Pump Ruined? If so, how?
#1
06-05-11, 07:00 PM
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: United States
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Pump Ruined? If so, how?
I had a septic sump pump replaced recently, but the plumbers don't do electrical. So they left it plugged in to an outlet with the cover ajar for the cord to go through. It's a 110v AC pump.
In any event, I wired it in today. I've done plenty of other wiring jobs so I thought it would be no problem. The only thing that threw me is that the incoming wiring was old and discolored to the extent that it was hard to tell which wire was which. But I made notes about what on the old pump was connected where, etc.
Anyway, I threw the breaker and nothing happened. (The float switch was definitely on.)
After much troubleshooting, I wired an outlet up and plugged in an electric drill to verify that I had power (I did). Then I wired the plugs back on the pump and float switch just as they were before when it was working. Still nothing.
It's a pretty simple circuit. The only thing I may have done is gotten the polarity wrong at some point. But it's an AC pump. Would that kill it? (without any smoke or popping sound?) Alternately, I did knock a piece of broken PVC pipe in. If it sucked that up and jammed, would it die quietly? I would have thought I would at least hear an electrical hum from it trying to work. But I get absolutely nothing.
In any event, I wired it in today. I've done plenty of other wiring jobs so I thought it would be no problem. The only thing that threw me is that the incoming wiring was old and discolored to the extent that it was hard to tell which wire was which. But I made notes about what on the old pump was connected where, etc.
Anyway, I threw the breaker and nothing happened. (The float switch was definitely on.)
After much troubleshooting, I wired an outlet up and plugged in an electric drill to verify that I had power (I did). Then I wired the plugs back on the pump and float switch just as they were before when it was working. Still nothing.
It's a pretty simple circuit. The only thing I may have done is gotten the polarity wrong at some point. But it's an AC pump. Would that kill it? (without any smoke or popping sound?) Alternately, I did knock a piece of broken PVC pipe in. If it sucked that up and jammed, would it die quietly? I would have thought I would at least hear an electrical hum from it trying to work. But I get absolutely nothing.
#2
06-06-11, 02:30 PM
Did you try wiring just the pump without the switch to see if it runs? We get bad switches out of the box from time to time. if you have 115V at the point the pump is being hooked up it should run if it's ok. Are you hard wiring the pump and switch or using the plugs that come on the pump/switch?
