Pressurized irrigation pumps

Does anybody know anything about pumps for pressurized irrigation systems? There are three pumps in our neighborhood system that all work together. One of these pumps is a small 5-horsepower pump that runs 24/7 during the irrigation system (roughly mid April to mid September). This pump was replaced two years ago, and yesterday it stopped working and may have to be replaced again. That seems like too short a life-cycle to me, but I certainly don't know these systems. Anybody else have experience with them? Should we be demanding better performance from the pumps or is two years about normal?

Dunno yet. Still trying to gather info (hard to do remotely when I'm at my day job). I've got our grounds manager looking into it, but all I know so far is that it makes a lot of noise and blows the breaker shortly after it's turned on.

And Susan gets the prize. The heads were clogged, causing the 5-horse pump to overload. They are still testing to see if the motor has been damaged. It won't be covered by the 1-year warranty if it is.

BTW: one homeowner sent us a message this morning stating that since she had to use city water for her lawn, we should reimburse her for the cost. Sure. We'll reimburse everyone in the neighborhood $5/day for the cost of city water. Of course, we'll have to raise assessments by $10/day for the HOA to cover that cost plus administrative fees.....

Perhaps that is why it kept tripping the breaking, that is a line of defense for the motor....perhaps the motor is fine.

This is defense that most motors are simply not built for. Every time the motor trips the circuit breaker it becomes a little weaker.

I used to help maintain conveyors and a motor tripping a breaker was considered very bad indeed. That meant a failure of the monitoring circuitry. It was far better to monitor that a conveyor has stopped turning and shut off the motor then wait for the motor to overload enough to trip a breaker.

I would think a flow monitor would be relatively inexpensive to install. When the flow drops below a certain point you know a stoppage exists. That could shut the system off well before the motor overloads the circuit breaker. Ideally your motor is not working at 100% capacity. It has exceeded that capacity when the breaker trips. Even if under warranty, your might void the warranty by letting the motor become overloaded.

Dear Idaho: Linda is corect our pumps run 1-2 hours a day. They are on timers and handle the irragation for 1/5th of our property we have a total of 5 pumps in 5 different locations to do the backs of most homes in our 307 home development in South Florida land of no water except in the 500 mile canal system. They should operate thru a timer not just 24/7 that is silly. If 1 motor at 5hp covers that much area you have designed or someone has designed a nightmare in your hoa

PS I am a electrical contractor. Sorry with the price of gas I do not do house calls to Idaho. I am 1 block north of the City of Miami.