Anyone know how to use this twin rainwater pumping station?

[Adsibob]

I'm pretty sure we have this model twin rainwater pumping station with an alarm system to notify of high water level.

 

Yesterday, with all the rainwater we've had recently the high water level alarm went off. I have no manual for it and the installer who installed it is away on holiday. The alarm panel was showing this and bleeping:

 

 

What was slightly odd is that there was no red light, just the green (and the light is usually on green). The green light may have been flashing, I can't remember, whereas normally it definitely doesn't flash. I pressed the mute button, which got rid of the alarm and went back to bed.

 

This morning I have realised the installer left me no manual. I called the number on the panel and they advised they just make the alarm system and that they would email me their manual, but it probably wouldn't help. I've not received their alarm yet, but google suggests it's this which isn't helpful as it doesn't say anything about bleeping without a red light (just beeping with a red light, which I definitely didn't have). Drainstore's website does not provide the user manual either, just the installation manual.

https://www.drainstore.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Drainstore-Alarm-New-Oct2020.pdf

So I'm just wondering if anyone has one of these and what you are meant to do when the alarm sounds. I had understood that it was an automatic system that pumps rainwater to the sewer as and when it needs to and the alarm only sounds if there is a fault. This was installed about 10 months ago, so it would be surprising if it had broken already.

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Adsibob

[Thorfun]

11 minutes ago, Adsibob said:

I'm pretty sure we have this model twin rainwater pumping station with an alarm system to notify of high water level.

 

Yesterday, with all the rainwater we've had recently the high water level alarm went off. I have no manual for it and the installer who installed it is away on holiday. The alarm panel was showing this and bleeping:

 

 

What was slightly odd is that there was no red light, just the green (and the light is usually on green). The green light may have been flashing, I can't remember, whereas normally it definitely doesn't flash. I pressed the mute button, which got rid of the alarm and went back to bed.

 

This morning I have realised the installer left me no manual. I called the number on the panel and they advised they just make the alarm system and that they would email me their manual, but it probably wouldn't help. I've not received their alarm yet, but google suggests it's this which isn't helpful as it doesn't say anything about bleeping without a red light (just beeping with a red light, which I definitely didn't have). Drainstore's website does not provide the user manual either, just the installation manual.

https://www.drainstore.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Drainstore-Alarm-New-Oct2020.pdf

So I'm just wondering if anyone has one of these and what you are meant to do when the alarm sounds. I had understood that it was an automatic system that pumps rainwater to the sewer as and when it needs to and the alarm only sounds if there is a fault. This was installed about 10 months ago, so it would be surprising if it had broken already.

 

sorry can't help but our RWH tank has an overflow which isn't pumped. so if the tank fills up gravity takes over and overflows the excess out of the tank. ours was from rainwaterharvesting.co.uk

[Thorfun]

oh...just followed your link. seems your tank is just basically a sump so doesn't have an overflow.

[Thorfun]

right. looked at the sump and it's the same as I was looking to use in our sump for the water from around our basement. so it's a simple 2 pump sump that pumps water to a ditch or something like that. as it's dual pump it should have redundancy in there so I'd say it's highly unlikely that both pumps have failed. if you lift the lid how high is the water level in there? is it just a faulty sensor on the alarm? could you use a hose to put a high level of water in there to simulate a high water alarm to make sure it's all working?

[Adsibob]

So here is a photo of the inside of the tank some 36hr after the alarm went off.

 

The two float sensors (one on each pump) are probably 30 degrees up from the horizontal/ 60 degrees shy of being in the vertical position, so I don’t think this is indicating anywhere near full for a 292 litre tank. Do others agree?

 

 One possibility I guess is that it was full 36hr or so ago, alarm came on, and since that time the pumps have drained it down. This is the pump spec, which I assume is per pump: https://www.drainstore.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Pump-Spec-NOVA-UP-300.pdf

and this suggests that it will easily clear the 292L in that time.

 

 Anyone know how this is meant to work in practice? We’ve had a lot of rain in London recently, but I can’t for a minute think how such a large task would have filled up, although it is taking water from our extension and back loft roofs i belief, so probably 30sq metres, plus our patio which is about 32 sq metres. But even if we had had 2cm of rain (which I don’t think we have had) that would only be 1.24m3. Well maybe I’ve answered my own question: that is 1240 litres, and the tank is less than a quarter of that!

 

 

[markc]

Pick a float up and see if a pump triggers, if yes then try other one for peace of mind. If nothing happens power must be off and alarm could be power loss alarm

[TonyT]

Alarm generally gives an indication of a high level set point, so check to see if it’s lots of flow, tangled float switches or something broken

 

We have ours connected to autodiallers so we get text alerts.

 

[Adsibob]

So the above issue  resolved itself in that I realised that the system was just doing what it’s meant to do. 
 

Today however, I was working in the garden and I realised that the pump had come on, which is strange because we haven’t had any rain for at least 5 or 6 days. Unscrewed the manhole cover, tank is almost empty, with no more than an inch of water in it, and it’s running. Also slightly odd is that the inch of water was warm - which means the hot water in the kitchen (SWMBO was doing the dishes) is discharging Into this. I really hadn’t appreciated that was the case. When we discussed this at design stage I had understood it was a back up for rainwater. 
Anyway, looks like one of the pump floats has jammed in the up position, as it’s higher than the other but maybe 30 degrees or so. What a waste of electricity.