Golf course pump station spring start-up checklist

• Walk the pump house. Look for mouse nests, chewed wire, water on the floor and anything left open or drained in the fall. Close the drains and put the plugs back. If you find chewed wire, or water in or under the panel, stop here and call your electrician.

• Look into the wet well from the top. Is the water where it should be? Is the intake screen clear of weeds and silt?

  Pond or wet well level

• Check the valves. Pump isolation valves open. The shut-off valve on the pressure sensor line open. The inlet valve at the relief valve open. Leave the small valves on the relief valve's pilot piping alone. Some are shut-offs and some are settings. If anything on the relief valve was closed or drained in the fall, have your pump tech put it back before a pump runs.

• Station discharge valve. Write down whether it is open or shut. Your station's manual or your pump tech will tell you where it belongs for filling.

• Look at each motor. Oil in the sight glass, if it has one. Vents clear. Nothing stored on top. Shaft and coupling guards back on.

• Look at the outside of the panel. Doors shut tight and every latch done up. Cooling unit filter clean. Vents not blocked.

• Turn every Hand-Off-Auto switch to Off.

• If the power was off for the winter, turn on the main disconnect. Stand to one side of the door when you throw it, not in front of it. If it trips, bangs or smells hot, turn it off and call your electrician. Do not try it a second time. Write down every alarm on the screen before you press reset.

  Alarms

• Check the date and time on the controller. If it is wrong after the winter, the battery in an older PLC is probably dead. Tell your electrician.

• Check the settings against last year's sheet. An older controller with a dead battery can go back to its factory settings.

  Pressure setpoint PSI Low pressure alarm PSI High pressure alarm PSI Low pond level

• Read the pressure with everything off. If the pipe is drained, the screen and the gauge should both read zero. If the screen shows a number that never moves, the sensor may have frozen over the winter.

  Screen PSI Gauge PSI

• Read the flow with everything off. It should be zero or close to it.

  Flow GPM

• Compare the pond level on the screen with what you saw in the wet well.

• Look at the drive keypad, if you can see it with the doors shut. Write down any fault it shows. Do not change any settings.

  Drive fault

• Is the panel's cooling unit running when it should be?

• Before you start filling, open quick couplers or heads at the far ends and the high points so the air has a way out. Close each one when it runs solid water. Do not stand over a coupler or a valve box while the pipe is filling.

• Fill slowly. Use the station's fill or refill mode if it has one. If it does not, use the small pressure maintenance pump. If it has neither, call us before you start. Do not start a big pump at full speed into an empty main.

• Stay at the station the whole time the pipe is filling. If you are filling with a pump in Hand, turn it off when the far ends run solid water and the gauge starts to climb.

• If your panel has a switch that turns off the high flow and low pressure alarms for filling, turn it back to Enable when the pipe is full. Left on Disable, the station will not shut down for a mainline break.

• With the pipe full and all pumps off, watch the pressure for 15 minutes.

  Start PSI After 15 minutes PSI

Open the heads first, then run one pump at a time in Hand. Check the wet well level before each start. On some stations Hand goes around the automatic shutdowns, so the pump will not stop itself for low water or high pressure. Stay at the station while a pump is in Hand and watch the gauge. If the pressure climbs well past your setpoint, turn the pump off and call. If a pump trips, will not start or sounds wrong, turn its switch to Off and leave it there. Do not reset it and try again.

• When each pump stops, the check valve should close without a bang and the pump should not spin backward.

• If the pumps have packing, a steady drip is right. A stream is too much. Bone dry is worse. Do not tighten it yourself. Tell your pump tech.

• Flush the strainer. If it has an automatic blowdown valve, run it once by hand and watch it open and close.

• Put every switch back to Auto. Open enough heads to bring on a main pump. Does it hold the setpoint? If the screen and the gauge are more than a few PSI apart, one of them is wrong.

  Setpoint PSI Screen PSI Gauge PSI

• Open more heads until the next pump comes on. Then close them. The pumps should drop off one at a time and the station should go quiet on its own.

• If the station has a relief valve, look up in the station's manual what pressure it should open at. Ask your pump tech or us to test it with you.

  Relief valve opens at PSI

• Test the alarm light, if your panel has a lamp test.

• Find out how the station knows the pond is too low. It is usually a float, a probe or a level sensor. On some stations it is a pressure switch on each pump. Write down what it is and where it is. If you cannot find one, tell your electrician. Testing it is in part 6.

  Low level shutdown

• If the station texts or calls someone when it alarms, find out whose phone it rings. Make sure the numbers are still right.

  Alarms go to

• Check the flow limit in your irrigation software. It should match what the station can deliver today. If a pump is out, lower it.

  Flow limit in the central GPM

• Before you leave on the first night, write down the PM pump hours or starts. Write them down again in the morning.

  Evening Morning

• A week later, do the same on a night with no watering. That is your leak number. If it climbs through the season you have a leak in the pipe or a check valve that is not sealing. If the station has a pressure tank and the small pump starts every few seconds, the tank may have lost its air charge.

  Overnight with no watering

• Insulation test on each motor, with the motor leads off the drive. Record the readings.

• Check every power connection for tightness and for signs of heat.

• Contactors and overloads. Contacts not burned. Overload settings match the motor nameplates.

• Drive. Read the fault history and save a copy of the settings. Clean the fans, heatsink and filters with the power locked out.

• PLC. Check the battery. Make sure a copy of the program exists somewhere other than inside the PLC.

• Pressure sensor against a test gauge. Level sensor against a tape measure.

• Phase monitor and surge protection.

• Incoming voltage on all three phases. Running amps on all three legs of each motor, against the nameplate. Record them.

• Trip every shutdown one at a time: low level, low pressure, high pressure, motor overload, drive fault. Do it at the sensor or the setting, not by running the well low or the pressure high. If the station calls out, see that the right phone rings.

• Panel heater, thermostat and cooling unit.