Pump Leaking Near Seal Plate

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Awsamb

In The Industry
Apr 14, 2020
12
Katy, Texas
Hello,

Having trouble with a leaking hot tub pump. Model is a Pentair WhisperfloXF with a model #XFE-12. Its spraying upward from where the seal plate meets the pump housing. Any suggestions on how to fix this? I've replaced the seal plate o-ring and the diffuser o-ring and it's still spraying. Help would be very much appreciated, thanks in advance
 

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Welcome to TFP.

Tell us the rest of the story. What is the history of the pump? Has the pump run dry or overheated water in the basket?

A WAG is the pump overheated and warped the volute.
 
Thanks!

So the pump circulates a 2500 gallon hot tub at an RV park here and the whole facility is about 4 years old (pump included). As to your questions, the only time I'm aware of it running dry has been every morning when we hook up the vacuum hose, the pump has to work through the air in the hose for a minute to get suction. Although, now that you mention it, I have noticed that it has been taking longer to prime these past few months (leak started about two months ago). The pump for the pool primes in about 30 seconds while vacuuming and the hot tub pump takes five or so minutes, which is definitely longer than it used to take. Other information about the hot tub: we've already had to replace the heater twice. Went through the first mastertemp 400 in two years, and replaced it with a used mastertemp 400 that lasted a year, (both due to overheating due to calcified heat exchangers) and a few months ago we replaced it with a mastertemp 125 which required use to reduce pipe size going in and out of the heater from 2" to 1.5". I believe the heat exchanger issue has been solved (we now treat for phosphates and keep an eagle eye on pH), I found an article about a heated pool where they went through a few heat exchangers due to a combination of high calcium hardness and high phosphates mixed with lots of heat. Weird and expensive issue but luckily someone wrote about it online.

Anyways, hope that information helps.
 
Awsamb said:
Thanks!

So the pump circulates a 2500 gallon hot tub at an RV park here and the whole facility is about 4 years old (pump included). As to your questions, the only time I'm aware of it running dry has been every morning when we hook up the vacuum hose, the pump has to work through the air in the hose for a minute to get suction. Although, now that you mention it, I have noticed that it has been taking longer to prime these past few months (leak started about two months ago). The pump for the pool primes in about 30 seconds while vacuuming and the hot tub pump takes five or so minutes, which is definitely longer than it used to take. Other information about the hot tub: we've already had to replace the heater twice. Went through the first mastertemp 400 in two years, and replaced it with a used mastertemp 400 that lasted a year, (both due to overheating due to calcified heat exchangers) and a few months ago we replaced it with a mastertemp 125 which required use to reduce pipe size going in and out of the heater from 2" to 1.5". I believe the heat exchanger issue has been solved (we now treat for phosphates and keep an eagle eye on pH), I found an article about a heated pool where they went through a few heat exchangers due to a combination of high calcium hardness and high phosphates mixed with lots of heat. Weird and expensive issue but luckily someone wrote about it online.

Anyways, hope that information helps.
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Replace the entire sealplate. You've also had a bad seal leak, look at the bottom of the motor, very rusted. That can also be the problem with slow priming.
Is there a tablet feeder on this installation? That can be the cause of what you are seeing.
What is the pH of the water? The use of tablets alone will drop that to very bad (for pool equipment and people) levels. That's likely where your heaters went.
 
I think the seal plate replacement is a good idea. So you think the rusted motor housing is from a shaft seal leak? I could give replacing that a shot. I don’t think the heaters were from using tablets as we use tablets for less than half of our chlorination. Most of the time we use liquid chlorine. Also we test pH every morning and it’s almost always the case that we have to lower it to keep scale from forming, we’re on well water so very high calcium and high pH. I’m pretty confident on the cause of the heater issue cause we took the heater manifold off and saw the completely clogged-with-calcium heat exchangers
 
Awsamb said:
I think the seal plate replacement is a good idea. So you think the rusted motor housing is from a shaft seal leak? I could give replacing that a shot. I don’t think the heaters were from using tablets as we use tablets for less than half of our chlorination. Most of the time we use liquid chlorine. Also we test pH every morning and it’s almost always the case that we have to lower it to keep scale from forming, we’re on well water so very high calcium and high pH. I’m pretty confident on the cause of the heater issue cause we took the heater manifold off and saw the completely clogged-with-calcium heat exchangers
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With that much rust, the front bearing is probably bad as well as the shaft seal and sealplate. There is much more chance of damage to the plastic parts of a Whisperflo pump with the use of hot water and chlorine tablets in a feeder, even if it is not the sole source of chlorine for the pool/spa.
 
 

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The gap is really big and it looks like the seal plate is warped from excessive pressure.

What is the normal pressure?

Do you have a separate jet pump or just one pump for circulation and jets?

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JamesW said:
The gap is really big and it looks like the seal plate is warped from excessive pressure.

What is the normal pressure?

Do you have a separate jet pump or just one pump for circulation and jets?

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Hey James thanks for all the information, the diagram will be a big help. I really do not know why they put such a large pump on the hot tub. It only circulates the water. There is a separate blower for the air jets. The hot tub is about 80ft or so from the pump so maybe that has something to do with the larger size. I think the oversized pump might be one of the problems that's leading to the seal plate warping. However, the filter pressure reads about 30psi, and that seems pretty normal for our hot tub, it's always been about that high.
 

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JamesW said:
If you do not need the flow, then I would reduce the impeller when you replace the seal plate.


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Ah okay that seems like a good idea. That should move less water and have less pressure so this is less prone to happening again right? Also, do you think I should worry about the shaft seal? I thought for that to be an issue there would likely be a stream of water coming from underneath the pump. But the rust on the motor housing gives me concern that it could be an issue as well.
 
Update: replaced the seal plate, shaft seal, and reduced the impeller to the 2hp version. Leak is fixed! Not a drop of water to be seen. I think the seal plate did it but believe the impeller was a good thing to change out in the long run. Hot tub filter's pressure is 25psi now. Thanks to James and others for the help!
 
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In my opinion, the pressure is still too high.

I don’t know why they felt like the pump had to be so big.

You have the smallest impeller for that pump as far as I know, so you can’t go lower unless you replaced the motor with a variable speed pump.

If the motor goes bad, I would replace the whole pump with a variable speed pump so that you can reduce the flow and power usage.
 
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