Sewage collection and treatment authorities across the nation are concerned with maintaining lift station pumping capacities during system failures. Traditional design has incorporated a diesel-powered generator to provide backup electricity in the event of a power failure at the station. Now, tradition is being broken as sewage authorities discover the benefits of backup pumping capacity instead of backup electrical capacity.
Improving Lift Station Reliability and Flexibility
Backup pumping capacity supplied by the Godwin Dri-Prime automatic self-priming diesel powered pumpset provides lift stations with 100% pumping redundancy for emergencies, power outages, and scheduled preventive maintenance. The reliability issues of transfer switches and control panels of traditional lift station designs become a thing of the past. The following case study illustrates how backup pumping capacity has improved lift station reliability and flexibility.
Lift station reliability had become such an issue that city engineers decided to research the cause of outages. Their findings were surprising. They found that only 14% of lift station outages were directly related to power failures. “Our discovery that a large percentage (86%) of lift station failures were caused by either mechanical pump or electrical control panel failures was a huge wake-up call for us,” states Phil McGraw, Civil Engineer, City of Hoover.
McGraw had used diesel powered portable pumps on a temporary basis during emergency repairs for permanently installed pumps and was impressed by the reliability. He knew a Godwin diesel Dri-Prime pump was what he needed as a backup system.
As a result, the City of Hoover devised a plan in the mid 1990s to convert all of its 40 lift stations over to Godwin Dri-Prime pumpsets instead of electrical generators. Today, 29 stations have been completed. The Godwin 6-inch CD150M Dri-Prime was the first pump purchased for this application and it is still operating to the city’s satisfaction.
Dri-Prime® and the color orange for pumps are registered trademarks of Godwin Pumps of America, Inc. Specifications and illustrations are subject to revision without notice.
