Whale Smartflo UV0814 pump

[ChrisUK]

Has anyone out there ever taken one apart? I ask because I have been experiencing this year the fault where the pump will run for a few pumps every 10 min or so. There are no leaks that I can find.. The van is still within its 3 year warrenty and about 6 weeks ago I took it in and they told me that they had taken it out and cleaned out a lot of gunge which was probably stopping the valves from closing properly. I think this made a difference at first, but it is now doing the same thing. I might consider cleaning it out myself. On the water inlet in the Aquaroll there is a Whale carbon filter which should filter out bits, but Scottish loch water seems to have proved this filtering to not be the full answer.
I have downloaded the data sheet, instructions and exploded view from the Whale web site, but this is not that clear. The data sheet infers that it comes complete with an external strainer, mine has not got one of these but I note that you can buy these off the shelf in my dealers.
I note in the instruction sheet that you should ensure that no water is left in the pump over winter, the only way I can see to do this is to remove it and shake it out, I have not done this before, but a Google search shows that a lot of these pumps were damaged over last winter.
The Whale fault finding sheet only give leaks as the cause for this intermittent pumping, as I said I can not find any leaks, but I have not looked under the insulating cover of the water heater, I can not see how this comes off.
Any pump experts out there?

 

[Damian]

First thing is whilst it is under warranty, it would not be in your interests to dismantle it yourself, you will immediately invalidate its warranty.
However, there should be a grit filter on the inlet side but as you have a carbon filter on the inlet pipe, it was probably thought it was not needed.

The usual cause of intermittent pumping in a pressure system is a badly adjusted pressure switch or a leak, or a non return valve not operating correctly (either on the inlet housing or the inlet to the water heater) and allowing water to return to the aquaroll.
If you have a Truma Ultrastore water heater do not try and remove the cover, it will serve no useful purpose to as all the connections are outside the cover, and they are a pain to replace correctly as well as being easily damaged.

As for winter storage, yes the pump should be removed and shaken out to ensure no water is left inside where it would damage the internal valving should it freeze.

 

[ChrisUK]

You are right about the warrenty, instead I think next time the van is at home I will use my pressure reducing fitment that cam with the van to apply positive pressure to the pump inlet, this will stop any flow back. If it still does it it is a leak somewhere.
Thinking about this emptying of the pump for winter and long term maintenance, how do you release the connections pump to pipe? They are some kind of fast connctor but I don't want to damage them by applying force in the wrong place.
Chris
I was goning to insert a photo here but can't see how?

 

[Damian]

If you can post a photo it would help.
Here is the advice from John Duncan on how to post pictures:
2) Picture uploads should work, too!
- To upload a picture, you'll first need to have it stored on a site such as Flickr or Picasa.
Copy the URL of the picture, then click the little 'tree' symbol on the menu bar of the Forum posting window, paste in the URL, and click the 'insert' button.
Pictures should be no wider than 400px – there’s an option to set this in that box.
More picture-posting advice in this thread.

 

[ChrisUK]

"Copy the URL of the picture" er. wots this? please

 

[Damian]

- A URL (Uniform Resource Locator, previously Universal Resource Locator) - usually pronounced by sounding out each letter but, in some quarters, pronounced "Earl" - is the unique address for a file that is accessible on the Internet. A common way to get to a Web site is to enter the URL of its home page file in your Web browser's address line. However, any file within that Web site can also be specified with a URL. Such a file might be any Web (HTML) page other than the home page, an image file, or a program such as a common gateway interface application or Java applet. The URL contains the name of the protocol to be used to access the file resource, a domain name that identifies a specific computer on the Internet, and a pathname, a hierarchical description that specifies the location of a file in that computer.
On the Web (which uses the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP), an example of a URL is:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt

which specifies the use of a HTTP (Web browser) application, a unique computer named www.ietf.org, and the location of a text file or page to be accessed on that computer whose pathname is /rfc/rfc2396.txt.
A URL for a particular image on a Web site might look like this: http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/WhatIs/images/coaxla.gif

A URL for a file meant to be downloaded using the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) would require that the "ftp" protocol be specified like this hypothetical URL: ftp://www.somecompany.com/whitepapers/widgets.ps

A URL is a type of URI (Uniform Resource Identifier, formerly called Universal Resource Identifier.)