Monday, June 20, 2016
That right there is the Whale Universal Pressure Pump. I can't say whether it's a good pump or not generally, but the one we got has been a nightmare. Picked it up at the Defender spring commissioning warehouse sale. By the time we were ready to install it the return window was over (you only get 30 days and they won't help you at all after that time has passed). It went in easily enough, but as soon as we powered it up it shot water out of the motor housing. Since Defender was done with us, we had to contact Attwood, the american distributor for Whale products. They refused to pay shipping to return it and were completely unapologetic about our instant problem (clearly the product had not been quality checked at all). A week or so after we shipped it to them we were told that it had been missing a washer and they were returning it to us.
We finally got it back and installed it again. Again, the install was super easy. It started pumping away. Now, this is advertised as low draw and very quiet. It was not quiet. It was not low draw. The lights still flickered with every cycle of the pump. God only knows what our anchor light looked like while we were doing this . . . Leaks formed EVERYWHERE in our freshwater system. The entire hot water line let go at every single fixture. We assumed that it was because the old pump hadn't been really pressurizing well any more and now there leaks appearing all over the place in the old fittings and soldered pipes. It actually reached the point where pipes were disconnected entirely and water was just pumping out into the bilge.
Fortunately we don't have a hot water heater so we just capped off that line and focused on fixing the leaks in the cold water system. When they were finally fixed, we tried the pump again and it would never shut off. It pressurized to the point that turning on a faucet resulted in a geyser that would ricochet from the bottom of the sink to the ceiling (and me). The tubing in the system was bulging from pressure. The pump was dancing around all over the place still trying to pump! So clearly Attwood failed to quality check the pump not once but twice.
Not only was customer service unpleasant and unaccommodating, they are completely incompetent at repairing their own products and testing them as well. Now, thanks to them, we will have to re-plumb our whole hot water system if we ever want a hot water heater. Gracias, Attwood. Gracias.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment