South Carolina External leak Geo-Flo UP-26 116F circulating pump

New 5 ton Trane/Water Furnace unit operating since Oct. 2016 with no problems. Closed vertical system with flow center in crawl space. This week heard "air in line noise" and found pump housing leaking water at fairly constant drip. The pump was not changed when the new geo unit was installed but it is only 3 1/2 years old. Unit has not shut down (yet) on low flow but noise getting worse. Questions:
1. are these flow centers field repairable?
2. is it feasible to remove housing for inspection of internal piping and connections?
3. are the 3-way valves replaceable in the field?
4. is the insulation for condensate prevention only, can it be repaired/replaced?
Great forum and great contributors, thanks in advance for your input.

 

Tighten everything you can externally. Internally the only option is to tear things apart.

I've cut them right down the middle and redone the plumbing on one side to fix a leak such as you describe. There is no way to make it pretty. They are full of spray foam which is stuck to everything. The 3 way valves are "cheapish" but proprietary and I've never found a source for them other than if I keep parts around from replaced units.

Insulation is just for condensation.

Nothing the flow centre does can not be done with standard plumbing fittings. It just simplifies it all into one unit.

 

Thanks for reply, have to compliment and thank Geo-Flo's customer service, Judy Moan, who gave advice and forwarded instructions and an o-ring kit to repair the 3-way valve. That can be done with minor disassembly although it will require the use of a flush cart. This makes sense to me as we had used the 3-way valves several times when the new equipment was installed when flushing the system; this was the existing flow center and it's entirely possible that the o-rings are the problem (flow center 3 1/2 yrs old). My curious nature would not let me simply replace the flow center without trying to repair this one - will post the results when o-rings installed.

 

The one I replaced and tore apart for fun was of poor construction. The 3 ways are plastic and they were connected by a metal coupling to more plastic plumbing. The coupling was easily loosened by hand and showed no indication of teflon/pipe dope/etc. This is where the unit was leaking.

 

I am late to the party but will add this. Trying to replace that o-ring on the flow center to circulator pump will drive you to drinking early. lol Seriously though I have found that a small amount of pipe dope will hold it in place long enough to get the pump mated to the housing. I am curious, what the directions from geo-flow advise on this.
Eric

 

Thanks but we will only replace the o-rings that are accessible by removing the lock ring located under the plastic cover and removing the rotary valve plug - won't try to replace the seal at the pump to valve connection.

 

O-ring replacement instructions below, my concern is that the tightening of the hose barbs/access plugs into the flow center puts a lot of stress on the valve-to-pump connection any time the flush cart is connected/disconnected which, as noted in earlier post, can't be inspected without tearing the unit apart.

 

1. determined that 3-way valves are brass
2. after looking at valve construction online and inspecting the connections and cover plate it looks like internal construction is such that we won't need to disassemble the valve and replace the O-rings as that's not the leak path
3. only leak path, based on removing as much foam insulation as possible without cutting into the plastic enclosure, that we can't visually inspect is the valve-to-pump base connection (it's a flanged connection); accessing that will require removal of part of the plastic enclosure and foam insulation which we will likely pursue (good old Dremel). Interesting to note that in the Geo-Flo literature it says the insulated enclosure is an option and not req'd for "Southern" installations.
4. no reason to replace the whole flow center if the leak can be found and acted on - more as we proceed

 

Took the Bosch vibrating saw and did surgery on the housing of the pump in order to determine where the leak is. Found it at bottom of tapped hole that attaches the pump motor (one of four bolts). Pics are attached. Cannot determine yet "why" it's leaking i.e. manufacturing defect, corrosion, or other. Flow center is only 3 1/2 years old. New one on order. Again, very disappointed that an assembly with four major components can't be readily repaired when one component fails. See pics - also pic of "Southern" version of flow center with no case/insulation

 

How long is the warranty?
Are you attempting to transfer the pumps over to the new flow center?

26-116 are very inefficient, 26-99 would be significantly more efficient without loosing much pumping power

 

1. warranty 5 years (unit is dated August 2013) but service company who bought flow center is no longer servicing my equipment and flow center manufacturer will only deal with original purchaser on warranty. Anyhow out of desperation I chose to cut off the case and try to locate the leak, probably voided any warranty anyway.
2. will try to repair/replace the one leaking pump and keep flow center as spare
3. too late to go with 26-99 as my service company has rec'd the replacement from Water Furnace but thanks for the good advice

 

Sorry for your pain and suffering. See above post about the O-rings on the pump housing and drinking heavily.
Eric

 

If this would be my house, I would ask my device company for a pressure drop calculation to justify the (2) 26-116. They might learn a lesson. I would send back the flow center, even if I would have to pay a 20% restocking fee. Now is the time. You can't save more money for operational costs than with that move.....

 

1. Thanks docjenser, as luck would have it Water Furnace did send the dual UP26-99 pump flow center; checking wattage comparison on the 119 vs 99 pump models says flow center max wattage will drop from 770 watts to around 500 watts but actual $$ savings at cost of $0.12/kW will be slight
2. new pump now installed and operating, disassembled old pump looking for leak path but none visible by eye, just a "seep" anyway but plenty enough to cause a problem in about a week's time. Posted pics of pump internals for comment 2a. note internals of cast iron pump housing, is the "wavy" surface normal?
2b. cavitation would cause little craters if that were the case so can we eliminate that?
2c. servicing company may elect to send water sample out for testing, comments on that, what might we find? System is running plain tap water with no antifreeze (crawl space in South Carolina)

 

Man, you are lucky....the -99 usually uses 230 watts each, compared to 385 watts for 116. @ 2600 hours runtime per year, that 0.155 kw x 2600h = 403 kWh x $0.12/kwh = $48.36 per year. Take this forward for the next 25 years which should be a conservative estimate of the life of your system, add 4% annual price hike for the electricity, and you end up $2,014 for the next 25 years. Oh, forgot, you got 2 pumps, make this $4,028. Indeed, slight savings.

Your wavy surfaces, are those calcium deposits? Can you scrape it off?

 

Thanks docjenser. No, the wavy areas are not deposits - the areas are clean and smooth, actually looks like erosion but surprised that would happen with such low flows/pressures?

 

There might be a flow reason why those wavy structures are in the molds when they are made. Golfball dimples come to mind.

 

Update, August 13 - Geo-Flo released a new bulletin dealing with pump erosion, http://calculators.geo-flo.com/bul/90-ab170628-application-bulletin-pump-longevity, also mentioned was a 1 micron filter available to use on a flush cart to clean the system. We intend to obtain that filter thru our servicing company, WACCAMAW HEATING AND COOLING, and ask them to treat the geo water this Fall. From past experience in the oil field and reference to the new Geo-Flo bulletin, I believe my pumps were damaged by particle erosion. Will post findings from the filter operation when completed. Any others here who have experienced this?

 

Update -- Service company obtained 1 micron filter sock for flush cart and circulated water until "clear", i.e. no brown water, took over two hours. The solids (see 2 pics) we obtained were about two handfuls of gritty material (the well is 20 years old). After drying that material we checked with a magnet for any ferrous material but none found. Particles look like water-scale (brown) and very fine particles of plastic (black), possibly from the well pipe joining process during construction, and possibly some very fine sand. When comparing the total volume of water in the well to the volume of solids recovered we question if this was enough erosive material to "wash out" the pump internals? System had its one year preventive maintenance check and all was AOK.
Appreciate the general theory of the economics of a geothermal heat pump system but one needs to consider how many individual components are included in the system - the well, the pump(s), the heat pump, and the air handler. Each can have its individual problems and inherent maintenance expense. In our case the first year failure of the previously installed 3 1/2 y.o. pump system cost $1600 installed. That pretty much eliminates the benefit of any "geothermal efficiency" for this first year - who knows what the next year will bring? We are hoping for the best however. Comments?

 

Late to chime in, but that is exactly what the crud looks like when I flush my system with just a water hose connected, which I have done numerous times. My system is 22 years old and I have replaced my pumps three times from leaking pump housings. I have even taken the housing and had the hole braised and used JB Weld temporarily. I had a dealer flush the system about six years ago, but I don’t remember them using a filter bag while flushing. I am having to again replace a pump housing that I JB welded this week. There is now no geothermal dealer in the area so I am going to have to build my own flush cart and flush and filter the system myself. I will take my time and filter down to 1 micron. What about an in-line filter? Is that done on closed loop systems? Could use ideas for a cheap pump cart from you guys. Oh, I almost forgot, my brother lives next door and and also has a geo system that was installed at the same time and he has had only had one pump failure and that was not from a leak, so it’s not the water. Obviously I did not get a good flush from day one!