...which stopped working mid flow. The unit is used to pump water from a washing machine in our cellar with the pipework from the unit travelling up some 5 ft into the main sewage/drainage pipe. There is a faint buzzing sort of noise coming from the unit and it is feels warm at one side. I have now disconnected from the electric socket. Could it be that the fabric softner has narrowed the pipes or clogged up the unit? Is this fixable?

Patricia, February 2012

A feignt buzzing indicates that either there is a blockage preventing the impellor from rotating or the motor start capacitor has blown due to constantly overloading the machine.
If on checking there is no blockage then without telling you to pop off to maplins and buy a 12 mf 440v ac motor start capacitor for a few pounds and installing it in the machine you will have to get a saniflo service engineer in ..

Mike, May 2012