I sold and installed outdoor boilers for many years but recently kind of slowed down. The manufacture used to sell and recommend Taco, but we had a run of bad pumps over a few years. Made a switch to Grunfos Super Brute and haven't had an issue as of yet . MUCH cheaper, usually around $125-150 .Came home yesterday around 4 to see the overtemp light lit on the outdoor boiler. Never a good feeling, but it's usually just a bad damper door solenoid and I keep 2 on the shelf.
On the way out the back door to check things out, I reached up to touch the pipe that feeds boiler water to my garage furnace. It's just a habit. Do it every time I walk by. It should be too hot to touch, but it was cold.
Overtemp at the boiler and cold inside can only mean one thing, bad pump. Bad pump means no water flow. No water flow means the lines will freeze.
I didn't even go outside. The pump was 12 years old so it dying was not a shock. Sunday night I had noticed a slight change in the pitch of the hum it usually makes. Even took the a peek at it, touched it, but it seemed OK. I should have had a spare, but didn't.
My wife was at work in South Bend so I had less than an hour to track down a replacement. It took 45 minutes. Nobody had the replacement cartridge to repair my pump, back ordered until March 30. Nobody had a trusty Taco-009 pump in stock. But I finally found a comparable Bell and Gossett replacement pump. I didn't even ask how much. It really didn't matter. Just told the guy to throw it on the counter and my wife would pick it up before they closed at 5. When she got home I asked, how much?
Just under $700.
I don't know if the price of bronze has gone through the roof. I don't know if this just another case of, thanks Joe Biden. But a simple Taco-009, bronze circulator pump for a boiler used to run around $200. Now the replacement cartridge is $250 and the pump is over $500. The $700 Bell and Gossett is kinda the Cadillac of circulator pumps but, damn.
At least I got lucky and had it puke on a relatively warm day when my wife was working in town.
They are a 3 speed pump, equivalent to Taco 007 , 009 and 011 I believe. Might be worth looking into for a spare .