New Replacement for March Pump

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i like that walter is on here defending his product but not putting down the competition, so walter, can you sell me on your product, this one in particular: h315hf. i have some concerns about the product (actually all pumps in general) and being able push the 170 some degree water from my liquor tun to my mash tun, since the reviews that ive seen on pumps are extremely mixed, lots of complaints and lots of works great. all i need it for is this procedure, but like i said it needs to go about 4 to 6 feet up, there will be no elbow fittings and such right now as i am just going to have some correctly rated tubing carrying the water up to the mash.

Thanks, like my parents always told me...if you cant say anything nice, don't say anything at all! ;) And since I haven't seen this yet I cant comment either way :)

I wish I could sell to you, but we do not sell direct...its only through our distributors. Like I mentioned before, you are not limited to just one distributor...look on our website and check out our list and call a few to get prices...some get better discounts depending on their volume of sales. :)


-Walter
 
I didn't mean sell me the product physically, I meant tell me why I should buy your product since I have concerns about the reviews that it has received, because right now I would rather lift 60lbs. of grain and water and use the laws of gravity than to spend over $150 bucks on something that is going to be a headache every other weekend and waste my time on brewday and not transfer the water from liquor tun to mash tun how I want it to.
 
Hard to say since the chugger doesnt have a flow curve to see what it can do....but if you were to just draw a straight line from its 14ft max head height down to the 6gpm full flow point, then if you were running the pump and trying to pump up to 6' max head useing a 1/2" line then you "should" be able to see around 3-3.5gpm or so......if you are only going up 4' then you "should" see 4-4.5gpm out of it.....but thats only guessing....like i said theres no flow curve to show what the pump can actually do as far as i know...and you still have to factor in any "extras" you have have in the system like elbows/fittings etc...

-Walter

http://www.marchpump.com/documents/809-HS.asp

Even with a Chugger pump having a 14' head with a wobbling impeller it is still higher than the March of 12.1'. Installing a March 815 HF impeller like you mentioned above for under $24 then the Chugger would now have a 18' head plus no wobbling impeller. Additional gains a stainless pump head, smooth running Chugger with a March impeller installed, 18' vs 12.1' cutoff plus lower inital cost.
Sad to say Chugger pumps look like a winner in many ways when we need to purchase two pumps this becomes costly items.
 
I got a "chugger" today,

The rear housing is noticeably thinner then ours, and I suspect it wouldn’t take too much pressure to break it. Its also magnetic which can possibly cause eddy currents and interfere with the magnetic coupling.
-Walter

Is the rear housing on the March pump made of non magnetic stainless?
 
Wow, you have a DeLorean?!?! Why?

I'm original owner 81 5-speed gray interior, now has 314 original miles.
Deposit 6 days before he got busted bottom market price, why??? Hell I was pissed lost out on a cherry DB6 Aston Martin at an estate auction. Garage was empty sold the 308 after restoring it.
I'm not normal. Cold in OH?
 
I think you could win any argument by say "well my DeLorean..."

Remember this thing runs on Coke.

How's your summer temps in NZ? North or south island?
Beervanna in Wellington anyone?
New stateside TV show "Brew Masters" was there wish I was also.
...................................................................~=o&o>............
 
Just because it says Stainless Steel it does not mean its nonmagnetic. The design engineer must call for the stainless they will eb useing to be nonmagnetic....as we do in our product. Here is some more info on it from Atlas Steels Australia:

Background:
Magnetic permeability is the ability of a material to carry magnetism, indicated by the degree to which it is attracted to a magnet. All stainless steels, with the exception of the austenitic group, are strongly attracted to a magnet.

Austenitic Grades:
All austenitic grades have very low magnetic permeabilities and hence show almost no response to a magnet when in the annealed condition; the situation is, however, far less clear when these steels have been cold worked by wire drawing, rolling or even centreless grinding, shot blasting or heavy polishing. After substantial cold working Grade 304 may exhibit quite strong response to a magnet, whereas Grades 310 and 316 will in most instances still be almost totally non-responsive. The change in magnetic response is due to atomic lattice straining and formation of martensite. In general, the higher the nickel to chromium ratio the more stable is the austenitic structure and the less magnetic response that will be induced by cold work. Magnetic response can therefore be used as a method for sorting grades of stainless steel, but considerable caution needs to be exercised.



Stress Relieving:
Any austenitic (300 series) stainless steel which has developed magnetic response due to cold work can be returned to a non-magnetic condition by stress relieving. In general this can be readily achieved by briefly heating to approximately 700 - 800°C (this can be conveniently carried out by careful use of an oxy-acetylene torch). Note, however, unless the steel is a stabilized grade it could become sensitized to carbide precipitation. Full solution treatment at 1000 - 1150°C will remove all magnetic response without danger of reduced corrosion resistance due to carbides. If magnetic permeability is a factor of design or is incorporated into a specification, this should be clearly indicated when purchasing the stainless steel from a supplier.

Cold Working:
Many cold drawn and/or polished bars have a noticeable amount of magnetism as a result of the previous cold work. This is particularly the case with grades 304 and 303, and much less so for the higher nickel grades such as 310 and 316. Even within the chemical limitations of a single standard analysis range there can be a pronounced variation in the rate of inducement of magnetic response from cold work.

Magnetically Soft Stainless Steels:
In some applications there is a requirement for a steel to be "magnetically soft". This is often required for solenoid shafts, where it is necessary for the plunger to respond efficiently to the magnetic field from the surrounding coil when the current is switched on, but when the current is switched off the magnetic field induced in the steel must quickly collapse, allowing the plunger to return to its original position. Steels which behave in this way are said to be magnetically soft. For corrosion resisting applications there are ferritic stainless steels which are magnetically soft, usually variants of a grade "18/2" (18% chromium and 2% molybdenum) but with very tightly controlled additions of silicon and often with sulphur added to make them free machining. Special mill processing guarantees the magnetic properties of the steels.

-Walter
 
Is the rear housing on the March pump made of non magnetic stainless?

Yes it is....when our product comes in from the foundry, we do a hardness test (rockwell) and make sure they are non magnetic...they dont pass either one they get rejected....theres been more then a few times where we have sent back lots of 10k pieces back :D

-Walter
 
http://www.marchpump.com/documents/809-HS.asp

Even with a Chugger pump having a 14' head with a wobbling impeller it is still higher than the March of 12.1'. Installing a March 815 HF impeller like you mentioned above for under $24 then the Chugger would now have a 18' head plus no wobbling impeller. Additional gains a stainless pump head, smooth running Chugger with a March impeller installed, 18' vs 12.1' cutoff plus lower inital cost.
Sad to say Chugger pumps look like a winner in many ways when we need to purchase two pumps this becomes costly items.

Well i cant veryify that you can fit our parts in it yet till it arrives here for inspection....but if it does turn out to be an exact match then yes that would work. That brings up another point....does the chugger company have any support as far as repairs or spare parts go? When i talked to the sales guy he did mention there is a parts list with the pump but if these are being imported from outside the US does the distributor have spare parts...or how long would it take for repairs?

-Walter
 
I didn't mean sell me the product physically, I meant tell me why I should buy your product since I have concerns about the reviews that it has received, because right now I would rather lift 60lbs. of grain and water and use the laws of gravity than to spend over $150 bucks on something that is going to be a headache every other weekend and waste my time on brewday and not transfer the water from liquor tun to mash tun how I want it to.

Ah! guess I read your post a bit too fast, sorry. :)
Ok well, lets see, first off we are a family owned company that's based in the US and have been in business for 56 years. The 809 pumps we have been making for 30+ years now, so they are a proven design and if setup up properly are bulletproof. Out of the thousands we sell yearly I may get a handful that are actually defective and even though we only offer a 1yr warranty we do take care of our customers. There have been more then a few customers that I have given new replacements to that have been outside the warranty period if they had a legitimate problem. All of the pumps we make are rated for continuous duty...although most never actually get used that way its nice to know that you can leave it running 24/7 and not worry about it. We have a testing lab here, where we have a few of our pumps on life tests to see how long the motors/pumps will last. The last 809 we had on the bench lasted for 13yrs! And we suspect we may have had a power surge as two other pumps also died at the same time. The only time they get shut off is if we do any decibel testing of new product or if we have a power failure here at the factory.
I haven't done a search on here to see any reviews of our product yet...don't really have the time to invest in surfing during work, and when I leave work the last thing I want to do is sit on a computer at home! :D But I will say that 99% of the problems I see with our pumps are due to customers not using them properly.....either running them dry...or not priming them properly...or a compatibility issue with the chemicals they are using in the pumps.

I will also say this.....I normally only sit in the engineering dept but the owners know from my boating that I like getting my hands dirty....so about 2yrs ago our service and repair guy got into a bad motorcycle accident and is still out to this day...don't know if he will ever come back but until he says so I am filling in for him in the mean time. And if anyone here has any problems with their pumps, And feel that its honestly not their fault, then please feel free to contact me direct, send me the pump back, and I will take care of it for you in one way or another.

That a good enough sales pitch? ;)

-Walter
 
The only thing that does concern me is the motor not having any type of listing with any kind of agency (UL, CSA,CE)...Or for that matter who actually made the motor to begin with! If there is a problem, and it causes a fire, electrical shock, or other damage...who do you hold accountable? Keep in mind the lowest cost product (especially an electrical one)...is not always the best choice to bring into your home...
-Walter

Walter,
I had to laugh a bit on your above reply.
I have never seen or heard mentioned a DIY home brewer that had their rig stamped with a UL approval on it unless it were a complete Sabco unit if they purchased one of their units, price reflects many times higher than us DIY built system would cost.
How many home brewers do you truly believe pulled electrical and plumbing permits, had a plumber and electrician install water and electrical equipment then got final inspections?
A non "UL, CSA,CE" stamp rated motor would be least my worries with a gas fired brewing system, open flames I find a lot more of a hazard that any electric motor should it even have a hot winding failure grounding to frame or going up in smoke, breakers with GFI are in the system for a reason. Just had to spout off.
 
Walter:

thanks for the pointers..we will work on these and let you know ....maybe we can get our motors made in mexico?

Call me to discuss you have my number ....
 
Walter,
I had to laugh a bit on your above reply.
I have never seen or heard mentioned a DIY home brewer that had their rig stamped with a UL approval on it unless it were a complete Sabco unit if they purchased one of their units, price reflects many times higher than us DIY built system would cost.
How many home brewers do you truly believe pulled electrical and plumbing permits, had a plumber and electrician install water and electrical equipment then got final inspections?
A non "UL, CSA,CE" stamp rated motor would be least my worries with a gas fired brewing system, open flames I find a lot more of a hazard that any electric motor should it even have a hot winding failure grounding to frame or going up in smoke, breakers with GFI are in the system for a reason. Just had to spout off.

I agree with you for the most part. I deal with UL and CSA 4 times a year here at March when they come by to do annual inspections for us to keep our listings on our product. Granted neither is "required" by law and it is up to the purchaser of the products to request it...but side and back windows on a car are not required by law either...only a front windshield...but its sure nice that they are there the first time it rains! :D Breakers and GFI can only go so far. In my 11yrs here at March I have seen 1 motor every year come back and when you plug them in they run....but throw sparks out the sides and back due to one of the field windings shorting out! :eek: Most times its the bigger 3 phaze industrial motors but the single phase one pop up every so often.
We also get 1-2 a year from the boating industry when these boaters have a partial sinking and flood the motor with water...they try and salvage all they can before replacing it and they too short out windings and have spark issues but don't trip breakers. To trip a breaker you would need a short big enough to pull an excess amp load greater then what the breaker is rated for.....most home circuits are 20amp. Take your light bulbs in your house. That in essence is a controlled short to produce light.....you would need 35 light bulbs at 65watts each to max out a 20amp breaker....go one more then it would trip.

-Walter
 
Walter,
I had to laugh a bit on your above reply.
I have never seen or heard mentioned a DIY home brewer that had their rig stamped with a UL approval on it unless it were a complete Sabco unit if they purchased one of their units, price reflects many times higher than us DIY built system would cost.
How many home brewers do you truly believe pulled electrical and plumbing permits, had a plumber and electrician install water and electrical equipment then got final inspections?
A non "UL, CSA,CE" stamp rated motor would be least my worries with a gas fired brewing system, open flames I find a lot more of a hazard that any electric motor should it even have a hot winding failure grounding to frame or going up in smoke, breakers with GFI are in the system for a reason. Just had to spout off.



It goes back to the "attention to detail" I mentioned earlier. It isn't very practical to unwind a motor to see if it was done right. This is where the assurance of a rating agency comes in. A "detail" if you would. Talking about what a home brewer cobbles together for personal use is not a fair analogy here since the home brewer is probably getting lots of parts that are rated to start with and the intent is not the retail market place.
 
Oh snap! I know you di'int!

:D LOL Its all good. Our east coast sales man has come to find out that its one of our distributors that have come up with the chugger! Cant blame them though, people are always trying to make a better mouse trap. :) And like i said before....the patants on these have looong expired so there is nothing to stop anyone from copying the design. :cool:

-Walter
 
In all do respect I must commend both Walter at March plus Mike at Chugger with their openness to our questions plus replies, both of you have my highest respect. BTW I must thank the PM's i've received and wish success with upcoming future pump design upgrades in this pump market a win win for pump manufactures as well us brewers.

I must add from reading that Chugger pump motors have been High Pot tested. Prost, Carl.
 
Enough talk about the locals. What's the fresh foods selection like?

Sorry bro, late reply, from Asian foods to Hawaiian and tropical
fruits and foods name your ethnicity desire it's availabe plus the matching
SUDS to wash it down. I must add plenty of sea food fresh off the boats.
Life is tough with these daily offerings on my island. Time for some shrimp and SUDS!
 
In all do respect I must commend both Walter at March plus Mike at Chugger with their openness to our questions plus replies, both of you have my highest respect. BTW I must thank the PM's i've received and wish success with upcoming future pump design upgrades in this pump market a win win for pump manufactures as well us brewers.

I must add from reading that Chugger pump motors have been High Pot tested. Prost, Carl.

Thanks and your welcome. I try and scan the internet every few months to see if anything pops up about our product (good or bad) but the best dial indicator is the consumer that calls us direct and lets us know whats going on. Before the home brew hobby started growing the "fad" was the bio-diesel guys. You wouldnt believe the setups these guys do! I even dropped by a guys house that lived a few blocks away from the factory here to check out his pump cause he was having problems. Turns out his plumbing was completely acrewed up but point is i never imagined turning an old electric hot water heater into a brewing fixture to make diesel!!! :eek:
I can tell you all kinds of stories of people using our pumps in some crazy applications! The most recient one is actually the militrary....they used one of our smallest pumps in a fixture that did water sampling in the oceans. It was in a self contained tube and it did a one way trip to the ocean floor....they bought a few hundred pumps....dont know if they used them all or not but if they did then there a few hundred pumps sitting on the bottom of the ocean now....

Hy-pot testing only verifys that the main coils are not shorting to frame ground. It doesnt do anything to verify the integrity of the coil windings...and they only need to hy-pot 10% of the production batch.....we have to comply to these standards on the shaded pole motors we build here at march for UL and CSA sertifications. :) We do, how ever, 100% electricaly test every motor that leaves out facility. So we can guarantee that every pump is at the very least working when it leaves our factory...what happens when it leaves our doors is another thing! :D UPS is our best torture tester when it comes to damaging our pumps in shipping! :D

-Walter
 
Funny as hell Walter your company now has water cooled motors so the voltage can be increased for more hp.
On UPS my dad delivered parcels 32 years USPS.
Fragile meant dropped not tossed that's all.
I contacted Jang Engineering in San Leandro Ca.
they are located 6 miles away, very nice lady on the
phone for ordering replacement March parts. She put
up with my BS plus knows my house personally,
it makes TV news at Christmas. Prost.
 
Funny as hell Walter your company now has water cooled motors so the voltage can be increased for more hp.
On UPS my dad delivered parcels 32 years USPS.
Fragile meant dropped not tossed that's all.
I contacted Jang Engineering in San Leandro Ca.
they are located 6 miles away, very nice lady on the
phone for ordering replacement March parts. She put
up with my BS plus knows my house personally,
it makes TV news at Christmas. Prost.

Our east coast salesman was at one of our distributors out in NJ i think.....we personaly saw the UPS guy THROW to package out the door of the moving truck at the base of their feet and never slowed down!!!
We have had the UPS guy here once drop off packages on the dock and leave....we checked the tracking numbers and they were signed for by our shipping manager....problem is he was off that whole week!!! :eek:

-Walter
 
FedEx is only slightly better but they are a little more expensive. And when you ship hundreds of packages daily it adds up fast. Funny thing is during the height of the UPS breakage spree we went to UPS for help to resolve the issues. They came over and looked at everything we ship and then recomended a special expanding foam packaging machine....cost us $30k each and we bought two of them. They guarantee that our product will be ok from a 15' drop......we STILL get damaged stuff come back...but now UPS has no way to reject our claims! :D

-Wally
 
Our east coast salesman was at one of our distributors out in NJ i think.....we personaly saw the UPS guy THROW to package out the door of the moving truck at the base of their feet and never slowed down!!!
We have had the UPS guy here once drop off packages on the dock and leave....we checked the tracking numbers and they were signed for by our shipping manager....problem is he was off that whole week!!! :eek:

-Walter
Did a call ahead on a service call but the customers line was busy. I had the dispatcher check to see if the UPS package had been delivered yet. Yep. 2 hours previous. I get to customers home and guess what? He did arrive as I was about to leave though, but had clearly marked he had delivered the package a few hours earlier than he had.
 
Are the March pumps packed as nice as the pictures of Chugger pumps, two piece styrofoam tightly fitted in a box? I find this well protected from the delivery gorillas.
UPS = Utimate Package Stressed.
 
Are the March pumps packed as nice as the pictures of Chugger pumps, two piece styrofoam tightly fitted in a box? I find this well protected from the delivery gorillas.
UPS = Utimate Package Stressed.

No, ours are placed in a box with two bags of expanding foam placed on each side of the pump. The foam encapsulates the pump and motor entirely and fills all voids. The pump will not move at all. I've only had about 10, 809 pumps come back so far in the last 5yrs that were actually damaged due to shipping brutality....and they looked to have been run over by the trucks! Other then that the worst thing to happen to the pump assembly's is if they get a hard enough jolt it may shift the motor bracket and the drive magnet will rub on the rear housing...maybe even bind up. Other then that they make it through every time. The bigger pumps that start weighing in at 30lbs+ those are the ones that seem to have the most problems....we even bolt them onto plywood sheets with the expanding foam and they still manage to break them!!

-Walter
 
Well to make everyone feel good, my Airedale bit the Fedex driver last week. He was wearing a thick coat so no skin was broken, but I am wondering if I will ever get another fedex delivery. Expecting one today, time will tell.
 
I work for HD Supply Waterworks, our March Pump Representative for Arizona is "Phoenix Pumps" now normally we get a pretty good discount from our vendors and I can buy for 5% over my cost, but the March 809 pump was quoted me at $230... EEEEEKKK.... needless to say I am buying chugger pumps with SS heads

-=Jason=-
 
You sure you're quoting the right model? I would venture a guess there is some miscommunication going on there since the base 809HS can be had just about anywhere online for the $130-140 range.
 

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