Kudos to Rule Pumps...

[IDBoating]

Just a quick note to say that Rule Pumps has AWESOME customer service.

I use some larger-than-normal pumps (Rule 209B, 1600 GPH) to fill and drain my larger-than-normal ballast sacs. Toward the end of this most recent season, one of my drain pumps started drawing more current than usual. I'm beyond the warranty but I contacted Rule to see if they had any suggestions. The result:

1) Without me asking, they said they would ship me a replacement pump;

2) They said they would ship it in advance so that I didn't have any downtime missing a pump in the boat;

3) They wanted the old pump back for analysis, and would pay return shipping; and

4) I could ship it back to them after the new pump arrived and was installed.

These are ~$160 pumps, but they shipped one to me in advance, with no credit card, at no charge, to keep me up and running. And they want to know what is happening to the old pump so they can improve their products in the future.

Now THAT is Customer Service. Needless to say, I'm very happy with my choice of pump vendor and they can count on getting my future business.

Too often we only hear of the bad experiences, so I wanted to share a very positive one!

[Dandy]

WA,
Thanks for sharing some good news/feedback. Stories like this are wonderful to hear about. I have always believed that "service sells" and hopefully this will go along way to get people to stop the "Wal-Mart Mentality" of always buying at the lowest price. We need more companies to provide excellent service, but in addition more people need to build loylaty toward the companies that take care of them.

Thanks to your post, if I ever need to look at new/different pumps I will definatly consider Rule, who up to this point I didn't know existed.

[Ruger761]

Wow that is amazing. You dont hear of that kind of service very often especially for something like a pump that sees no telling what in the water or conditons. Ive thought about buying one of those pumps myself, now I know its worth it.

[duffymahoney]

I run rule pumps in my Tige. The 3800's and the 800's. Both rock!!

[Bogdog]

have a winter project I'm planning and will now consider them!

[Enzo]

Just a quick note to say that Rule Pumps has AWESOME customer service.

I use some larger-than-normal pumps (Rule 209B, 1600 GPH) to fill and drain my larger-than-normal ballast sacs. Toward the end of this most recent season, one of my drain pumps started drawing more current than usual. I'm beyond the warranty but I contacted Rule to see if they had any suggestions. The result:

1) Without me asking, they said they would ship me a replacement pump;

2) They said they would ship it in advance so that I didn't have any downtime missing a pump in the boat;

3) They wanted the old pump back for analysis, and would pay return shipping; and

4) I could ship it back to them after the new pump arrived and was installed.

These are ~$160 pumps, but they shipped one to me in advance, with no credit card, at no charge, to keep me up and running. And they want to know what is happening to the old pump so they can improve their products in the future.

Now THAT is Customer Service. Needless to say, I'm very happy with my choice of pump vendor and they can count on getting my future business.

Too often we only hear of the bad experiences, so I wanted to share a very positive one!

I am looking to upgrade my ballast system this winter. Can you post up some pictures on how you have mounted the pumps please.

[IDBoating]

Check this thread:

http://www.tigeowners.com/forum/show...eup&highlight=

...which contains a lot of photos including those of how, where, and why the pumps are mounted.

Hope this helps!

[Enzo]

Check this thread:

http://www.tigeowners.com/forum/show...eup&highlight=

...which contains a lot of photos including those of how, where, and why the pumps are mounted.

Hope this helps!

I did not see much info on how you are pumping the water out of the sacs. Did you use these same style pumps to empty?
Thanks

[IDBoating]

I did not see much info on how you are pumping the water out of the sacs. Did you use these same style pumps to empty?

Yes. I never really finished that writeup on my ballast system so the drain side of things wasn't covered very well. I have two of these pumps on each aft fat sac, one for fill and one for drain. The drain pumps are on the bottom of the hull right up against the transom. Their output hoses run forward to the thruhulls which are just ahead of the driver console on both sides of the boat. I get a pretty impressive stream of water out of each side when draining both.

I then have a pair of pumps as crossovers between the two aft sacs. When I'm ballasting to one side, I turn on BOTH of these 1600GPH pumps and then the appropriate crossover pump. The result is that I have TWO 1600GPH pumps filling one sac. Draining works the same way - crosspump from the full to the empty, and turn on both drain pumps so I have 3200GPH of pumping capacity pulling water out of the boat. Obviously those are spec sheet numbers so I'm not getting a literal 1600GPH, but all pumps have to be derated from the spec sheet so the result is I have a LOT of input and output capacity. The pumps alone are about 2x what most people use, and I can parallel two of them as described so I'm getting a good 3-4x the flow.

[Enzo]

I have a pair of the Rule 1100's screwed into the end of my enzo sac but I am looking for a cleaner and faster system. Do you have a pic you can post up?

[IDBoating]

A pic of what? There are lots of photos in that thread referenced above. If you mean of the drain side, no - I don't have any photos and the boat is in storage now. I can take photos of anything you want in the Spring and would be happy to post them then. Or, just ask questions and maybe we can work through it verbally.

[chpthril]

I have a pair of the Rule 1100's screwed into the end of my enzo sac but I am looking for a cleaner and faster system. Do you have a pic you can post up?

You may need to go to dual pumps if you want a system thats significantly faster then what you have. The 1600 has a 1" threaded intake, so it would not thread directly into a Fly High ballast sac. Stepping is down to fit the sac would create a restriction that would defeat the upgrade of the faster pump

[IDBoating]

The 1600 has a 1" threaded intake, so it would not thread directly into a Fly High ballast sac.

FYI, I used a one inch Fly High fitting, to a short section of one inch hose, to a one inch hose barb->threaded fitting, to the 209B pump.

And there is no doubt that the biggest restriction is the internal diameter of the Fly High fittings. This has been covered in other threads. That internal diameter is exactly why each of my FILL sides use a large-ID Y adapter going to two separate fittings on the fat sac - to reduce the impact of that restriction. As I noted in the thread I wrote on that topic, adding the Y adapter increased my flow rate by ~20%.