Storm Pump Overhaul – Anglian Water Services
Panks engineers faced a unique and complex challenge when they were asked to overhaul two of Anglian Water’s storm pumps in October 2016.
Panks engineers, contracted to overhaul two of the three storm pumps at Shoeburyness in Ness Road Pumping Station, Essex, had to think creatively in this £73,000 contract for Anglian Water Services.
The Worthington Simpson size 16 pumps at Shoeburyness were originally installed in the 1950s and no spares or manufacturer’s original drawings were available for the obsolete models. This made the entire re-engineering project truly bespoke – and something of a puzzle.
Further compounding the challenge, the 2.5metre pumps and castings are housed in a standard height building. Limited overhead space meant to remove the solid pump tubes and casings – which exceeded the height of the ceiling – the on-site team had to carefully cut and remove the pump, shaft and components in sections.
Mark Jackson, workshop manager at Panks said “The contracts team on site had never seen anything like it. I said get it back here and we will piece the jigsaw together. I knew that using our shared skill-sets and knowledge we could find the best solution.” 
Starting with pump 2, clamping and cutting the pump in sections and working safely around unprotected edges, was a challenging operation for the contracts team. Once the pump was removed they installed a diesel-driven surface over-pumping system to give the station back-up in case of heavy rain.
Prior to its removal the team were able to photograph the pumps in situ, but the restricted headroom meant photographs of internal workings were not possible. Back at Panks with all the component parts laid out, it was possible to see the massive erosion and damage suffered to the castings, tubes, shafts and bearings.
In Panks purpose built workshop the overhead gantry crane made fathoming the puzzle possible. Using centre lathes and a milling machine Mark and his team were able to re-engineer exact replicas of the tube and shaft in mild steel. They also replicated the bearings and couplings to the exact original specification.
The cast-iron pump casting and bell-mouth themselves needed a creative approach having softened over time and become heavily corroded; grit –blasting revealed holes and severe pitting.
Andrew Powley, Contracts Manager at Panks, said “We had to think outside the box in terms of coming up with a solution. As Panks cover so many sectors we have a wide base of expertise and experience to draw from and it is from that I came up with the relatively low-cost solution of GRP wrapping the castings to restore their integrity.”
Inspecting the restoration process at every stage, Panks next contracted a local company to paint the castings internally and externally to resist future damage from saline liquid.
The castings sections were totally coated with a specialist epoxy paint to toughen and proof them before being delivered back to Panks for reassembly.
The entire pump had to be built and tested at the workshop. Mark Jackson said, “It was precision work. We had to get it all exactly right, where we set the bearings and set the couplings and shaft. We dry built it all in workshop and tested it to ensure it worked perfectly.
“Then we had to take it apart and send it to the site team, along with one of our engineers to assist with the reinstallation at Shoeburyness.”
Steve Harris, Maintenance Support Technician for Anglian Water said “In this particular instance I needed the quickest turnaround time possible coupled with the best quality of work – and with Panks I knew we would get both. They did an excellent job, with no fuss.”
The process was repeated on the second of the storm pumps, with the whole project taking ten weeks and restoring full storm-water resilience to AWS Shoeburyness.
The workshop team at Panks produced full machine-drawings for the next time a pump overhaul is required – hopefully not for another 65 years.
