Pump house repair, again.

Last week we discovered a leak just outside our pump house, to our surprise it was more than just a leak.  Our pump house has a steel pipe that comes out of the pump, angels down, and attaches to a 12" PVC mainline for the irrigation system (Z pipe).  When we dug up the junction between the steel and the PVC we found a hole lot of corrosion.  So much corrosion that we were able to easily stick a screwdriver into the steel pipe.  We are lucky that Landscapes Unlimited, the company that owns the Broadlands, is one of the best irrigation companies in the business, and that they were working in town at Columbine Country Club.  LUI came up and made our pump house repair look very easy, even though it was a very big job.

screwdriver in 1/4" thick 12" steel pipe

Once we were able to get the steel pipe out of the ground we found a couple of holes, and multiple areas that were very close to becoming holes.

hole in steel Z pipe

pitting in Z pipe

grove in pipe

LUI decided to replace the entire steel pipe with a section of HDPE(high-density polyethylene) pipe.  HDPE pipe is beginning to replace PVC in the irrigation world due to its versatility, strength, and ease of use. 

New HDPE pipe installed

view of flange on new HDPE pipe

HDPE pipe running out of pump house into thrust block

 We were able to pressure up the pump house yesterday morning and begin to water the course again.  I would like to thank everyone involved from Landscapes Unlimited and my crew for working together and making our 'major' problem look like a small problem.

Pump house issues

Motor being lifted out of pump house

Our pump house is equipped with three 75 horsepower pumps that can supply up to 1900 gallons per minute to the irrigation system of the golf course.  The pumps tend to work very well but with thousands of hours of use each year the bearings on the motors can wear out.  This happened about two weeks ago to one of the motors in the pump house.  With the pumps weighing approximately 1500 pounds each, it is no simple task to remove the motors when they need to be repaired.  Arapahoe Pumping Systems is always willing to help us when it comes to big repairs like this.  The motor was removed last Tuesday and was repaired and reinstalled yesterday morning.



The big issue we run into when a motor goes bad is that it takes about 40% longer to irrigate the course at night with one less pump in operation.  Most early morning golfers had probably noticed the irrigation running a bit longer for the last week, but lucky for us is that the bearings went out now as apposed to during the heat of the summer.