mengel
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Hopefully somebody can help me, or let me know if my supposition is correct. This is a long story, but I'm sure the info will help. By the way, I'm an electronic technician, so I do know something about wiring and voltages, and how to use a meter.
We bought a cabin up north in 2005 almost exactly to date. The previous owners had just replaced the complete pump and air tank just the year before, so it was practically brand new when we started using it on weekends and such. The water is quite hard, and there is some orange staining of fixtures in the cabin.
The water supply consists of a 4 year old Goulds "J Plus" jet pump with the J5 motor, wired for 120 volt, 30-50 psi pressure switch with a small air tank on a 2 inch double-drop pipe well head, set up to pull the water up from around 100ft or so. This is set in the bottom of a small septic tank. So, they buried the septic tank, and drilled the well right through the bottom of it. They then installed the casing, etc, and cemented the drilled hole around the casing, which sticks out of the cement about 1 foot. Then, they installed a small platform, on which the said pump and such sits. VERY humid/damp inside there, with a lot of sweating of all the exposed parts down in the tank. So the motor and pump, and all parts are dripping wet from sweating at all times.
Everything worked fine at first that first year, until the last time I went up there before winter, and the pump motor was stuck, and wouldn't start. At that time, I didn't know you could remove the motor end cap, and try turning the rotor with a screwdriver to see if it was seized. So, we used it maybe 4 months of weekends, plus a week or two of vacation. With no problems. I pulled the motor out the back, and took it home with me for the winter. I put it on my workbench, and left it there for the moment. A couple weeks later, I hooked it up to power, and it worked ok, and was no longer seized up. I didn't know what to think at that point. Come spring, I just took it back to the cabin, reinstalled it, and everything worked again. For a while that is. By the way, when we leave the cabin, we shut off the power to the pump with the breaker in the cabin. Every time we came back up there (to this date!), maybe a week or two apart, sometimes longer, I had to go down into the septic tank, (power turned off at the breaker) remove the end cap of the motor, and give the rotor a spin with a screwdriver before it would start. The rotor is slightly hard to turn, just enough that the electric couldn't start it, and you could feel it 'grinding' slightly. Once you spun it a few times, it loosened right up, and could start properly. That winter, I pulled the pump again, and took it to the Goulds service place, and had them replace the motor bearings, so it has new bearings at that point, which was last year.
Here's what might be going on, and I only recently realized it might be some power differential causing the motor to seize up within a week or two of sitting between visits. Ok, when they wired in the new pump, they extended the 120volt romex, by simply adding in an extra couple of feet of cable. They used wirenuts to twist the wires together, and then used electrical tape to tape it up into a ball. Anyway, when I first noticed that about 2 months (<<< important point), after we first owned the cabin, I didn't think that was very smart or safe. So, I shut off the power, went down into the tank with a box, and installed the wire properly into an electrical box, used wirenuts, and electrical tape. Same as they did, only the connection is inside a sealed box, inside of floating in the air, being held up by it's own tension. It's bad enough you have to climb inside of a tight damp cement septic tank to work on this, but would be worse if a exposed wire got touched, and that turned into my coffin!
Ok, I did white wire to white wire, black to black, ground to ground, as it should be. It's had this sticking problem, with me having to turn the rotor by hand before it would start, ever since about that time 2 years ago. The first time it started this sticking bit, was probably only a month or less after I rewired the extension into the electrical box. I never connected it to the rewire job. I've been putting up with this rotor sticking ever since, not wanting to just replace the whole thing, as at this point it's only around 4 years old, and barely used. So, about 1 month ago, I did some talking with a guy who deals with things like this in the hardware store, and he asked me if it was all properly gounded and wired. Ok, that brought to mind my rewiring it back in 2005. So, I decided to check out everything. We just went up there this last weekend, and I took my digital meter with me, and a device to check for reverse polarity. Turns out that right from the breaker box in the cabin, they REVERSE wired it, and the hot and neutral wires were swapped from normal convention! Yeah, the WHITE wire in the septic tank, is actually the HOT wire!
I didn't know this when I changed the wire over to an internal connection inside the electical box, so when I hooked black to black, white to white, and such, everything ended up with hot and neutral swapped. They must have originally had (the HOT) white wire going to the black extension which went to the motor, but I didn't notice this when I pulled it apart to box it, as I never imagined it would be wired backwards. So, I just corrected this wiring issue on Sunday 3 days ago, before we left the cabin this weekend. I'm hoping this will fix the problem of the motor jamming within a week or two of being used again.
Is it possible, that the reverse wiring somehow caused a voltage potential on the pump and motor casing? That this would allow the rotor to build up a powderly white corrosion fairly quickly, causing it to jam enough that it couldn't start by itself? I guess I will know for sure the next time I go up there in a couple weeks. If this supposition is correct, my motor shouldn't be jammed now, since I corrected the wiring. Anybody ever heard of something like this? Does this sound like it could be it, or am I just whistling in the dark here, and there's something else going on?
Thanks for your help!
We bought a cabin up north in 2005 almost exactly to date. The previous owners had just replaced the complete pump and air tank just the year before, so it was practically brand new when we started using it on weekends and such. The water is quite hard, and there is some orange staining of fixtures in the cabin.
The water supply consists of a 4 year old Goulds "J Plus" jet pump with the J5 motor, wired for 120 volt, 30-50 psi pressure switch with a small air tank on a 2 inch double-drop pipe well head, set up to pull the water up from around 100ft or so. This is set in the bottom of a small septic tank. So, they buried the septic tank, and drilled the well right through the bottom of it. They then installed the casing, etc, and cemented the drilled hole around the casing, which sticks out of the cement about 1 foot. Then, they installed a small platform, on which the said pump and such sits. VERY humid/damp inside there, with a lot of sweating of all the exposed parts down in the tank. So the motor and pump, and all parts are dripping wet from sweating at all times.
Everything worked fine at first that first year, until the last time I went up there before winter, and the pump motor was stuck, and wouldn't start. At that time, I didn't know you could remove the motor end cap, and try turning the rotor with a screwdriver to see if it was seized. So, we used it maybe 4 months of weekends, plus a week or two of vacation. With no problems. I pulled the motor out the back, and took it home with me for the winter. I put it on my workbench, and left it there for the moment. A couple weeks later, I hooked it up to power, and it worked ok, and was no longer seized up. I didn't know what to think at that point. Come spring, I just took it back to the cabin, reinstalled it, and everything worked again. For a while that is. By the way, when we leave the cabin, we shut off the power to the pump with the breaker in the cabin. Every time we came back up there (to this date!), maybe a week or two apart, sometimes longer, I had to go down into the septic tank, (power turned off at the breaker) remove the end cap of the motor, and give the rotor a spin with a screwdriver before it would start. The rotor is slightly hard to turn, just enough that the electric couldn't start it, and you could feel it 'grinding' slightly. Once you spun it a few times, it loosened right up, and could start properly. That winter, I pulled the pump again, and took it to the Goulds service place, and had them replace the motor bearings, so it has new bearings at that point, which was last year.
Here's what might be going on, and I only recently realized it might be some power differential causing the motor to seize up within a week or two of sitting between visits. Ok, when they wired in the new pump, they extended the 120volt romex, by simply adding in an extra couple of feet of cable. They used wirenuts to twist the wires together, and then used electrical tape to tape it up into a ball. Anyway, when I first noticed that about 2 months (<<< important point), after we first owned the cabin, I didn't think that was very smart or safe. So, I shut off the power, went down into the tank with a box, and installed the wire properly into an electrical box, used wirenuts, and electrical tape. Same as they did, only the connection is inside a sealed box, inside of floating in the air, being held up by it's own tension. It's bad enough you have to climb inside of a tight damp cement septic tank to work on this, but would be worse if a exposed wire got touched, and that turned into my coffin!
Ok, I did white wire to white wire, black to black, ground to ground, as it should be. It's had this sticking problem, with me having to turn the rotor by hand before it would start, ever since about that time 2 years ago. The first time it started this sticking bit, was probably only a month or less after I rewired the extension into the electrical box. I never connected it to the rewire job. I've been putting up with this rotor sticking ever since, not wanting to just replace the whole thing, as at this point it's only around 4 years old, and barely used. So, about 1 month ago, I did some talking with a guy who deals with things like this in the hardware store, and he asked me if it was all properly gounded and wired. Ok, that brought to mind my rewiring it back in 2005. So, I decided to check out everything. We just went up there this last weekend, and I took my digital meter with me, and a device to check for reverse polarity. Turns out that right from the breaker box in the cabin, they REVERSE wired it, and the hot and neutral wires were swapped from normal convention! Yeah, the WHITE wire in the septic tank, is actually the HOT wire!
I didn't know this when I changed the wire over to an internal connection inside the electical box, so when I hooked black to black, white to white, and such, everything ended up with hot and neutral swapped. They must have originally had (the HOT) white wire going to the black extension which went to the motor, but I didn't notice this when I pulled it apart to box it, as I never imagined it would be wired backwards. So, I just corrected this wiring issue on Sunday 3 days ago, before we left the cabin this weekend. I'm hoping this will fix the problem of the motor jamming within a week or two of being used again.
Is it possible, that the reverse wiring somehow caused a voltage potential on the pump and motor casing? That this would allow the rotor to build up a powderly white corrosion fairly quickly, causing it to jam enough that it couldn't start by itself? I guess I will know for sure the next time I go up there in a couple weeks. If this supposition is correct, my motor shouldn't be jammed now, since I corrected the wiring. Anybody ever heard of something like this? Does this sound like it could be it, or am I just whistling in the dark here, and there's something else going on?
Thanks for your help!