January 26, 2013
There are a handful of things that are best done in the middle of the night and replacing a hotel booster pump system is one of them.
At least that’s what the managers of a 256 room hotel in Morristown, N.J. decided when Pump Express Service staff arrived to replace a booster pump system last fall and discovered that none of the isolation valves in place to cut water flow to the pumps were working. Replacing the valves and the hotel’s 15-year-old booster pump system would require cutting off the hotel’s main water supply and draining the entire 10-floor building – a procedure that was ruled out because it meant closing the hotel and it’s three restaurants for the duration of the job.
Line freezing was one alternative option. Pump Express Service staff could assemble a chamber around the pipe and then run liquid nitrogen into it until the pipe turned to a block of ice. This time-consuming process would eliminate the need to drain the system but would interrupt water flow throughout the building. Ultimately, this too was nixed. Continue reading
