Storm Sump Pump Stations

Storm Sump Pump Stations protect the lower levels of buildings and parking garages from flooding.  Check out this Tech Talk on the application and design of Storm Sump Pump Stations.

Storm Sump Pump Stations Tech Talk Transcription:

Hi! I’m Tim Zacharias with Cougar USA. In this Tech Talk, we’re going to cover storm Sump Pump Station applications.

So when we’re looking at a storm sump application this is going to be anything in a building that’s collecting water from a clean source, rain, groundwater, condensate from Air Handlers, or fan coil unit, things like that. And it’s going to be in the typical locations in a building: at basement, parking garage, loading docks, spots where the water’s going to collect. We are typically going to recommend in this situation an N+1 design, meaning, both pumps can handle, one hundred percent of the load coming into the Basin. But in Houston, unfortunately, we have these high rainfall events where it might be normal or require two pumps to run in certain situations, so that’s going to affect the type of float switch assembly that we use and some of the programming so that we can run those two pumps with or without alarms.

So one way to do that is with a 4 float system in the Basin with a lag pump counter. It is going to allow us to run both pumps without getting a high-level alarm. But with that lag pump counter, we’re going to be able to see how often that pump is coming on and give an alarm if it’s over the threshold.

The type of pump that we are going to recommend for this application is going to be a large, non-clog-style pump. So, that’s going to be either a Vortex or an open Channel type impeller. They can still handle some solids, but they’re going to be able to move large volumes of water, typically into a gravity main type of discharge.

So what are these components that make up a storm station or Storm Sump Pump Station? the design here on the screen is what we would consider a typical sump pump station or duplex application. Using submersible pumps instead of a column style or extended shaft style Pump, we’re going to have a control panel and level float switch assemblies to be able to give that indication of the level in the water and then turn our pumps on and off, and give alarms. Also, we are going to have a lift-out rail system, for those submersible pumps so that they can connect to the discharge piping easily, but still be removed out of the pit for service and things like that for access.

We are also going to recommend, obviously, the isolation valve and some check valves like we’re showing them here through the discharge out of the top. It’s nice to be able to access them outside of the wet well. You could also do a valve box off to the side here with a separate access hatch for those valves to be able to get to them without having to get into the wet well. If there are space requirements and it does have to be inside the wet well, they will work there, just a little bit tougher to access them for maintenance.

The last piece is going to be the cover and that hatch is going to provide safety over the top of the pit and prevent Open Access into the wet well. It will also give you some structure and stability for the upper guide brackets of the rail system attaching there so that the pumps can come up and straight out the top of that hatch to be serviced.

So, that is what we want to cover on our Storm Sump Pump Station applications. Check out other Tech Talks for more information for feel free to reach out.