At the recent OzWater 2009 exhibition, a two-man team from United Water International took out the Hydro Innovations challenge to service a Gorman-Rupp pump in the fastest time. The winning team comprised Christopher Hewitson and Darren Emes who flew in from Adelaide to attend the Melbourne event.
The competition was part of Hydro Innovations’ OzWater promotions, and was conducted to show competitors how quickly and easily a Gorman-Rupp Super T series or Ultra V Series pump is to service. Competitors were asked to replace the wear plate, flap valve and rotating assembly of the demo pump, with the winning two-person team being the fastest to complete the task. Over the three days of the exhibition, there were in the order of 20 attempts on the challenge, with the winners completing the task in 1 minute and 41 seconds.
According to Hydro Innovations, the pump is a demonstrator and made of aluminium for ease of transport, and so would be easier to work on than ‘live’ cast iron pumps at a sewage pump station. If non-trades people like Chris and Darren could service the pump this fast, skilled maintenance personnel would find working on ‘live’ versions easier than other styles of pumps.
Gorman-Rupp pumps have been popular at sewage treatment plants for many years because of their robust construction and less maintenance. The pumps have fewer OH&S issues and have no confined spaces issues.