Brand new pump dead after 6 weeks

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Sammyw

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Aug 19, 2012
21
Austin, TX
Hi everyone,
I am so frustrated. Just completed our pool install last Friday and our brand new Pentair Intelliflo variable speed pump just died after six measly weeks. Our heat pump had the pool at 90 degrees this morning and upon my return home from work this evening the temp was 65. I new something was wrong. The message displayed on the heat pump was 'low water flow' and low and behold the intelliflo was dead as a doornail. Contacted the pool builder and he said the drive must be 'messed up' and he will replace the Intelliflo tomorrow. While I appreciate that, how long will the next one last??? Went online and in a few minutes noticed that many people are having issues with these pumps. Thanks for letting me vent. My wife thanks you too.
 
Sorry to hear about that... we just fired up our new (Jandy) pump after it sat on the pad for 2 months during the construction process. It was actually our second pump since the first one arrived with a cracked housing (though that was surely a handling issue, not a manufacturing defect). After hearing your story I'm glad we didn't let any more of the warranty lapse and I'm glad pool startup runs the pump a lot.

I will guess that these failures follow what they call a "bathtub" curve... which means that most failures happen out-of-the box or "infant", followed by early life failures (such as yours)... then (assuming no design flaws or systemic issues) the device should run with low risk of failures during the entire service life (whatever that may be). Then at end of life the failure rate goes up again.

How long do these pumps last in general? My pool guy gave me a bit of a shock yesterday when he said that initially Jandy (the pump he spec'd for me) had VS pump issues... but that they are all solved now. I hope he was right.
 
Some people have reported issues with the drives, but it's not as large a number as the internet complaints would leave you to believe. Once they replace the drive (or pump) it'll probably last many years.
 
Thank you for the responses.

UPDATE: My pool builder just called me a few minutes ago to tell me that he has scheduled a Pentair technician to come out and take a look. And then he tells me to switch off/on the reset breaker at the panel to start the pump again!!!!! WHAT??? The pump started up. I feel like an idiot due to my ignorance of not knowing that I could have done that but is this really an issue with the drive? Would the pump still work if it was? Ugh, frustrating!
 
Sorry I didnt get the fact that there was no actual troubleshooting done. With all electronic equipment, the first thing to do whenever anything goes wrong is to remove power for several minutes and then repower the unit. You'd be surprised how many failures that fixes! ;)
 

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Sammyw said:
UnderWaterVanya you were correct. Pentair came out again and replaced the breaker. They said the incorrect breaker was used with the variable speed pump.
Click to expand...

Glad to hear that! That is a lot easier to deal with than something mysterious in the pump or the panel.
 
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