If your idea of preventive maintenance is crossing your fingers and hoping the pumps make it through another storm—this one’s for you.
Pump stations are the unsung heroes of water and wastewater systems. They move the mess, keep tanks from overflowing, and buy you time when things go sideways. But when they fail? It’s loud, it’s wet, and it’s expensive.
Here’s how to keep your station from throwing a tantrum.
1. Stop Ignoring the Check Valve
That clunk you hear every time the pump shuts off? That’s your check valve crying for attention. If it’s slamming or leaking, it can cause water hammer, backflow—or eventually, a full system failure.
Fix it:
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Listen to it regularly.
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If it’s slamming like a car door in a windstorm, schedule a teardown.
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Consider installing dampening or spring-loaded checks during retrofits.
2. Test the Float Tree (Yes, Really)
Floats love to lie. Grease, rags, or corrosion can cause them to stick, drift, or misread levels—leaving your system thinking the well is empty when it’s actually Niagara Falls.
Fix it:
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Manually test the float tree on a set schedule.
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Clean off any buildup.
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Don’t wait for a false low-level to burn up your pump.
3. Monitor Amps and Run Times
If your pump is drawing more current than usual, it’s not your imagination—it’s a warning. It might be ragged up, bearing failure might be starting, or maybe it just doesn’t feel like it today.
Fix it:
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Trend amps and run times through SCADA (or a notebook, if you’re still analog—and if you are, see our last blog post).
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Look for spikes or increasing runtimes.
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Don’t ignore patterns—investigate them.
4. Don’t Wait Until It Smells Like Failure
Odors, noise, and vibration are early warning signs. If your station sounds like a washing machine full of hammers, don’t shrug it off.
Fix it:
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Add vibration checks to your inspection rounds.
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Trust your senses. Most pump failures give off a warning—you just have to pay attention.
5. Alternate Pumps Automatically (and Actually Check It)
Pump alternation is supposed to extend pump life. But if the alternator fails—or someone left it in “hand”—you’ll burn out one pump while the other one quietly dry-rots.
Fix it:
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Test alternation at the control panel.
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Confirm pump changes in SCADA (if available).
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Check the logs. Don’t assume it’s working—verify.
6. Use SCADA for Alarm Callouts (Not Just Your Gut)
Pump stations love to fail at 2 a.m. during freezing rain. If you’re relying on hearsay, habit, or gut instinct like “the tank usually drops by now,” you’re playing with fire.
Fix it:
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Set high and low level alarms.
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Test your callout system at least monthly.
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Don’t silence nuisance alarms—solve them.
7. Clean the Wet Well More Than You Want To
You don’t have to love it—you just have to do it. Grit, grease, and rags build up fast, and when they do, they turn your submersible into a very expensive boat anchor.
Fix it:
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Schedule cleanings—quarterly at minimum for busy sites.
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Trust your nose: if it smells like death, the solids are stacking up.
Final Thought
You don’t need to be a psychic to prevent pump station failures—you just need to stop treating them like they’re bulletproof.
Every station becomes a liability if ignored. But with a solid rotation, a couple of float checks, and some honest trend monitoring, you can keep things flowing—and stay off the front page.
Because let’s be honest: nobody wants their name tied to a raw sewage overflow.
That’s why you catch problems before they start.
