The one that floods a site
Lift station service
A lift station is the single point of failure for everything upstream of it. When it stops, the whole property stops with it.
Wet wells accumulate a grease cap on the surface and a sludge layer at the bottom, and both interfere with the float switches that tell the pumps what to do. Rags and wipes are the other classic problem: they wrap the impellers and gradually strangle the pump's capacity long before anything alarms.
Regular wet well cleaning, float testing through full travel, and a check that the force main is actually discharging is unglamorous work that prevents the single most disruptive failure a commercial site can have. It is also considerably cheaper than the emergency version at 4am.
Warning signs
- Pumps running far longer than they used to
- Alarms that reset themselves and get ignored
- Odor increasing around the station
- Rags visible in the wet well
- No record of the floats ever being tested
Scheduled service covers
- Wet well cleaned of grease cap and sludge
- Floats tested through their full travel
- Pumps checked for rag wrap and run performance
- Force main and discharge verified under load
An ignored alarm is a warning you paid for
Alarms that clear themselves are the station telling you it is struggling. By the time it stops clearing, the failure is usually happening at the worst possible hour and the whole site is affected.
Straight answers
Questions about lift station service
How often should a lift station be serviced?
Quarterly to twice-yearly for most commercial sites, more frequently where a kitchen discharges into it, because the grease cap builds much faster. Sites with a history of rag problems benefit from tighter intervals.
Can you service it without shutting the property down?
Usually yes. We work with the station's duty and standby arrangement so flow is maintained during the visit, and where a full shutdown is genuinely needed we schedule it into your quietest window.
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Flat rate, quoted before we start
Let's get it flowing
Call and talk to a person. You get a straight answer on what it is, what it costs, and when we can be there.