Thursday, August 13, 2009

There's more to it than overhead pipes


Of course there are site drawings, these appear to be similar to civil engineering drawings, but what happens if you're in the country without public water?

You can get creative with a water storage tank or (my personal favorite) laying out a vertical turbine fire pump taking suction from a pond, lake or even a well if water is available. For wells there usually isn't enough .

When designing something like this the designer has to work with a professional engineer because some things I can do and some I can't.

I can determine the size and depth of the pond needed, the size of the pumphouse, all the piping, size and layout of required screens, trash bars and water intake way.

But what I can'd do is engineer the concrete and I leave that up to the professional engineer.

The job on the drawing is a recently completed 1,500 gpm @ 120 psi 125 HP electrically driven vertical turbine fire pump. What I do is create what I want and then give a copy to the professional engineer who will detail the actual structure with rebar, mesh and calculate the loadings that are required.

Fire pumps come in all different sizes. You can get a vertical turbine as small as 250 gpm or as large as 5,000 gpm. They can be electric or diesel engine driven.

I'm just pointing out there is a lot more to this job than someone might at first think.