Soil composition in the area led to frequent water main break due to ground shift. Maintenance and repair can only begin until after receiving phone complaints from customers without water.
Utility power in this rural community routinely suffers power loss from natural events leading to the same outcome of no water.
Community can only budget to check the pump station twice per day.
Solution:
Installation of OverWatch-WM well monitoring system with one tank sensor, one utility power monitor, one pump motor monitor and one backup battery system. Total system costs $4,000 before installation expenses.
Results:
Daily status update.
Immediate notification of sudden level change signaling a possible line break in the field and loss of utility power.
Reduction of labor and truck expense for daily site wellness check.
Return on Investment (ROI):
One year of (labor and truck expense) savings or just one early detection of line break and quick repair prevents total loss of water service to customers.
Details
This water pump station in located in an unincorporated community in Burleson County, Texas. It is one of four pump stations in the area servicing the surrounding area.
Before OverWatch-WM, the maintenance crew would visit the pump station twice each day to perform visual check, verify pump operation and check water levels. The two checkups each day is a function of limited operating budget in this small community.
Due to the nature of the soil in the area, water line break from ground shift is inevitable. When a line break happens, the uncontrollable discharge of water will drain the water tower faster than the water pump can replenish the supplies from the underground well. Within hours, the tower will completely drain and the local community will experience no pressure and no water. Customer will then call the main office alerting the situation.
Another common disruptive event is the loss of utility power from storms or high wind knocking down trees that damage utility power lines. In the end, it is the same outcome with phone calls coming in from customers without water.
After OverWatch-WM installation, the maintenance team checks level and pump operation from their mobile device multiple times each day. Thus, allowing them to comfortably switch to once per day in visual checks. This saves time and budget for the community. In addition, the team gets immediate notification upon events such as water level sudden changes, levels getting too low or too high, pump motor power fault and utility power loss. This allows for quick response and remedy before it starts to affect customers in the community. The quick response eliminates the extra time needed to prime the pump once the water level gets below the lower limit. This in itself saves hours of extra labor cost and will speed up the time when customers will start to have water supply again.
As expected, multiple power events and drastic water level change alerts within the first year after OverWatch-WM system installation helps mitigate the loss of water services. According to the operator, each one of those events helps pay for the OverWatch-WM system and many times over.
