Warranty Repairman

[valerie]

Pentair sent a guy to replace the motor on a Superflo pump. The next day when my husband turned on the pool, a lot of air was shooting through the jets. I called the guy and he came back. The pot was full of air and had very little water in it. He found some debris under the caplock and removed it. A couple days later, we noticed that we kept losing water from the pool. There wasn't any water around the pump. I called the guy back and he said it wasn't his problem and I should call a pool service company. We then found water leaking up from the ground and we obviously have a broken pipe somewhere.

ASSESSMENT: It seems that when this guy primed the system, some debris got under the caplock. This caused the pot to fill with air. When we turned on the pool, there was a lot of air shooting out the jets, which the air seems to have cause a pipe to break.

PROBLEM: We have called Pentair and they are basically washing their hands of the problem. According to Robin in the legal department, when we called the guy back, he came back as a "courtesy call". She said that he wouldn't have touched the caplock when he replaced the motor. However, on the Pentair Pool website, they have instructions for replacing a Superflo pump and on page 9, it talks about priming the pump and removing the caplock to do so.

HELP: I need some advice as to what to do. We are in financial straights, my husband hasn't worked since his only child was killed in an accident almost 2 years ago and then he had a heart attack last year. We really couldn't afford the new pump to begin with but we had no alternative. Now my pool is sitting stagnant in the Houston heat. My husband started digging a hole were water was coming up but had to quit because he started feeling bad.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

Air getting into the system like that would not have caused a pipe to break. The chances are very high that the broken pipe is completely unrelated to the pump/motor problems. There is some chance that the service man could have bumped into a pipe and broken it, but that is very unlikely and could only really happen if there was already something else wrong with the pipe.

 

[valerie]

The pipe is underground and is not near the pump.
>Can you say with a 100% accuracy that a lot of air blasting through a system would not cause a pipe to break?

 

[valerie]

I'm not trying to argue, I just don't know.

 

[valerie]

Let me ask another question. We had a Whisperflo that needed replaced and a pool company installed the Superflo pump as the replacement. Could this have anything to do with the pipes breaking -- changing the type of pump we had?

 

[Bama Rambler]

Nothing you've said would cause any of the pipes to break.

I'm sure Jason will respond, but I can say with certainty, that the air shooting through the piping had nothing to do with the pipe breaking.

I think it was a bad coincidence.

 

[zea3]

I am also in the Houston area. The current drought we are having has cause our gumbo clay soil to really shrink which leads to concrete heaving and pipes breaking all over town. Just this week my main sewer line broke. It was a cast iron line and broke in two about a foot and a half away from the house. If you had a plumbing line that was already under stress, shifts in the soil can cause it to crack or for a plumbing joint to come loose if it was not installed well. I also think you are dealing with an unfortunate coincidence and not a negligence issue with the Pentair guy. Most plumbing breaks are not difficult to repair, but they can be time consuming and labor intensive. Is there a friend who can help with the digging and repairs?

 

[valerie]

Thank you so much for the information. I'm going to check with my home owners and may be it will be covered, haha. We'll get something figured out and now I feel like an Rear because I thought I was getting the run around.