The pump story continues

I invested a couple of hours into the pump issue this morning, took it completely apart (as far as the factory seal allows, that is), put it back together, nudged the impeller (the motor works ok), had it start, only to have it die again as soon as I sat it back in the filter.

On recommendation I ran it in a bucket of clear water for a few minutes to blow out any detritus that might have been stuck in the impeller, and that worked. After that I finally got it to work again in place. I kept checking back, suspicious of my victory, but it still ran after an hour. It still ran after two hours. And then it died again.

Something like six hours wasted between the two of us (not to mention his mosquito bites and my sunburn) didn’t make any difference in the end. It looks like the impeller is impeded in some way and overheats the motor which then shuts off and, since the impeller is impeded, never manages to come on again on it’s own. But we can’t open it up to check without breaking the seal and thus rendering the pump useless. Catch 22.

We did have a bit of good luck though, in that a pump roughly the same size is on sale for 50% off this week (which is about half of my netbook). So I ordered that. Meanwhile we put the bubble stone back in the pond and hope the pump arrives before the end of the week.

Pond

After a blip of a blackout this morning – not even enough to wipe all the clocks – our pond pump stopped and didn’t come back on. The tiger tried everything in the book after work tonight, but nothing. This is not promising. We’re looking into pumps. When I was on the brink of ordering a netbook. *biiiig pout*