We are on tank water at our holiday home, and 3 years ago the pump burned out (in spectacular fashion with a lot of smoke). It had lasted somewhere around 15 years so a pretty decent innings. Called our local plumber, who fitted a new Bianco Pumpz unit, all up $1000 installed. Fast forward 3 years later we had no water pressure a couple of weeks ago, and switching the pump on and off at the socket you could make it go for a bit, but it just wouldn’t run, fairly certain it was the digital controller. Called the same plumber back, who said, it only had a 2 year warranty, his supplier had gone out of business, parts weren’t available and that the only option was to replace it with a new pump (a Wallace). Anyway, that was agreed, but then the bill arrived, another $1000. Spoke to the plumber who said, invoice needed to be paid, not his problem. Turns out, the importer is still in business, and parts are definitely still available. To me, 3 years for a mid range pump isn’t a reasonable life span, and wasn’t fit for purpose for what we needed. The plumber had also never heard of the CGA, and said, I only buy the pumps from them, you need to take it up with the importer, anyway it’s only $1000 don’t know why you’re complaining.

Where I’m a little stuck is I don’t know what’s reasonable here. To me, if it was just the digital controller that had failed, it’s far cheaper to just replace that than a whole pump. But, they still haven’t even worked out what has failed (they took the old pump away with them, but only after pushing have they involved the importer who is going to inspect it). If it was just something that had failed, I wouldn’t even be opposed to paying their labour, but I’m not prepared to shoulder all of the cost for something that should have lasted a hell of a lot longer. Am I being gaslit into thinking a mid range pump shouldn’t last longer than the 2 years warranty?

It’s a smaller town/rural place where everyone knows everyone, and you try and support local, but I’ve just accepted that we probably won’t use them again either.