Dead Salamanders?

[Unbelievable]

Hi, I've got a heat only boiler and hot water cylinder on the second floor of a block of flats. The pressure isn't great so I have a Salamander RHP45 pump which helps out.

Yesterday, my girlfriend left the immersion on all day and only realised when she had filled a sink up with very hot water. Since then the pump hasn't worked, I'm assuming because the maximum it can handle is 65 degrees. The two Controlmatics show a failure light.

Does the pump need totally replacing? or is there a part that can be replaced? Any help would be gratefully recieved.

 

[Unbelievable]

OK I'm assuming the pump is knackered. I live in a 2nd floor flat and since the pump has failed, only the hot water taps have suffered pressure - the cold water runs fine.

There's a cold water tank above the hot water cylinder, so I'm wondering whether this is why the cold water pressure is still ok - it's coming from the raised tank, I don't know whether it's refilling, so maybe it'll run out at some point.

I want to know whether the pump is over specified. New RHP45s are £185 on ebay whereas a CT50 twin is a lot cheaper. Can anyone recommend a cheaper brand of pump that would be ok? I'm really skint at the moment that's all.

 

[Unbelievable]

Good News! Salamander customer support have just got back to me with a couple of possible solutions.

The first is to press the reset buttons on the Controlmatics for 20 seconds to get the pressure up, then turn a tap on to try and kick the pump into life.

The second is to isolate, then take the inlet hoses off one end of the pump and try to manually turn it with long nose pliers. The seal will probably have expanded and stopped the motor from turning.

On a sidenote, I would highly recommend Salamander to anyone. The technician seemed to think it will be ok as the pumps are very robust, and the aftersales has been excellent (Bearing in mind I didn't even buy the pump, I inherited it from a previous owner).

Not back home until Tuesday evening, but I'll let you know the outcome.

 

[Unbelievable]

Right, I've (sort of) got the pump working. I took the end off it and turned it manually, put it back together and turned it on. It turns over now, and only the right hand (hot water) controlmatic show the motor as failing. the cold water side shows that the motor is working.

I think this is because the hot water side is empty, when I flick the pipes they ping. I think the pump has a sensor in it that knows that it is dry and therefore shows as a fail.

Can I run a hose from the kitchen (only mains pressure source) directly to the cold water tank to fill it, which will fill the hot water tank, then fill the pump and get it working again?

 

[Unbelievable]

I got it working!

The impeller had expanded and in so doing had been rubbing against the housing, so there was quite a lot of surface damage to both the impeller and the housing. The impeller blades were also a bit misshapen. Anyway, I cleaned it all up with sandpaper, then wet and dry and made sure that it was running as smoothly as possible before I assembled it all again.

Salamander have been brilliant - I've had three calls back from technicians talking me through everything that could be wrong with it, which concluded in me almost accepting I had to buy a new pump yesterday. It just seemed stupid to have to buy a new £165 pump for the fault of a plastic part which would cost a few quid if they offered one (they don't).

It's taken a lot of messing around taking it apart and putting it back together again, and trying to get my head around the mass of pipes in the airing cupboard (as you can probably tell I'm a bit of a newbie), but after getting rid of an airlock around the pump I finally got it working last night.

So I had a well overdue bath.

 

[ub7rm]

Good effort, a lot of people would have just accepted it was broken and bought a new one. Just shows what a little perseverance can do!