Hello and thanks for reading my post. I purchased a Morgan Spa back in October 2006. It's still got lots of warranty left.

This Friday, the repair tech will be here to replace my blower... for the fifth or sixth time. I have literally lost count. I'm at the end of my rope here. I am not asking for any legal advise, I think I know how to proceed should it come to that.

What i would like is some opinions from some experienced owners. I don't want to start monkeying around with anything and void my warranty, but I feel like the tech they are sending is just a "parts swapper" and not really interesting in finding the root cause of this chronic problem.

Our first blower failure may have been caused by the techs who installed the unit. The left a thick plastic sheet wrapped around the output pipe. It eventually popped with a big "pop" and finally a full flow of air began flowing to the jets. A month or two later, that blower failed. We all wrote it off to the blower being overworked in the brief period of time when the flow was restricted by the shipping packaging that was not removed.

when the next blower failed, we thought it was a coincidence. The third one... dumb luck??? My wife suggested to the tech on the next trip that maybe there was some underlying cause for these repeated failures. This idea was dismissed by the tech as he quickly replaced it with what he said was a "better blower, the kind he uses on his spa".

I got to be present at the most recent visit, which was last Friday. I watched him quickly replace the blower. (he didn't even wait to see it start failing before he shut it down and swapped it out.) I watched as he twist-tied the electrical connections with wire nuts, no tape, and no zip ties or anything to keep the wires away from the moving parts. I started to ask about it, and now I wish I had.

A couple of nights later, we were finally going to get in the spa for the first time since his visit. After the blower ran for maybe five minutes, we noticed the motor speed started varying, up and down in no particular pattern. Another minute and we both started smelling that unmistakable aroma of electrical overheating.. plastic insulation burning, that kind of smell. Our electrical supply was done by a professional, but it was a pretty scary feeling smelling some electrical meltdown while soaking in the tub.

We shut of the blower and have not turned it back on since. I want to get in there myself and look for some evidence, but there again, I don't want to void my warranty.

I'm sorry to be so wordy here, but this is about 13 months of B.S. condensed into one post.

So, does anyone have any suggestions at all for me? By the way, this is a 110 volt blower system, if that matters. I haven't gotten inside the shell myself but I'm sure it won't void a warranty if i just remove a few panels and look around, which i will be glad to do if anyone needs me to before making any suggestions.

whew... finally, I am sure grateful for this forum.

thanks,
papa smurf

I'd guess the blower is undersized, and overheating.

Don't worry about the twist caps with no tape, and no ties. Unless they're rubbing something, it's no biggie.

As for waiting for it to fail, they're just taking your word at it's behavior. There's not much to diagnose on this type of failure.

Troubleshooting, I'm not familiar with Morgan spas. Does yours have separate air blower and water jets, or does the air blower use the water jets to blow?

Agreed.

A blower will repeatedly fail for a couple of reasons -
1. Not enough air flow thru the motor to keep it cool.
2. Not enough air flow thru the motor to keep it cool.

Which could be the result of blocked passages, an oversized or bad check valve.

Only other things I can think of may be that you've got a 115 volt blower circuit and they're installing 230v blowers... (I have no idea on this one...)

that said, you haven't made any indication of whether or not you've got really awesome blower air action or not...

An undersized blower, given the right circumstances, could cause the same problem.

What's the horsepower rating (or voltage and amperage) of the latest blower that's been installed?

(Morgan's are pretty easy... basic blower plumbing 123 thingy).

Thanks for the replys. Here's some additional info and answers to some of your questions.


I guess I wouldn't worry too much about the wiring if you say so, but then what was that electrical 'burning' smell? I suppose it may have happened at the other occasions as the blower was failing, but we just didn't notice.

When the blower (or "blowers") are new, the water action or turbulence is great. Not this most recent time, but all of the last times I think, the strength of the blower seemed to die out gradually over a period of days. A few of the service calls were placed because the air was no longer strong enough to make it to more than about half of the jets it did when it was new.

The last two blowers were the ones that I remember that started just shutting themselves down after only a few minutes. This most current blower ran for 5 or 10 minutes before we made the decision to turn it off due to the motor speed varying and the ominous electrical burning smell.

It is supposed to be a 115 volt blower, though I couldn't say what he has actually been putting in there. The air comes out the same jets as the water, and in addition, there are some "jets" that are strictly for the air only.

I'm going to try and find out the horsepower when the tech gets here tomorrow. If there are any other questions I should ask of him, please post here and I'll check the topic before he arrives.

On the subject of horsepower, what would you need to know before you could recommend? (gallons, number of jets, etc.) I'll try to gather up all that info over the next few days.

On the topic of "air flow through the blower", is there more than one style of blower? This one simply pulls air in through the back side of the housing. It's probably some pretty warm air to begin with since it is what is hanging around under the shell. Is there ever a reason to duct in a little outside (cooler) air for the blower motor?

thanks again for reading.

The burning smell is likely the blower itself overheating, not the load wires. The blower blows through water jets and air jets? This is a mass produced spa, right? On a particular Leisure Bay model made for a limited time, the blower was plumbed into venturi line of the the jets (water), and needed a by-pass to just blow excess air under the cabinet or else the blower would overheat. But since your tub is mass produced, a design flaw would be apparent in all the models, not just yours. Ask if there are any release valves that might be stuck?

Either there's an obstruction, or the blower is not the right size.

thanks again... i have been studying. Definately this is a mass produced model, and if i am being told the straight story, these blower failures are very abnormal.

When all works well, like when the blower is only days old, there's plenty of turbulence. Then mostly, the force of air just seems to diminish until the blower starts shutting itself off early or, in this case, smelling bad.

I wonder how hard it would be for an amateur for me to figure out what kind of plumbing arrangement I actually have? I think the model is discontinued so I don't think I could get one from the factory, not to mention that they probably just want me to go away.

I know when the unit was first installed, they did a total drop and run install, forgetting to remove shipping packaging, etc. Heck they would have even forgot to take out the owners manual and some other items from under the shell had I not asked about them. There was specifically some heavy plastic that was not removed from the air lines originally, which we attributed the first pump's failure to. It's not hart to imagine that there was some other packaging and wrapping left under the shell.

Well, we'll see what tomorrow brings when the tech shows up for the fifth (or sixth?) time in 14 months.

thanks very much for reading.

well, the repair guy just left. I paid a little more attention this time when he had the shell opened up. The blower is a 240 volt / 2 hp unit. The plumbing runs through a check valve to a manifold. The air and water go through the same jets, according to the repair tech.

On the last visit (last week) he replaced the internal motor only. this time he replaced the entire case and motor and everything up to the plug with a new shiney unit. He may have done that to alleviate any lingering smell left over from the previous motor burnout. Or he may have done it because it was really really quick and I think he was running behind schedule.

I let it run for 20 minutes or so and everything seems fine, so we'll see how it goes. I will be sceptical for a month at least due to the past experience we have had with this thing.

Y'all take care!