need to check inside the wiring panel to be sure. If you don't have two pairs of wires coming from inside the motor and ending in two pairs of screws (or other connection types), and sometimes one is in series with a capacitor, you will NOT be able to reverse direction.
Most of the motors I've dealt with plainly stated on the motor plate if it was easily reversible or not.