“Deritend sourced and installed a new motor within 24 hours and the whole station was subsequently refurbished within 8 weeks while the station continued to operate.”
Our client is one of the UK’s largest water and wastewater treatment suppliers in the UK, with over 4,000 employees and serving more than 6 million domestic and business customers. As an essential resource, it is important that the UK’s water and wastewater treatment services can be delivered efficiently and at the highest safety standards.
Key Priorities
Our client, like all water companies, must also consider cost in everything they do. With customers strongly scrutinising their water bills, for the water industry keeping costs as low as possible is a high priority. Our client’s pipelines carry water over an area of 27,500 square kilometres and because of the size of the region in which they operate, they manage over 1200 water and wastewater treatment works – which is around a quarter of all those in the UK. We were approached by our client to help maintain and repair their systems, to limit and where possible prevent disruption to their operations. There are a number of services that we provide for them, and each is designed to best serve the business’ needs.
Efficiency Improvements
Our client required several ‘jet’ type aerators to be replaced, in order to improve the efficiency of the aeration process in four cascaded tanks. We surveyed the site and proposed changes including installing Landy-7 aerators. We oversaw the removal of the old units and installation of the new ones, as well as testing the newly-installed equipment thoroughly for noise, vibrations, splashing and Oxygen transfer.
Aeration previously consumed approximately 80% of the total energy used in our client’s sewerage treatment but our modifications reduced this energy consumption dramatically. The project not only reduced operational environmental impact, but also provided £37,000 per year in savings.
24/7 Emergency Repair Service
As well as planned projects such as this, we also provided our client with a 24/7 emergency service to repair and restore broken equipment. Because of the nature of water treatment, any damage to machinery has the potential to cause major disruption to customers. Therefore working with a company such as ours, which our clients can trust and rely on to identify and rectify any problem as quickly as possible, is essential. In 2010, we were called to a treatment facility for an intermediate pump station that had failed. On investigation, it was discovered that the whole station had been under water after the failure of a mechanical seal.
Engineers were despatched the same day to remove pumps and motors, and we found the motors to have failed windings. In order to minimise disruption, we sourced and installed a new motor within 24 hours so that the station could run temporarily with one pump.The whole station was subsequently refurbished within 8 weeks while the station continued to operate. All works were carried out in our workshops and with specialist and highly trained service engineers removing, installing and commissioning the equipment. By providing a bespoke specialist service for the client, we have been able to bring efficiency and financial savings to our client. By ensuring speed and quality in managing the systems that are integral to the smooth running of their operations, Our expertise has helped ensure the best possible service for the company’s 6 million customers.