PLATFORM
Planning pump maintenance.
Six families of preventive task, five factors that move their frequency, and how criticality is decided. This is the method Sparkoper applies when it builds a pump plan with a utility.
- Manufacturer interval What the documentation requires for this model, in this configuration.
- Operating context Duty, water quality, environment and criticality move that interval.
- Observed history What the previous rounds found on this asset, and what failed.
- A task in the plan One frequency per asset, with its procedure, its parts and its duration.
General guidance for water utilities. Manufacturer instructions always take precedence, and a plan is only valid for the equipment actually installed. Last reviewed: October 2026.
Six families of preventive task
Rounds and observation
Noise, vibration, temperature, leaks, pressure and flow, read on the running pump at the same point every time. Comparable readings matter more than precise ones.
Calendar — daily to weekly.
Lubrication
Grease or oil for the bearings, in the quantity and the grade the manufacturer gives. Too much grease destroys a bearing as surely as too little.
Running hours.
Sealing
Mechanical seal or packing: leak rate, flush water, gland adjustment. Each technology has a leak that is normal and one that is not — the plan has to say which.
Observed condition.
Alignment and fixing
Shaft alignment, coupling elements, anchor bolts, anti-vibration mounts. Checked periodically, and after any intervention that has moved the machine or the pipework.
Calendar, and after every intervention.
Electrical
Current drawn, protection and thermal settings, insulation, terminal tightness, drive parameters and cooling. The motor often records the pump’s wear before the pump shows it.
Calendar — quarterly to yearly.
Performance check
Flow, head and energy per cubic metre, compared with the reference taken when the pump was known to be healthy. The earliest honest sign of wear, clogging or a valve left closed.
Calendar — monthly to quarterly.
A major overhaul is not a seventh family: it is planned from running hours and from what these six have been recording — not from a date.
Five factors that move the frequency
- Duty. A pump that runs continuously, one that starts twenty times a day and a standby unit do not wear the same way. Starts count as much as hours.
- Water quality. Sand and abrasives, lime, chlorine, polymers, temperature and pH decide how fast seals, impellers and stators go.
- Criticality and redundancy. A pump with no standby, or whose failure stops supply, is looked at more often than one of four identical machines.
- Environment. Power quality, flooding, dust, heat — and whether the machine can be reached and stopped when the task falls due.
- What has been recorded. Three identical findings on the same asset are a reason to change the frequency, not to repeat the task.
How criticality is decided
Consequence
What stops if this pump stops: supply to a district, a treatment stage, a discharge consent, the safety of a team.
Redundancy
Is there a standby machine, can it be started in time, and is it maintained as well as the duty one?
Detectability
Would the failure be seen coming — by a round, a measurement, an alarm — or only once it has happened?
Three answers, one level — and the level decides three things: how often the preventive task comes round, which spare parts are held on site, and how fast an intervention has to start.
The frequencies that count are the ones a team actually performs. A plan with too many tasks is abandoned in the first difficult month — what the field records is what keeps it honest.