Pump stopped working suddenly

[bkkirk]

1 hp challenger penaire pool pump, 230/115 amps 7.1/14.2

just stopped working this morning- let it cool a bit and now it hums when i flip the breaker. impeller turns. is my motor toast?! installed in new pool aug. 2003 so maybe i've gotten my moneys worth. thoughts on what to test?

[Watermom]

I sent an email to one of the other moderators, Poconos aka Al, to see if he can help you with this.

Welcome to the Pool Forum!

[Poconos]

Likewise, welcome to the forum.
Couple possibilities and some questions. When you say the impeller turns, do you mean when you power up the motor or do you mean it turns by hand implying nothing is seized? If the latter then it's probably just a shorted starting capacitor. A cheap and usually easy fix. There are usually two windings in a motor, a running and a starting. The capacitor is in series with the starting winding and a centrifugal switch that disconnects that winding once the rotor is up to speed. If the cap shorts you will get a relatively loud hum and either your panel breaker will trip or the thermal cutout in the motor will trip. If the cap is open, the other failure mode, then you will get a low level hum. In either case the rotor will not turn. Another cause of a low level hum, like an open cap, is dirty centrifugal switch contacts. Quite common problem. After 9 years and if it's exposed to the elements, then this could easily be the culprit. If it's a shorted cap a breaker will trip within a few seconds, usually.
Answer if it's a low or high level hum and which breaker if any trip and we'll go from there. Also the specific model number would help. We can dig up the parts diagram online and that will give an indication of the difficulty of working on it.
Al

[Watermom]

Thank you, Poconos, for replying to this!

[aylad]

The last time that happened to my pump, it was because the shaft, where it comes out of the front of the motor and connects to the impeller in the pump, had broken in half. This can happen if that extension piece is plastic, and something gets hung in the impeller and stops it from turning, although the motor is still trying to turn. The plastic piece can just twist in half, so the motor runs but the impeller doesn't turn.

Just a different idea, although Poconos knows WAY more about motors than I do, so try his suggestions first!

Janet

[PoolDoc]

Regardless of how things work out with the pump . . . make sure you maintain adequate to high chlorine levels. Fixing the pump is one thing; having to fix the pump and THEN clean up a swamp is much worse.

If you add 1 gallon of PLAIN 6% household chlorine bleach to your pool EACH evening for every 10,000 gallons of pool water, you'll be off to a good start. If you get a cheap OTO kit (yellow drops) and keep your chlorine in the DARK yellow (higher than the test block) range, you'll do better.