Selwood’s pump rental teams are renowned for their responsiveness and problem-solving abilities – qualities which were put to the test following an urgent callout from Anglian Water.
The alert started with a suspicious patch of wet road surface and ended up as a huge project, drawing upon the skills of Selwood’s installation teams and the expert use of electric submersible pumps.
The sight of water seeping through the road surface in Church Lane, Boston, Lincolnshire, was the first sign that the 800mm water main which ran underneath it was leaking.
The main spans between two pumping stations, one at Church Lane and the other at 900m away at East End.
The challenge at hand was to install a discharge line through the town to enable the pipe to be bypassed while water flow was rerouted through a previously redundant main.
Because of the potential flows expected, this line would need to be 450mm in diameter and 1,000 meters in length.
To make matters more complicated, it needed to run alongside two rivers, cross the public highway and then discharge through a brick wall.
In total the line required more than 260 pipes of various sizes along with bends and non-return valves which all needed to be moved into place and bolted together.
While road closures and access ramps for pedestrians were organised, Selwood’s specialists set about bringing in submersible pumps and associated equipment from the company’s national branch network.
The first task was to remove concrete sleepers from a wet well at the Church Lane pumping station so that three submersible pumps could be installed.
It seemed straightforward at first but a problem soon came to light – the channel in the bottom of the well was narrower than expected and the third pump would not fit in.
Here, a Selwood innovation came into play. The solution involved mounting a conventional electric submersible pump on its side and surface mounting it.
The pump primes by using Selwood’s proven Selprime unit mounted on a flange bolted to the suction end of the pump and controlled by an electric air pack.
The job delivered further challenges when mid-way through the installation there came a need to cover more flow.
With little room left in in the wet well and most of the electricity supply being monopolised by the existing installation, an alternative solution was required.
A Selwood S300 Super Silent diesel-powered pump was quickly brought on site and installed at surface level with a hose positioned inside the well.
The re-routing of the water main was then carried out as a relatively straightforward task – testament to the dedication, quick-thinking and ingenuity of the Selwood teams and the vast range of pumping solutions at their disposal.