Grundfos ALPHA2/2L and "plumbnation"

[profIJM]

Fellow sheddies,

It's that time of year to discover that one's ancient CH pump (UPS15-45x18) has apparently pumped its last fluid ounce of tepid lime scale ridden sludge round the house.

Grundfos's official recommended replacement is "ALPHA2/2L 15-50" (their capitals not mine).

plumbnation appear to have two differently priced products which as far as I can tell are the same thing:

Product Code: 103755 Grundfos Alpha2 15/50 Domestic Circulator Bare Pump

and

Product Code: 103934 Grundfos Alpha2 L 15/50 Domestic Circulator Bare Pump (This one is shown with the wrong picture BTW)

This leads me to questions like:

"What does the 'L' mean and is it important?"

"Are these two items really the same thing?"

"Is one merely the Google-redirected and thus cheaper version?"

Any thoughts?

[Redrawn Buns]

One 'D_Hailsham' in uk.d-i-y a couple of years ago posted along the lines of ...

The Alpha2 came out first. The L means Limited features. The only difference is that the Alpha2L does not have the Autoadapt and Night Setback features. Very few domestic installations will ever use the Night Setback, so that's no loss. As for Autoadapt, there have been reports that it does not always work. I can't see any reason for you to change your Alpha2L to the Alpha2.

[profIJM]

That makes a lot of sense. Many thanks. I shall go for the somewhat cheaper option.

[Mathew Newton]

I seem to recall that the 2L doesn't have the LED watt indicator too, for what that's worth. (There's some weird self-referential infinite loop in that sentence)

Mathew

[Ben Blaukopf]

Happy to report my recent experiences with them. I ordered a load of Hep2O stuff on Tue 31st May. On Fri 3rd June (after I called them to prod) they gave me a delivery date of 13th June "due to these items coming direct from the manufacturer".

They then outsourced the order to Plumbcentre, and apparently dictated the order over the phone, because the eventual order was slightly wrong (but matched Plumbcentre's paperwork) - and so was my name. It was also minus one item, which Plumbcentre had no idea about (because it wasn't on their paperwork), but turned to be on back order (after I spoke to PlumbNation who spoke to PlumbCentre...)

They were considerably cheaper than Plumbcentre's web prices - but having been in there a few times, I've discovered that their store prices are quite a bit cheaper than what they advertise online. I'll certainly not use them again, as the price saving was completely outweighed by the hassle factor, never mind the long delivery time.

[YAPH]

I've generally found them pretty good for boilers. They do - as you've found - supply through regular plumbers' merchants: basically they have the buying power to get lower prices than the PMs' branch managers can offer on their own stock, in some cases!

I also had to prod them to get my last order (a load of TRVs in this case) moving.