Insurance claims for pool pump and chlorinator repairs

What is pump fusion / motor burnout?

Pump motor burnout, also known as electric motor burnout, is when the motor in household appliances such as your pool or tank pump dies. Such appliances have an electric motor in them, which converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. However, a power surge, voltage spike or excessive current such as lightning strike can cause the motor to burn out and stop working. In the case of your pool or tank pump, motor burnout can cause huge inconvenience and waste. Motor burnout is also referred to in home and contents insurance policies as fusion damage.

Voltage spikes may be created by a rapid build up or decay of a magnetic field, which may induce energy into the associated circuit. However, voltage spikes can also have more mundane causes such as a fault in a transformer or higher-voltage (primary circuit) power wires falling onto lower-voltage (secondary circuit) power wires as a result of accident or storm damage.

Fast, short duration electrical transients (over voltages) in the electric potential of a circuit are typically caused by:

• Lightning strikes
• Power outages

What can you do to prevent fusion or motor burnout?

Install a surge protector on your household switchboard or pool circuit. A surge protector (or surge suppressor or surge diverter) is a device designed to protect electrical products from voltage spikes. A surge protector attempts to limit the voltage supplied to an electrical product by either blocking or shorting to ground any unwanted voltages above a safe threshold.

Also known as the “let-through voltage”, this specifies what spike voltage will cause the protective components inside a surge protector to divert unwanted energy from the protected line.

Response time

Surge protectors don’t operate instantaneously, a slight delay exists. The longer the response time, the longer the connected equipment will be exposed to the surge. However, surges don’t happen instantly either. Surges usually take around a few microseconds to reach their peak voltage, and a surge protector with a nanosecond response time would kick in fast enough to suppress the most damaging portion of the spike.