Stainless VFD Booster Pump System

If you are thinking about installing a variable speed domestic water pumping system or tank fill system in New York City, or any other city you must first consider the core parts. The base should be stainless steel. Steel bases rust out in a matter of years and then the pumps are no longer stable. Take a look at the base: does it have holes to be filled with grout? This would be the best choice. Some people take stainless steel bar stock and make a base out of it, but this is nowhere near as sturdy as a solid plate, quarter-inch stainless which is all Callaghan pump uses for all of our variable speed pump systems.

Secondly, the header. Most plumbers love working with copper; all of our headers are copper and stamped with “NSF”, which means no lead. If they ever have an issue where they want to add something, any plumber can work with copper. While stainless steel looks nice, it’s very difficult to work with and most plumbers do not have the capability.

Next would be pumps. You can use cast-iron pumps, stainless steel pumps, or any other type so long as it does not have lead. If you’re dealing with low flow and high head, multistage pumps work very well. If it’s something where it’s 100 gallons a minute and 100 feet of head, you might want to stick with a single stage pump and suction style because of the fewer impellers and fewer moving parts.

Lastly, the controller. Always insist on a smart drive. no matter who makes it. Smart drive means you’re not going to require a PLC, or in other words, a third-party brain. Someone needs to program PLC‘s, and people’s experience and skill working with them vary. When you buy a smart drive from a company like Yaskawa, you’re dealing with thousands of people in engineering and 20 to 30 people in technical support. There’s a lot of knowledge and a lot of back up support programs that they write in these drives today that will be serviceable in 15 years, even 20 years. Most rotating equipment last 50 to 80,000 hours. If you’ve gotten that long out of it you certainly have done very well, but the key (again): the fewer parts you have the better off you’ll be.

Callaghan Pump’s systems have: stainless steel base, copper headers, the pump of your choice so long as it’s lead free, a control panel with a through the door, interlocked handle disconnect switch, two circuit breakers (one per drive), two Yaskawa variable speed drives, and two transducers. If one transducer were to fail, it sends an alarm and starts reading the second transducer. Everything is a complete independent redundancy. You can lose one drive, one pump, one circuit breaker and the other will work completely independently of the other. you do not have to rely on a flip-flop relay or any other logic to make it switch.

Aurora Fire Pump Casing Relief Valve Installation

When it comes to any fire pump or fire pump system, whether it be Aurora, Peerless, Allis Chalmers, Patterson, etc, this rule applies to the installation of any fire pump system. All systems will need a casing relief valve. For purposes of illustration, I will be referring to the Aurora Fire Pumps because these are the systems that we sell at Callaghan Pump.

On the discharge of any fire pump, in this case the Aurora Fire Pump, you must install ¾ inch casing relief valve. The casing relief valves that Aurora supplies are manufactured by Cla-Bal, Model 55L — the letter L stands for UL approved–these valves come with insurance from Underwriters Laboratory which contributes to their cost. They are all bronze with a stainless steel ball and a stainless steel seat. They are the only ones that I have used in the past 25 years that actually reseats once it has blown off. So many of the other cheap valves have a rubber seat. As soon as they pop, the rubber is ripped and they never reseal.

This valve must be adjusted so that when the fire pump is running at churn or shut off (meaning water is not being discharged anywhere and it is running at full speed). The valve must dump; meaning it must open and flow water to a drain. Don’t just pipe this to the top of a drain. Either put it inside a funnel with an air gap or cut a hole in the top of the strainer and put the pipe three inches down into the drain. Otherwise you can flood your basement with water flying everywhere. You want a good solid 10 gallons/minute coming out of this valve, sometimes 15 gallons/minute if it is a large pump. This prevents the pump from turning the water inside the casing to steam. I have seen pump rooms that have gotten so hot they actually popped off a sprinkler head in the fire pump room. It was during construction. The sprinkler head sprayed water into the fire pump motor and into the fire pump control panel. That is why these need to be installed and they need to be installed after the fire pump discharge but before the check valve.

There is a flow direction on the valve — be sure the flow is pointed towards the drain and the drain line is piped up into to either a funnel or below the level of the strainer on a floor drain. If you do it above, it will splash everywhere, flood the basement, and cause significant damage.

Fire Pump Systems: Aurora Fire Pumps

It is important, above everything else, that a fire pump system have these two features:

A) no matter what, a fire pump must leak, or drip from the packing within the pump to keep it lubricated, and;

B) once a fire pump starts it must be stopped manually – that is someone must go to the pump and push the “red stop button.”

As a side bar, John Callaghan of Callaghan Pump and Controls notes that on a basic three month average a fire pump’s drain lines will clog. This is normal and usually occurs from paint scaling within the fire booster pump, from cast iron bits that become dislodged into the drain line, or from minerals or other deposits in the water. These types of clogs are normal; nonetheless, the fire booster pump must drip/leak, the frequency for which drips or leaks occur is up to pump owner, but the fire pump’s glands – bolts – should never be tightened so that it does not drip, since this is the only way a pump stays lubricated. Tightening the glands will score the shaft sleeve, and although it can be replaced, it could run you $6,000 -8,000 USD to replace your pump’s bronze shaft sleeve.

Aurora fire pumps, like every standard fire booster pump today, are built with packing inside. Remember, all fire pumps have water in them, packing keeps the water from splashing around and reaching the control panels. Aurora Fire Pumps, by Pentair, use the same assembling process as everyone else: they are packed and drip, and they must be stopped manually.

Callaghan suggests using Tornatech Control Panels with the Aurora fire pump system, they’re reliable, user friendly, and trusted in the pump industry. Older pumps may have different configurations, but the Aurora series has been updated to meet new standards within the last 10 years.

Yaskawa Smart Drives – Keeping Variable Speed Drive Pumping Simple

When it comes to domestic water pump systems or domestic water tank or domestic water tank filled systems of any kind in New York City or anywhere else, you are best off keeping your system as simple as possible. Variable speed drive pumping is the absolute best method you can use, because it allows you to buy a system that has the least amount of parts- less parts means less things that break, the “keep it simple stupid” method

At Callaghan Pump and Controls, we believe in keeping your pumping systems simple. Open up any of our control panels and you will see this simplicity in action. A Callaghan variable speed drive pump system has four basic components: a disconnect switch through the door which is interlocked, two current breakers- one for each drive, two Yaskawa variable speed drives, two 4-20 transducers– That’s it folks. Simple! How am are we able to achieve this ease of operation — the Yaskawa Smart Drive. Yaskawa Smart Drives keep operation and maintenance of the system simple. Variable speed pumping in New York City is not easy when you have service calls, so why would you add additional equipment that fails? If you look at most systems on the market, they use programmable logic controllers, PLCs. Nobody knows who programs them. The guy that does the programming this year almost certainly won’t be there next year. It might be Joe this year, Bob next year or who knows. In contrast, consistency and accessibility to technical support are key attributes to the desirability of the Yaskawa Smart Drive. The Yaskawa Smart Drive has the same program in it now that it had ten years ago and they have 20 engineers available for technical support. If you ever have an issue, you call the Yaskawa IQ 1000 Technical Support HotLine and you can access technical support five days a week direct from the factory where over 20 people are in technical support, all of whom are degreed engineers. Not only are they able to answer questions but they are also able to access a working model of the drive you are calling about in a room where they have situated all of the various drives the company has produced over the years. So when you call, the technical support engineers are able to unclick their headsets and go to this room to assist you with the issues you are having with your specific drive by looking at the drive at their site. They can walk you through any technical issue you might have.

If you are pumping water in New York City, you should absolutely use the Yaskawa Variable Speed Drive(VSD). Yaskawa is the best and they eliminate the need for a power supply, they eliminate the need for a PLC, All you need is a disconnect switch, circuit breaker, drive and transducer. The rest is pumps and piping. Remember to keep it simple.

Water Pressure Booster System: Standard Options with Yaskawa iQ1000

You may find yourself considering the installation of a water pressure booster system, John Callaghan of Callaghan Pump and Controls has installed pumps in and around the New York area for 25 years. He believes that you should consider the Yaskawa iQ1000. In this case, the Yaskawa iQ 1000 version is touted by Callaghan for its smart drive technology. This is what is known in the industry as a variable frequency drive or a variable speed drive. According to Callaghan, several years ago Yaskawa recognized that the two largest pump markets for variable speed drive pumps were in the electric motor and fans markets.

So, Yaskawa decided to customize one of their variable speed drives for pumps – the iQ Pump 1000. The iQ1000 pump takes a large volume of programming work and streamlines it into an easy to use interface. Anything that you might want to program into a water pressure booster system, domestic water pump system, or a domestic water tank fill system – anything, it’s all included in the iQ 1000 software. The iQ1000 has a standard sleep mode feature which is one desirable of its desirable features, which allows the pump to be turned off when no one is using water.

The real issue is when you want the pump to “wake-up” or turn on again. The iQ1000 is adjustable to range of weighted pressures that it will recognize; however you decide to configure your set point of pressure, the sleep and waking points of the iQ1000 are also set to recognize these variables. So, at whatever point you decide to set your sleep point, the wake mode will be a set differential which will automatically recognize the pressure difference. For example, if the pressure for sleep is 95 psi, the pressure for awake is negative (-5) psi – no matter what you change your pressure setting to, it will always wake up at (-5) pressure.

The iQ1000 also offers low suction shutdown as a standard feature. If you have no water pressure coming in, you always want to have your pump shutdown. As a rule, Callaghan notes that if you have a set point of 80 psi, then you should at the very least have a 20 psi aggregate for shutdown after any determined period of time, that could be anywhere from 5 seconds to 60 seconds, you determine that timeframe. If external systems like city water psi go higher than expected, at 20 psi over the iQ1000 will shut down as well. The outlined features are all built into the Yaskawa IQ 1000 drive.

Callaghan makes some final installation suggestions for water pressure booster systems:

Use a ¼ inch stainless steel base with holes to grout
Use cooper headers, not stainless, must plumbers are trained to handle copper

Various Fire Pump and Domestic Water Pump System Projects by Callaghan Pump

When it comes to experience and a pump company you want to do business with, Callaghan Pump, which has large and small projects under our belt, is the company for you. Over our 15 years in business serving the greater metropolitan area we have worked on a vast array of jobs both big and small.

We have done five Loews locations with fire protection and domestic water pump systems and have offered start up training. We have done work at Brookhaven National Lab, home of the Ion Accelerator. Our part may have only been a small fragment of the entire job, but it was fun just the same. There are two stainless steel pipes that run around a two mile track and they slam the ions together to try to solve the puzzle of the big bang theory. Half of the tunnel is above ground and half is below ground. Additionally, we were fortunate to be awarded the contract to install the sump pumps to keep the Phoenix Laboratory dry during heavy rainfalls. That was an exciting project as well.

Our domestic water booster systems have been installed in well over 2000 locations throughout New York City, New Jersey, Long Island, and Connecticut. Aurora does a wonderful job with their fire protection. We also use Aurora domestic water pump systems. Ebara is another pump line the we use in our domestic water pump systems. If you are looking for a multi-stage pump that is NSF approved, Ebara offers probably the largest selection of NSF rated pumps. Every component in our domestic water pump system is NSF rated 61 to make sure there is no lead.

At Callaghan Pump, when building a domestic water pump system, we try not to do constant speed systems any more since it makes little sense in light of the advantages of variable speed drive systems. However, if asked for constant speed systems, we work with our clients. Please be aware that, usually, we are called back a few years later and end up converting the system over to variable speed like we did at 51 Astor where the IBM supercomputer Watson is now located.

As mentioned we have worked on numerous projects with a wide range of needs. We supplied variable speed drive domestic water pumps and tank filled pumps at 780 3rd Avenue. This job involved a 40-60 story high rise building. We also supplied pumps for 1 World Trade Center during construction, 7 World Trade Center, 50 West Street, 250 South Street, We are currently pumping all of the water at the Nordstrom Tower on 57th Street. That is going to be 1775 feet tall to the roof deck of living space. (Not to the top of the antenna but to the top of the roof)

Stay tuned for more…..

Domestic Water Variable Speed Booster Pumping Systems

Callaghan Pump manufactures the highest quality and longest lasting pump system known on the market today. We use two very simple methods to make sure our systems last longer than any others. First and foremost is that our constant pressure/variable speed booster systems have as few parts as possible. They only feature what is needed to perform the task of boosting pressure in any type of building (low-rise, high-rise, a warehouse, etc.). If you want a constant pressure domestic water booster system we can build it.

We keep the system extremely simple by excluding extraneous items that fail early. The two most common items that we see failing are touch screens and programmable logic controllers. We don’t use either. We use the keypads that come with the drive. These keypads will have replacements available from the manufacturer for many years. We do not believe any other constant pressure booster manufacturers can say that about their touch screens. They are constantly updating touchscreens and removing old stock. I’ve spoken many times about the problems related to programmable controllers, and the second a smart drive was invented, I started using them instead. I never looked back to a PLC. A PLC requires that somebody sits down at a computer and writes a program that is very specific for a constant pressure booster system. The programmer may be good at his/her job, but many need to learn a few things and they learn them through trial and error. When you buy a smart drive, all those lessons have been learned 20 years ago. We don’t have programming errors anymore when we use a smart drive. One might accidentally put a decimal in the wrong spot, but this error does not require someone to come to the site with a laptop and a special cable and plug in to repair it. That is something you can fix right on the keypad with the full support of up to twenty customer service representatives at Yaskawa’s 1-800 hotline.

The number two reason our constant pressure/variable speed booster systems have very low failure rates is that we keep the inside of the control panel as cool as possible. We do this by cutting a hole in the back of our control panel for every drive. There is a kit that comes with the drive to make sure it stays watertight. This way, all the heat is drawn off of the drive with a heat sink and a large fan right on top of the heat sink. We put that device outside the control panel and then cover it with a powder-coated louver, specially designed for our domestic water pump systems. Every system gets this which makes our enclosure and control panel extremely durable, reliable and simple.

How to Choose the Right VFD Domestic Water Booster System for You

In New York City, variable speed domestic water booster systems are not only ideal to have but they are now part of the electrical code in order to save electricity. The first person in NYC who spoke at ASSE/ASPE professional engineer meetings to push this topic (and was nearly laughed out of the room) was myself, John Callaghan. Obviously things have changed. I do recall the first thing I said as a speaker, and that was “pumps have not changed since 1960s, but the way you control them has changed significantly.” And once again this has held true.

The original Variable Speed Drives required a “brain” called a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). This box does what you think it would do, you program it and it handles the logic of when a pump starts, how fast the pump goes, and when a pump decides to bring on another pump. It also decides when to shut one pump off when two are running and decides how fast the pumps should be running. This was new technology and, therefore, was viewed with skepticism. As a result, engineers wrote specifications which said if your pump control system relies on a PLC, you must have old school relay logic backup. This meant if the PLC failed then relay logic took over.

PLCs are electronic versions of relays– fantastic when they are new and fantastic when they are programmed by an expert. They were used in all industries. However, if you were in the pump business, what do you think the odds were that you had purchased a high quality PLC and that you hired a highly qualified professional to program it? And what do you think the odds were that that professional still works for the company eight years later, and what are the odds that the required cable that fit the computer and fits the PLC is still around somewhere when you have trouble? These original PLCs served their function but have now been technologically surpassed by the new smart drives. This shift in technology is similar to other situations– how many of you have used floppy disks or still use them today? How many people still use CDs? Times change and the way we control pumps has also changed.

My point here is that when specifying a Variable Speed Drive, make sure you specify a smart drive. It does not require a separate PLC or “Joe” Programmer (who might have left the company to build boats for a living). Smart drives communicate with each other and base their staging or cascading upon a very simple rule– when the first pump approaches full speed, the assumption is that it is approaching its limits of providing water at a steady pace and is not able to keep up with your building’s water demands. At this point, help is needed from the second drive/pump. With smart drives, you have the option of when to bring on the second pump. In the USA, 60 hz is considered full speed. Smart drives allow you to decide and adjust when you want the second pump to start based upon speed. To stop short cycling of the second pump, the factory default setting starts the second pump when the first pump reaches 59 hz for 10 seconds based upon the assumption that the pump has reached its full capacity. That time frame and speed are adjustable too. I feel this is very smart. The key is that you do not specify or allow anyone specified to use a dumb drive which requires a PLC. My competitors laugh at me for spending $800.00 on a 5 hp drive. Instead, they use a cheap drive which costs less than $150.00 but then they need a PLC and “Bob” or “Joe” to program them, Bob may be great, Joe…who knows? Then we find out Bob got a great job at Boeing, because of his skills, so this “big” company has only “Joe” to rely on. As a specifying engineer, I would not be very happy about that, and neither should you.

I invite you to come to my shop where I will show you a 50 gallon drum of water connected with good drives but dumb PLCs. I am happy to demonstrate the value of smart drives. If you take anything from this article, I hope that you will always specify a domestic water system which uses SMART DRIVES.

I know of five manufacturers who make them. When choosing one of the five, I knew it was a big decision. I called all five to see which would hope the most in customer service when I had an emergency. Four of the five said I would need to speak to a product specialist. Larry was on vacation, Moe was in the bathroom, Curly was out to lunch, and Shemp was away from his desk. When I called Yaskawa, I discovered there were 15-20 degreed engineers that were available. Additionally, I had heard rumors that there was a room that had models of every drive they had installed where the engineers could go to in order to personally go through the keypad with me and wiring. I don’t base and build my company on rumors so I flew out to the company with one of the best factory reps in the business and I met the people, I saw the room, and I realized that the rumors were facts. As a side note, I was blown away with their other division which is robotics. The fact is Yaskawa has 25 engineers who are degreed engineers, and they always hire new ones and the better ones train the new ones.

Trust me when I tell you, these people in Wisconsin, where every drive is assembled, are the best in the business. I understand why smaller companies use dumb drives for a 5 hp motor: the drive costs about $100 while the Yaskawa drive costs $700, but the long term benefits outweigh the initial costs. I made my decision to use Yaskawa exclusively in all my systems because my reputation is based upon performance and reliability. Since making that decision, I have sold over 800 drives. Of those, there have only been four failures. Three were due to water leakage from above which was not covered and the fourth was installed in a hot room during the summer with heaters on and no explanation was offered to why it failed but the company covered over half the replacement cost and sent a brand new drive instead of attempting to fix the original. On every system I build, I use the Yaskawa IQ pump 1000 micro and standard drive. I set the rotation properly at my shop and then test each system before shipping out to the intended site to ensure that the pumps are going to run the correct rotation when installed on site by plumbers no matter what.

Going back to one of my original comments regarding variable speed drives, which were made at joint ASSE/ASPE meeting when I opened with my opening comment, “Pumps are dumb, the way you control them isn’t. It is smart and getting smarter.” These Yaskawa drives have brought smart to a new level. Be smart– think smart drives.

The Callaghan Pump Advantage — Preprogramming and Pretesting of Our Domestic Water Pump Systems

At Callaghan Pump and Controls, we build our own domestic water variable speed booster systems. We also build and package all our tank filled systems that are used quite often in New York City.

Callaghan Pump has the option of choosing any manufacturer’s variable speed drive on the market, but we will absolutely not use what is called a dumb drive. Even though they are cheaper, you can find a 5 horsepower drive for about $125.00, in the long run the initial cost savings is just not worth it. Instead, we use smart drives made by Yaskawa which eliminate the need for programmable logic controllers.

We put these drives together in our shop in Hackensack where we have the ability to test single phase 115/220. We more commonly test 208 three phase. We also have a transformer so that we can test 480 volt. Why is this important? It is extremely important because prior to shipping any variable speed drive domestic water booster system or any variable speed tank filled system, we pressure test the system in our shop, then we program the system. Our average system might be programmed to maintain 80 psi.

We can run the system in our shop. We have a tank on the roof and a tank in our shop. We run the water up to the roof in a circle and back down into the pump system. We do this with the control panel open and we have what is known as flir (forward looking infrared). We scan the entire control panel to examine the connections checking for any loose ones. Any loose connections will show up extremely hot. Or, when using thermal imaging, they show up a very bright white. This testing ensures that every package we send out is correct and all connections are tight. We heat cycle them, run them, let them cool down again, then we run them again. We run them using water so that we duplicate the actual conditions at the job site. All of our systems are corrected for rotation in our shop.

Once the system gets to the job site, it does not matter what the electrician does- we know that our motors are set and will spin the right direction, because Yaskawa IQ 1000 drives automatically correct for rotation because they take three phase in: AC power converted to DC power which is essentially two phases; then back to three phase. Once the drive is corrected for rotation, the smart drive locks it in. If a customer tells me, he wants 80 pounds of pressure that is where the pump will go to sleep. I typically have it wake up and start pumping again once the pressure has dropped 7 psi. If the first pump runs full speed which is 60 hertz for more than 10 seconds, the second pump will start and they will work together. They run together at the same speed until they get down to a preset speed, typically 40 hertz, and one pump will destage and the remaining pump will be in the lead. Nobody else does this kind of testing and programming.

All a customer needs to do for startup is bring the incoming water pipe, the discharge pipe, 3 hot 208 volt, and a ground. Then, they will need to open all the water pipes, drain the air out of the top of the pump, and press the blue auto button on both drives. We put our key pads through the door and we put our heat syncs out in the back of the controller, which allows for heat dissipation and a cooler control panel inside temperature. This makes your domestic water booster system or tank filled system last longer.

Startup is already conducted at our shop making your process simpler. All customers need to do is let the water in, let the air out, and press auto. The pumps will go right to the preset speed of your choice and shut off if no one is using water. You cannot go wrong with a variable speed water booster system and smart drive from Callaghan Pump.

Callaghan Pump: A Company with Experience in Water Pump Systems and Pump Repair

When selecting a pump repair company for any of your pumping needs including domestic water systems, domestic water booster systems, Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs), fire pumps, HVAC pumps, chilled water pumps, and condensates, it is important that you choose a company that has experience. This is especially true in places like New York City where pumping concerns can be a little different as far as codes are concerned. Also customer needs and delivery schedules need to be taken into account. Callaghan Pump has been in the New York market for over 15 years where it has not only represented pump lines but also served as a pump repair company. We know about tight spaces. All of our domestic water pump systems up to 40 horse power fit through a 36” doorway. We offer these systems with or without wheels so that you can roll them to their intended locations.

If you take a look around and are comparing pump repair companies, consider whether these other companies have the experience that Callaghan Pump has. For example, large entities like the Port Authority are not going to do business with small inexperienced shops. We have had the pleasure of selling 10 packages to the Port Authority, one of which, sold to JFK airport, was the largest packaged fire pump system in the world. It consisted of 10 Aurora packaged fire pump systems on a skid. Each pump was capable of 3500 gallons a minute at 150 PSI. Imagine that times 10 — 35,000 gallons a minute! If you put these on tests you multiply 35,000 x 1.5 — that’s how much those pumps are capable of pumping. (Please note: These packages were installed by the various contractors.)

Additionally, Callaghan Pump also sold five package systems to LaGuardia Airport, where they were so impressed with our products and service that they awarded us the project at JFK. Both systems consisted of a combination of diesel fire pumps and electric fire pumps. JFK has 6 diesel and 4 electric pumps; LaGuardia has 3 diesel and 2 electric pumps. We are also happy to have been awarded all of the pumps to keep the Lincoln Tunnel dry. There are 34 Gorman Rupp self-priming pumps in the Lincoln Tunnel along with 4 Aurora Fire Pumps for fire protection.

These projects Port Authority just skim the surface of some of the major projects that Callaghan Pump has done over the years and indicate the experience and expertise that come with our sales and pump repair company. Stay tuned for more…

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