I really wanted to love this pump! It seems like such a smoking bargain. When I took it out of its package, I felt very good about my purchase until I read the installation manual. The manual is surprisingly well-written and illustrated, but it contains some very bad news that is not on the Amazon sales page--requirements that would have prevented me from wasting my time buying this. 1. This pump sounds like a miracle: 1 hp, 110V, 60 Hz, 33 GPM. Wow! But in the manual, it states that you need to install this on a single pole 30-amp breaker. When I spoke to the manufacturer by phone, he said that's because the pump motor's startup could spike usage up to 3 times the regular promised current requirement of 12.5 amps. My electrician said he’s never heard of a well pump needing a 30amp breaker installation. So forget putting it on a 15 amp breaker, or even a 20 amp breaker, as I originally planned. That wouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker, except... 2. According to my electrician and the ESA safety code, you must use at least 10 gauge wire on a 30 amp circuit. Still not a deal breaker, except... 3. The 10' cord already installed on this motor, to which you are meant to create an underwater splice, is not 10 gauge wire. The code printed on the cable is: HO7RN - F 3G 1.5mm², and 1.5mm² is 16 gauge. The manufacturer insisted it was 2.5mm² (14 gauge), but I had to correct him, and I've included a picture of the wire. My electrician said it's acceptable to drop one gauge (from 10# to 12#, for example) in the last 5 feet of a run connecting to an electrical appliance, but this would be dropping from 10 gauge to 16 gauge--not even close to complying with our ESA code here in Canada, and I'm sure this would apply in the USA too--our codes aren't THAT different. 4. But there's more. My electrician told me that well pressure switches are designed with 20amp fuses inside them, so they are not designed to be powered by a 30amp circuit. I searched and confirmed that all the Square D pressure switches had internal 20amp fuses. The well pump would be connected to the pressure switch, a shutoff switch, and then to the circuit panel, so if the motor spiked to 30amps on startup, the first thing that would go is the fuse in your pressure switch. It would get pretty tiresome to keep going to the basement to fix that--if you were smart enough to diagnose it and fix it yourself without calling an expensive electrician to figure out why your well pump wasn't working. 5. And there's more. The Hallmark Industries website states: UL listed, UL file No.: E233961. But when I went to the UL Product iQ ™ searchable database, this UL file number didn't exist, and the manufacturer and the pump are not listed at all. I mentioned this little detail to the manufacturer by phone, and he said he would look into it. He called me back and said they USED TO have a UL listing, but let it expire, and hadn't gotten around to removing that very important information from the website. This is extremely misleading to consumers, and maybe something worse than misleading. 6. All electrical devices in Canada must be CSA or UL listed, for real! That's the law, and it's for your own safety. This pump has internal controls, including a capacitor that could carry enough residual charge even with the power disconnected to maybe kill a DIY guy or gal who thought they were working with a safe and approved product. Whatever. This baby was built with no-one looking over their shoulders. 7. The included "check valve" inside the pump outlet is a thin, free-spinning piece of transparent plastic. They say you should plan on installing your own check valve, and they are correct. But the garbage "check valve" they installed is so pathetically cheap and useless, and the cable is so cheap and more dangerous than useless, WHO KNOWS WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON INSIDE???!! Sure, it looks good on the outside, all solid, shiny (hopefully) stainless steel except for the cast iron around the stainless steel outlet (cast iron that will rust very well), but how do we know if it's 304 stainless steel, or a mixture including lead and plutonium or whatever! The guy on the phone (who, to his credit, answers the phone!) was reasonably pleasant, but not entirely reasonable. He tried to argue away some of the points I've made here with a bunch of absurd bafflegab, and finally resorted to the most pathetic argument of telling me that I was the ONLY customer who had EVER brought up ANY of these concerns even though they've sold like a MILLION or so of these pumps, so of course I had to be wrong. I told him that it was my licensed electrician who raised these concerns, not ME, and he should maybe read some of their Amazon reviews (check the US site too) if he thought all their customers were happy. He said their engineers had designed these (I'll bet there is not a single engineer on his own payroll) so how could they be wrong? I told him to send his engineers back to school (I'm sure they have some good engineering schools in China, where I'm pretty confident these are actually made, not the USA, as they claim) because they needed a bit more schooling! Please verify what I'm saying by requesting an installation manual BEFORE buying it, and then run these details past an electrician. Yes, these look like a huge bargain, but as I told the manufacturer: It's only a bargain if the product is good. If the product is unsafe and substandard and the promises are lies, no price is low enough for me. I sent it back for a refund. Good luck. ***Update*** I reported the bogus UL listing to United Laboratories market surveillance in the USA. They investigated and forced Hallmark to remove the false UL listing file number from their website!! BUT -- THEY CONTINUE TO USE BOGUS UL LISTING FILE NUMBER ON THIS AMAZON SITE! THIS IS FALSE ADVERTISING!!! Bottom line: You can't trust this company, and their product is not safe to use. They stopped one aspect of their "misleading" advertising under threat of legal action, but I'd love to see a REAL engineer's analysis of this pump from the inside out. End of story.
