Problems

With hurricane season approaching, I thought I would summarize all the problems that I've discovered with the floodgates pumps over the past few months. This list is somewhat scary.

1) Only one type of backflow prevention, instead of two as called for in Corps engineering manual for this type of installation. [blogged September 29, 2006]

2) Durst gearboxes undersized for anticipated thermal load, increasing potentiality of overheating. [blogged March 8, 2007]

3) Hydraulic reservoirs undersized by factor of three, increasing potentiality of overheating. [blogged May 11, 2007]

4) No electrical backup for diesel engines, despite availability from chosen vendor, decreasing reliability. [blogged May 11, 2007]

5) Undersized hydraulic fluid transmission lines, increasing potentiality for catastrophic failure. [blogged April 17, 2007]

6) Unpainted, rusting hydraulic fluid transmission lines, increasing potentiality for catastrophic failure. [blogged April 5, 2007]

7) Rusty hose fittings on pump units. Note that this one has supposedly been addressed by the replacement of most of the hoses and fittings at the pump units with hard piping. [blogged April 5, 2007]

8) Flowmeter sensors in locations which will amplify measurement errors [blogged May 22, 2007]

There are others that I just haven't gotten to as yet.