10 Money Saving Tips for Pump Control Panels
Safety, as always, be careful when working with electricity. We recommend always hiring an electrician when performing electrical work as electricity is dangerous and can kill you.
1. Write useful information on the control panel using a permanent marker. Amperage and voltage readings, model numbers, purchase and service dates, warranty expiration dates, etc.
2. Keep copies of all documents and receipts in a common location. You would be surprised how much money you can save knowing details about your system and saving an extra trip. Keeping records is almost like stashing money.
3. Most control panels these days have HOA or MOA switches. These switches in many situations allow a homeowner the ability to pump the system down and clear the pesky alarm, buying time for the service tech to come out. Often sewer problems happen after business hours and using your HOA MOA switch to pump the system down and avoid an emergency after-hours call to save some serious money.
4. If problems occur with your system, the control panel is a great place to start looking. It doesn’t require any special skills to open a control box and perform a visual inspection looking for corrosion, disconnected wires, burned up parts or wires, tripped breakers, blown fuses, and even bugs or rodents. Save money by either making the repairs yourself if you are comfortable or by providing specific information for your technician about the problems you have discovered.
5. When you open a control panel it should be clean and tidy and free from debris. If you need to clean dust, dirt, bugs, etc out of your panel it is recommended you turn off the breaker and use a shop vac with a small nozzle to do the job. Also try to identify the source of the debris and see if it can be fixed.
6. When installing pump control panels with a motor contactor or VFD, try to avoid installing on living walls. Contactors tend to make a thud when opening and closing. VFD’s tend to whine all the time. So having this installed opposite a bedroom or living room might be a nuisance for the person living there.
7. If you’re waiting for a technician and your alarm keeps going off, simply turn off the breaker and disconnect one of the two wires that power the alarm speaker. Just don’t forget to hook everything back up once repairs are made!
8. Test your alarm occasionally, just like you would a smoke detector. The alarm is in place to protect your home from sewage backing up or leaking from the top of the tank.
9. Always seal your conduit leading into the control panel. The vapor and gasses from a septic tank can cause serious corrosion. Use products like duct seal, or other approved conduit sealing means.
10. Many control panels have auxiliary alarm contacts; these contacts allow for the placement of a remote alarm. If you are concerned you may not notice your septic alarm going off, utilizing the auxiliary contacts to place an alarm somewhere you would notice it might be the solution you need.
11. Most pump control panels have the option to use separate circuits for controls and pumps, this is highly recommended as it provides much greater protection for the system owner. If using a single circuit, if the breaker is tripped, the alarm will not have power, and it may be too late to prevent damage by the time it is noticed.
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