Pump Capacity Testing for Maintenance Planning

If you have a concern about the efficiency of a pump system, there is a set of several steps that you can quickly use to evaluate the condition of the pumps. I learned about these several years ago from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, yep a government agency.

I thought these steps recommended for testing a pump station could be a good way to run tests on both plant pumping system (Centrifugal Pumps ONLY - Not Positive Displacement Pumps) and collection system pumping stations.

You can read the how-to guide here: http://www.deq.state.or.us/WQ/rules/div052/guidelines/omgauges.pdf

You can expand on the techniques outlined by setting up a procedure for the operations staff to do spot checks. Mark right on the pump gages (inlet and discharge) where the pumping system ran at commissioning or when it was in known good condition. In the future, the testing described can be run by the operations staff and all they have to do is know when the readings on the gages fall outside of a reasonable operating band and then trigger a pump inspection. This is ON CONDITION maintenance and is the most efficient (lowest life-cycle cost) approach to maintenance actions.