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HRO/Sea Recovery Watermakers

Discussion in 'Watermakers' started by dev0n60, Jul 24, 2012.

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  1. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    Water-Makers made by ‘HRO’ or Horizon Reverse Osmosis are from a company that was recently acquired by Danfoss: A growing European company based in Denmark. The Watermaker branch of Danfoss is known as ‘Sea Recovery’, and is currently being run by a fellow named Henrik Wendelboe (e-mail deleted)
    The Watermaker machines sold by this company may seem really great: advertising does that. Perhaps many have even had positive experiences with these machines … and with Sea Recovery. Unfortunately this has not been our experience.
    We have been living and cruising aboard our sailboat for the past 22 years. From time to time we stop wherever we happen to be and work for a bit to keep going. Some people on land may invest in real estate or the stock market. We invest and rely on good gear. We have a lot of experience keeping our equipment going and dealing with the myriad of marine suppliers that this occasionally requires.
    Our machine from HRO/Sea Recovery was purchased in San Diego, California and commissioned in late 2007. Our Sea Recovery dealer in San Diego is no longer there unfortunately. Issues with our machine soon followed.
    The High Pressure Pumps supplied by Sea Recovery with their Watermakers were not made to last more than 250 hours without degradation of the pump components causing performance drop-offs. 250 hours is just not that much time. When this started happening with our Watermaker’s high-pressure pump we did not at first realize what the trouble was. We had by this time sailed to New Zealand. We went to the local Sea Recovery agent in New Zealand and were told that the type of pumps supplied by Sea Recovery with our machine would not in fact hold up over the long term. The local New Zealand agent for Sea Recovery, Mike Harris of ‘Light-House Marine’, confirmed for us that it was a known issue. He promised to contact the head office for Sea Recovery in California and get back to us. We never heard from him again. We later contacted Sea Recovery in California directly and spoke to Mary Day: she is/was Sea Recovery’s technical support telephone contact. She too said she would look into this further and get back to us. We never heard from her either.
    While we waited 2-3 months for someone from Sea Recovery to get back with us we investigated on our own what could be done about the failing pump supplied with our Sea Recovery Watermaker. We learned that this high pressure pump problem, with our type of machine, was in fact a known issue in the Watermaker industry. We even heard rumours that another Watermaker company supplied two of these inadequate pumps with their new systems because they knew there were issues and the customers would need them both.
    Watermakers will not work without a good, durable, high-pressure pump.
    After hearing nothing for almost 3 months, we again contacted Sea Recovery directly and worked our way up their ‘chain of command’ to Chris Rollins. At Sea Recovery, we were told, he is the brother of the guy that started the company and a person of some authority with the company. From Chris all we received were denials that anything at all was their responsibility. He wrote to us that his company was in business to make money and while the pumps supplied were indeed not going to last very long, we could now purchase a better pump: a very expensive pump. After another 18 months of diminishing performance from our $11,000 Watermaker investment, we were forced to purchase this expensive ($2150.USD) pump from Sea Recovery. What else could we do? Hire a lawyer? Turn the machine into an anchor?

    The new pump arrived in New Zealand (where we are now for the winter) damaged because the Sea Recovery people shipped it full of hydraulic oil that completely leaked out while in transit. The oil leakage caused the disintegration of the packing material around the 23kg pump and it pounded itself against anything and everything it came in contact with all the way here. There were no handling labels on the package exterior at all.

    We sent photos of the damaged parcel and its contents to Mary Day at Sea Recovery. She claimed the damaged pump looked just fine from the photos and denied any responsibility. She told us we would have to take it up with FedEx. FedEx claims that without warning labels or adequate packaging it was not their responsibility either.
    We were unwilling to accept the damaged pump. For the past 3 months we have been battling to get the pump exchanged. Sea Recovery’s Chris Rollins threatened us in writing that we must accept the damaged pump or be cut from future support through his company. Extortion. He went on to explain what a “privilege” it was for us to be able to deal with him directly; that we should be careful not to ‘rock the boat’. “Privilege” was the exact word he wrote!

    Fortunately for us, we purchased the new pump through our Credit Card Company. With them we were able to force Sea Recovery to reverse the $2150.00 charge. As a consequence, Sea Recovery will now no longer deal with us. We have a huge investment in our Watermaker, no working pump to run it and no reliable access to support or parts.

    The local Sea Recovery dealer here in New Zealand is not available: although Sea Recovery does have an extensive dealer network that they claim provides international support, in reality it does not always work. The people here did not make the sale. While they are friendly and nice, in our experience they seem to give a higher priority to customers who have purchased systems from them directly.

    Our recommendation to anyone who is considering the purchase of $10,000.00 or more worth of Watermaker from Sea Recovery is to be very careful…… Somewhere more ‘customer friendly’ would be better. Once the sale is made, the matter of support will be questionable if something goes wrong, especially when cruising overseas or away from the agent that sells the machine. The Sea Recovery people we have had the misfortune to deal with have been openly dishonest with us (in written correspondence) and have not supported the equipment.

    Warranty or not, the Sea Recovery viewpoint is: “…if you don’t like it go somewhere else…..”. This is the wording they actually used in our correspondence with them.
    In our 22 years of cruising and living aboard we have not experienced this level of deception or dishonesty from any other marine vendor that we can remember. Especially involving such an important and expensive piece of equipment.

    This above assessment may sound to some like a ‘rant’. If we did not just go through all of this, I would not have believed it myself.
    Hope this helps others prevent the mistake we have made.
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 24, 2012
  2. AMG

    AMG YF Moderator

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    So as I understand this, your new pump had cosmetic damage after the shipping and this is your problem?
  3. K1W1

    K1W1 Senior Member

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    Hi,

    What is the exact make and model of your HP Pump?

    I am pretty sure Sea Recovery don't make these pumps themselves, they are made by some mass manufacturer and have a Sea Recovery Label on them.

    The best HP Pump for a Watermaker is a CAT Plunger Pump, you might want to look at fitting something that is widely available and cut your dependence on Sea Recovery for support.

    To find a failure after 250 hrs of service sounds very low runtime to me.
  4. Pascal

    Pascal Senior Member

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    Indeed pumps are made by a third party and likely found on other brands. We have 500 hrs on a 4 year old Sea Recovery and the pump is fine

    My beef with Sea Recovery is the touch screen. We ve had 2 control board failures, one under warranty the other one out ($1000). The screen itself has been developping lines across which now make it hard to read
  5. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    Thank you for the question and opportunity to clarify:
    The new pump arrived saturated in Hydraulic Oil and beat up from the poor packaging. HRO denied any responsibility and refused to exchange it. DC motors like the one attached to the pump head do not like having oil getting between the brushes and the commutator. This can cause overheating and motor failure. So NO.... the damage was not just cosmetic.
  6. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    Thank you for the response. On our particular model Sea Recovery used a 3rd party Pump Supplied by Shurflo: model # 8050-174-168. From calls we made to in 2009-10, Shurflo were unable to give particular details about the pump because they have a confidentiality agreement with Sea Recovery not to reveal details.... how does that sound??
    The CAT pumps are also made by 3rd party suppliers: the pump head and the motor by different separate manufacturers. I suspect it will be a similar scenario if we wanted to contact them directly regarding the parts: they would be unable to deal with the customer directly and we would be referred to Sea Recovery.
  7. Marmot

    Marmot Senior Member

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    DC motor brushes and commutators are easily cleaned. To be honest, they could care less about a bit of oil. We used to run 120V 5 hp DC thruster motors submerged in hydraulic oil a mile underwater. The only problem we had was after many hours of running the oil would become partially conductive due to the carbon dust and needed changing to eliminate the ground.

    Buy a liter of electrical cleaner and find something else to worry about.
  8. AMG

    AMG YF Moderator

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    Well, it has caused a lot of smoke anyway... Good luck finding a replacement, as K1W1 said, there are others that should last longer.
  9. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    Is your pump diaphragm pump like the one supplied with our machine or a CAT hydraulic pump? The CAT pumps are supposed to be much more reliable. The problem we have with Sea Recovery is that they sold us a system that was doomed to fail...
    From what we have been able to find out in retrospect, they knew the diaphragm pumps would fail but did it anyway.
    Afterward, once you are hooked and have spent the time and money, when the pump fails they offer you the "privilege" of buying another, better pump.
  10. AMG

    AMG YF Moderator

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    Did you buy the system from Sea Recovery or from HRO in 2007?
  11. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    Exactly right about the cleaning part! And thank you for writing. The thing is: we paid for a new pump. Not something we were going to need to take apart and reassemble. Because of the reported damage to the pump, would Sea Recovery still warranty the pump/motor assembly if we took it apart and there were still problems? After-all, they stood to lose nothing by exchanging it if what you write is correct. They refused to exchange the beat up, 'new' pump and this says something.
  12. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    In the original post you will note that we bought the machine from our dealer in San Diego. The machine was commissioned in 2007. The company then was called "HRO Sea Recovery". Unfortunately, the agents for HRO Sea Recovery in San Diego who sold us our system are no longer in business.
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 24, 2012
  13. Marmot

    Marmot Senior Member

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    It sounds like they have blown you off anyway and have no plans to replace the pump so what is the downside?

    You are on the other side of the world, they don't care about your problem or how you feel about them so just clean the thing and get back to doing what brought you to NZ in the first place. You got screwed, you can't do anything about it from where you are.

    Pick your battles, there are worse things waiting down the road and you'll need your energy.
  14. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    Yes... it appears we did get "screwed". And we will make the most of it: thats life. The point of the discussion, from the last sentence of my original post is : "Hope this helps others prevent the mistake we have made."
    Thanks again for taking the time to post your thoughts on this.
  15. AMG

    AMG YF Moderator

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    I have seen your ongoing discussion on another forum as well, but I am curious since I have now found out that HRO and Sea Recovery are two related brands marketing the same products.

    We are about to install one from Sea Recovery in a new boat, since the buyer is very happy with it from another boat he has. So perhaps some clients are more lucky than you...
  16. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    Danfoss has just acquired HRO Sea Recovery (within the past 6-12month as far as we know). They may play with the brand name in the future....don't know....
    When we purchased our machine they were definitely 'HRO Sea Recovery'. It is emblazoned on all the written material supplied.
    They sell a range of systems. It is very possible that many have had good experiences. Especially if provided with something other than the diaphragm style pumps supplied with our machine (a Seafari Escape 200 SEM). NO one who has a diaphragm style pump will get the hours they would expect from such an investment. In conversations I have had with Sea Recovery's Chris Rollins, their agent Mike Harris in New Zealand and the Shurflo people in the States the diaphragm pumps contain components in the diaphragm and valves that distort and degrade over prolonged use (about 250 hours). The real kicker is that Sea Recovery knew this when they sold the machines with these pumps but just neglected to tell the buyers! People in our position are essentially forced to play along because once the time and investment is made it is hard to let go and start over..... and Sea Recovery knows this!!
    We will find a way to keep the machine going: we have had many encouraging and helpful suggestions from forum members already. We have never done this sort of thing before and find it really great to have received the responses we have to date. Thank you again for your time.
  17. Kafue

    Kafue Senior Member

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    You mentioned that the credit card company reversed the transaction, which is a good reason to use that credit card (AMEX?), but you don't mention where the "beat up" new pump is. Do you still have it or is it back with the company?
    From my recent experiences in shipping heavy and larger items from the US, the shipping costs can be huge. My last purchase was a compressor which cost $1,080 to buy and $450 to ship.
    Who paid for the shipping to and return?
  18. Capt J

    Capt J Senior Member

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    I have had several of their touch screens go bad and it's a known thing and they don't warranty those either.....but will be happy to sell you another one for $2500.........
  19. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    This is almost another story in itself. The credit card company (MasterCard) was great. We haggled with the Sea Recovery people for almost 6 weeks and finally got fed up. Sea Recovery simply refused to do anything. We called our credit card company and within 2 weeks we had our money back. We paid for the shipping to New Zealand. Sea Recovery were not willing to pay to have the pump returned to them.... what does this say??? 1st they claim nothing is wrong with it and then after being forced to refund our money do not even want it back? Screwy...
    The Sea Recovery people Mary Day & Chris Rollins have been very arrogant with us and if we had not made the purchase via the Credit Card we would not have had any leverage with them. During the six weeks of haggling with Sea Recovery we were threatened in writing, abusive language was used in writing to refer to us and nothing but written denials of any responsibility from them for the damage they caused by not packaging up the 23kg pump correctly. We even sent them the photos taken by our freight forwarder. The freight forwarder too was incredulous at the poor job.
    The damaged pump has been sitting in a oily pile on a workbench on land waiting to be shipped back and exchanged. Failing this, we will take the damaged one apart and get it working one way or the other. The only problem with this scenario is that the consequence to us for confronting Sea Recovery is that we no longer have any factory support. This means no access to parts as well. This was the threat they made (in writing!): play along or be cut off...... If we need parts we will have to find someone else to supply them. Our dealings with Sea Recovery suppliers so far indicates that these people, whoever they are, have contracts with Sea Recovery not to deal with customers directly....
    I'm sure we will find someone to sell us the parts but it is a hassle we did not factor in when we first bought our machine. NO one expects when they buy something expensive and new to have to deal with all this....
    As I wrote in a previous post, our intention is to let people know what we have dealt with and hopefully avoid the same from happening to them. There are easier ways and people to deal with than Sea Recovery.
    We have also been trying to find out through these forums if anyone else has had the diaphragm pump experience we have had and how they fixed it via alternate suppliers (not Sea Recovery). If anybody has done this we would love to hear about it.
  20. K1W1

    K1W1 Senior Member

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    Hi,

    If this is only the Low Pressure Pump that is giving the troubles save yourself some stress and get another brand that will do the job.

    LP Pumps on RO Plants are normally centrifugal pumps in my experience, there must be a lot of pumps that will do the job in sea water resisting materials.

    It is about time you started to customize your machine, when the screen goes bad and you are unable to get a new one you will have to find out how to make it run, might as well start now.
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