Tornado took out my electronics (to some degree)

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E

eqbob

0
Jul 25, 2012
436
Central Texas
Hi all,

Have been swamped at work and not posting much. 12 days ago, while sailing out of Baltimore on a cruise ship, a tornado touched down in our neighborhood in Texas. Luckily, our house was spared damage and the dogs are safe. Dozens of houses across the road and within a half mile of us are not so lucky, ranging from shingle damage to one wall left standing on a slab.

Upon return from the cruise on Saturday, the pool electronics are not in full working condition. The pumps are tied into the Pentair Automation panel/box and 2 of the 4 circuits are "blown" and the GFI won't reset and the circuit breaker doesn't stay engaged when you push it on. (Doing the best I can to describe this stuff....electricity is NOT my favorite thing by any means and electricity plus water makes my skin crawl!)

The automation box is a Pentair EasyTouch 8 with actuators and salt.

The main pump is a Pentair VS+SVRS and it's hooked into the panel, as are the 3 single speed swim jet pumps. The VS and 1 of the single speed pumps is NOT operational. 2 of the single speed pumps are on the 2 circuits that are still working.

I think (??) HOPE (!!) maybe something got fried in the GFI in the box? Can I as a lay person terrified of electricity and a 50amp feed circuit even consider replacing those things? Is there a special part or is it available at Lowes or Home Depot?

Is this an electrician call? Does it have to be an electrician who knows pool stuff or could anyone do it?

Right now, I have a puck floater (YUCK!!!!) in the pool and run one of the swim jets for a few hours per day to keep chemistry from going astray. It's actually fine and no worries of a green swamp. FC at 10, TA at 60, pH at 7.6, and CYA at 50. Good enough for now.

Just really unsure how to proceed to troubleshoot and fix. Don't even know if the VS still works since I can't get past the power circuit at the moment.

When the tornado hit, the pump was running. A transformer blew. House was without power for about 2 days (Goodbye $500 worth of food in fridge and freezer!). Don't know if it surged from the explosion of the transformer, surged coming back on, rain got inside the box (Seems unlikely), etc...

Help?
 
Definitely a pool electrician or electrician who is familiar with pools. Isn't your pool fairly new? If less than 3 years, call your PB and see if there is any warranty.
 
pooldv said:
Definitely a pool electrician or electrician who is familiar with pools. Isn't your pool fairly new? If less than 3 years, call your PB and see if there is any warranty.
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2012. Warranty is expired. I have an email into my builder, but he's a 787 captain and probably flying somewhere in Asia or the Pacific Rim.

- - - Updated - - -

How do you find a reputable pool electrician? is there a listing somewhere that Pentair might maintain?

(Please don't tell me Angie's List....BLECH!)
 
Make sure that when you are through with the needed repairs, you add surge protectors to the system. I have two "whole house" type surge protectors. One on my main service panel, and a second one on the pool sub panel.
 
If the pool is not that old i would call the PB and find out who did the original work. I'd call him.

Pool building is repetition. You are building the same product over and over and over. The shape changes but the innards stay the same. The electrician that put it in will know just how it works and how to make it work again. He may not be good with the automation but the PB has a guy that can deal with that too.

One idea before you do that is to go to a older independent pool store and see if they can give your pumps a once over to see if they are shot. The electrician can tell you they turn on but the normal electrician isn't going to be that familiar with pumps, especially swim jet pumps.

You understand that you just can't take the circuit breaker from the triped position (the middle) to the on position. It has to be swiched to fully off, left for a second or two then thrown back to on.
 
gwegan said:
If the pool is not that old i would call the PB and find out who did the original work. I'd call him.

Pool building is repetition. You are building the same product over and over and over. The shape changes but the innards stay the same. The electrician that put it in will know just how it works and how to make it work again. He may not be good with the automation but the PB has a guy that can deal with that too.

One idea before you do that is to go to a older independent pool store and see if they can give your pumps a once over to see if they are shot. The electrician can tell you they turn on but the normal electrician isn't going to be that familiar with pumps, especially swim jet pumps.

You understand that you just can't take the circuit breaker from the triped position (the middle) to the on position. It has to be swiched to fully off, left for a second or two then thrown back to on.
Click to expand...

Yes to PB and his electrician. Have an email in to him. See above for his day job which takes him all over the world in dreamliners.

Yes to circuits and switched to off then thrown back to on. Will try again to be sure but did that. Can't get GFI switch to stay depressed.
 
If it won't reset then either its not getting 120 (most likely), the line and load are reversed (no it worked before), its otherwise miswired (generally polarity)(not likely), or the GFCI is defective. I think its on one of the triped circuits and is getting no power.
 
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