sump pump analysis of provo city center temple

Running Head: SUMP PUMP ANALYSIS 1

Sump Pump Analysis of the Provo City Center Temple

Michael Trauntvein

Brigham Young University

SUMP PUMP ANALYSIS 2

Table of Contents

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3

Issue to be Resolved........................................................................................................................ 4

Scope of Project .............................................................................................................................. 5

Methodology ................................................................................................................................... 5

Research ...................................................................................................................................... 5

Things to Look For ...................................................................................................................... 6

Excel Spreadsheet ....................................................................................................................... 7

Findings........................................................................................................................................... 9

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 12

References ..................................................................................................................................... 14


Sump Pump Analysis of the Provo City Center Temple

Introduction

I carried out my internship as a member of the Provo City Center Temple facilities

engineering team for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The Provo

City Center Temple is a building of 85,084 square feet, and it serves as a center of worship for

29 LDS stakes (upwards of 80,000 members) in the areas of Provo and Springville, Utah

(ldschurchtemples.com). My internship began April 28, 2016 and will continue to October 28,

2016. My duties as an intern include 1) learning about mechanical systems and facilities

management from the other facilities engineers, 2) contributing to the service and management

of the building, and 3) planning and carrying out special projects assigned to me by the Temple

Engineer.

The members of the facilities engineering teams that operate within LDS temples seek to

“[provide] an environment where patrons may have a positive and uplifting experience each time

they come to the temple [and maintain] temples at standards established by the First Presidency”

of the Church (Assistant Building Engineer, 2016). To accomplish this goal, Temple Engineers

develop maintenance plans for all of the facility’s main systems, which are designed to keep the

facility running at optimal conditions for the safety, security, and comfort of its patrons. As the

Provo City Center Temple is still in its first year of operation, much of the maintenance being

done on the building is preventative, though occasionally corrective maintenance is required.

Ensuring that the hot/cold water and air systems are functioning properly is one of the

engineering team’s highest priorities. Outside of these systems, we also maintain the building’s

electrical and audiovisual networks, baptismal font, outdoor fountain, and sump pumps. The

development of a maintenance plan for the sump pumps, in particular, became the focus of my

main project this summer.


Issue to be Resolved

The Provo City Center Temple is a marvel of engineering. Due to the limited size of the

above-ground portion of the temple, the designers had to expand some of its facilities downward

in order for them to fit. With the majority of its square footage located 20 to 40 feet

underground, and with Utah Lake less than 4 miles away, ground water became a major concern

during the building’s construction. The temple’s underground facilities were given a waterproof

envelope to prevent groundwater infiltration. Then, to further protect against groundwater, an

array of 15 sump pits and 3 sewage ejection pits (each equipped with two individual pump units)

was installed in the foundation. Each of these pumps covers an area of the foundation in

collecting groundwater and/or sewage and pumping it away from the building. Most of this

wastewater is ejected into the city sewer.

If any of these sump pumps were to fail or go out of commission, the result could be

disastrous for the building. Flooding, foundation cracks, and the development of mold and

mildew are all potential side effects of a failed sump pump and can cost thousands of dollars to

repair. Bearing this hazard in mind, the LDS Church’s temple department has a high interest in

the operation patterns and condition of the various pumps, which is where I came in. I started

my internship at a convenient time – one month after the temple’s dedication and opening to the

public, and just under one year after the sump pumps had been installed. The temple had

recently been having trouble with a couple pumps that were beginning to fail; therefore, the

temple department asked that the entire array be checked and a report be made outlining each of

the 38 pumps’ activity over the period of several months. This task was handed to me by the

head engineer.


Scope of Project

My assignment was to be carried out over the course of my six-month internship, and

would be instrumental to the temple department’s analysis of the sump pump array’s efficiency.

In carrying out my assignment I should accomplish the following criteria:

Perform an analysis at least once per week, or more as the situation warrants

Count the number of hours logged by each pump at its individual station

Create an Excel file in which to log the hours of each pump from the beginning to the end of

the project

Determine the increase in hours by each pump from one reading to the next and log the result

in the Excel worksheet

Turn in a copy of the updated Excel file to the head engineer at the end of each analysis

Any considerations other than the accomplishment of the above criteria, such as the design of the

spreadsheet and when to carry out the analyses, were left up to my discretion. If I had any

questions regarding the project, I could refer to my supervisor.

Methodology

Research

Before beginning the project in earnest, I had to conduct research on the following items:

What exactly does a sump pump do and how does it work?

Where are the sump pumps located in the building?

What is considered “normal” for each sump pump in terms of runtime?

To answer the question of what a sump pump is and how it works, I turned to the IMC

(International Mechanical Code). Chapter 2 of the 2015 IPC defines a sump as “a tank or pit that

receives sewage or liquid waste, located below the normal grade of the gravity system and that


must be emptied by mechanical means.” The mechanical means by which the pit is emptied is a

sump pump, which is defined in the same chapter as “an automatic water pump powered by an

electric motor for the removal of drainage, except raw sewage, from a sump, pit, or low point.”

In other words, the sump pumps are supposed to work automatically to drain waste water from

where it is collected in the sump. The 2015 IPC also lists sumps and sump pumps as appropriate

means of handling both sanitary and storm drainage in chapters 7 and 11, respectively.

To find out where the sump pumps are located within the temple, I turned to the building

plans. With the help of my supervisor I was able to acquire a copy of the building’s foundation

plan on which the sump pump locations were highlighted in red. He then took me to the location

of each sump pump station. Each station consisted of a box on the wall which detailed the

number of hours each pump had run and whether it was currently running any alarms. He

showed me that each box was connected to a set of pumps which was located under a nearby

grate in the floor. My supervisor also explained that because of the building envelope and other

drainage systems, the majority of the sump pumps are not supposed to run often or at all.

However, the three sewage ejection pumps are supposed to run up to a few hours a day,

depending on temple attendance. These larger pumps are meant to handle wastewater as it

leaves the building. In addition, all of the sump pumps are theoretically subject to operation in

the event of high water levels or a heavy rainstorm.

With preliminary research completed, I could begin to design a spreadsheet that would

make a functional report that could be passed on to the temple department.

Things to Look For

In designing the report, I had to consider which items of interest were most important to

pass on to the temple department. Each sump pump’s cumulative runtime was the temple


department’s major concern; but in order to find and rectify any issues, more in-depth analysis

would have to be done. Other items I would have to look for during the analysis included any

alarms that might be going off (indicating that the automated system has detected a problem) and

the overall physical condition of the pumps. These items would also be included in the weekly

report so the Temple Engineer, working in conjunction with the temple department, could enact

the warranty to get them repaired or replaced.

In addition to the above items, I also looked for trends in how often the sump pumps ran.

Based on the number of hours a sump pump ran each week I could determine how much it ran on

average, such that I could easily tell whether it was running more or less than average each week.

If a sump pump ran more or less than average, it could mean that there was something wrong

with the pump; therefore, I included the statistic as an item of measurement.

Excel Spreadsheet

After determining which statistics the weekly report would include, I began working on

the Excel spreadsheet that would convey the requested information to the Temple Engineer.

This proved to be the most difficult and time-consuming part of the project, as the spreadsheet

required the use of several complex functions to determine the running average of hours for each

pump, and conditional formatting for outlying numbers.

The finalized form of the spreadsheet consists of one main page (Fig. 1 on next page)

depicting a summary of the location and runtime of each sump pump (labeled SMP) and sewage

ejection pump (labeled SEP), with conditional formatting to alert the viewer to any values that lie

outside the norm. By clicking the name of each unit, the viewer is brought to another page

containing detailed information about that specific unit (Fig. 2 on next page). Each detail sheet

(there are 18 in total) contains information on every time the sump pump was checked, how


many running hours it had at the time, the increase in hours from the last check, and the average

and actual rates of increase for each unit.

Fig. 1 Summary Sheet

Fig. 2 Sewage Ejection Pump 1 Detail Sheet

In order to create the necessary functions to find the actual rate at which the sump pumps

were running, I looked online at forum posts and tutorials from other professionals who were

working on similar projects. Some of the forums I browsed include Microsoft Support, Tech

Republic, Excel Tips, and Exceljet. After reading up on the forums, I used their advice and


example functions to construct a set of functions that would work for this particular spreadsheet.

An example of the finalized Actual Rate of Increase function can be seen below.

Fig. 3 Actual Rate of Increase Function

Additionally, I used a modified form of the same function on the Summary Sheet to highlight

abnormal values, alerting the viewer to potential issues. Any value outside the precalculated

normal range for each pump would appear with red text and a yellow background.

Fig. 4 Conditional Formatting Function

Findings

Results began to return almost immediately upon implementation of the Sump Pump

Analysis on May 10, 2016. By June 15, we had found that a total of 7 out of the 38 sump pumps

and sewage ejection pumps were returning abnormal readings, the details of which are listed

below.

SMP-18-1 – On May 14, just four days into the project, this pump, located just inside the

west foundation wall, returned an 84-hour increase since the last reading at the start of the

project, averaging to about 21 hours per day. This was a pump that normally should not run

at all. Upon closer inspection, the sump pit did have water in it. In talking with the Temple

Engineer, we recalled that it had rained heavily a few days earlier, so we reset the unit and


monitored it over the next few days. On May 20, the pump had only run for another 24

hours, and by May 24, it was no longer running at all. The unit has not run since that time,

nor has it rained heavily again; therefore, we attribute the anomaly to the heavy rain.

SMP-17-2 – Between the dates of May 24 and May 27, this pump ran for 45 hours (or about

15 hours per day). Because of the earlier anomaly with SMP-18-1, we decided to monitor

this pump for a few days to see if the issue would resolve itself. However, by June 1, five

days later, the pump had run another 120 hours (or 24 hours per day). Upon inspection, we

found the pit empty and the unit stuck in the “on” position. When we reset the unit, it

remained in the “on” position, although the pit was empty of water. The Temple Engineer

declared the unit broken and ordered a new one. The new unit was installed the following

day, and has not run since.

SEP2-2 – On May 24, the primary sewage ejection pump for the main building began

reporting a seal-leak on its second unit. We were lucky to have been carrying out the Sump

Pump Analysis because the alarm never came through on the automated Building

Maintenance System, and we likely would not have caught it so soon otherwise. The Temple

Engineer immediately ordered a new unit, which was replaced on June 6 when the temple

was shut down for the day. To date, pump 2 remains in lag position, but it appears to be

functioning properly.

SMP 15-1&2 – Starting on June 13, we began to receive “high water level” alarms on these

pumps multiple times a week (see Fig. 5 on next page). As it turns out, there was nothing

wrong with these pumps; rather the problem was the cooling tower, which was located in the

same room. The cooling tower had a defective flow restrictor valve, which caused it to

periodically overfill with water and drain for hour after hour into the nearby sump pump. We


were already aware of the issue, but did not realize the magnitude until we started seeing the

readings on the sump pumps, which had been running multiple hours per day. By July 9, we

were able to get a replacement valve for the cooling tower, which resolved the problem, and

the sump pumps have not run since.

Fig. 5 SMP-15 Cooling Tower Detail Sheet

SMP 14-1&2 – SMP-14, located just northwest of the main building, is the main sump unit,

which collects groundwater from the entire north side of the temple and dumps it into the city

sewer. As a result, it is designed to run quite often. Incidentally, it is also the unit with

which we have had the most trouble. From the start of the project on May 10, until June 15,

pump 1 ran almost 24 hours per day. As its runtime had never been measured before, we all

assumed that, because of the groundwater seepage, it was normal for this unit to run so often.

However, on June 15 we opened the sump pit and found it completely dry. The pump had

been stuck in the “on” position the whole time. We immediately reset the unit, and it began

working normally. At about the same time, pump 1 reached a preset number of hours and

automatically switched to the lag position, with pump 2 in the lead position. By June 24,


however, pump 2 had not been running. When we opened the pit again, we found that the

float on the pump had broken, such that it could not run automatically. We therefore, had to

run it by hand for an hour or so per day until the replacement unit was able to be installed on

July 14. Pump 2 is still in the lead position, and will be until it runs for another 600 hours or

so. Pump 1 is still providing problems, but as it is currently in lag and pump 2 has been

recently repaired, the issue is not as urgent as before.

Conclusion

Based on the above findings, I conclude that the Sump Pump Analysis should be an

ongoing project at the Provo City Center Temple in order to attain maximum efficiency of the

sump pump array. In the three short months that this program has been in place, defects and

issues have been found and rectified in nearly 20% of the building’s pumps. The analysis is a

simple program that, when carried out just once each week, will do much to improve and sustain

the quality of temple facilities over the long term. In addition to improving the quality of the

facility, this program will also create a healthier, safer environment for patrons, volunteers, and

employees alike by reducing the risk of flooding, water damage, and harmful mold and mildew.

By checking the sump pumps weekly, the temple will also save on energy and equipment costs

should any pumps be stuck in the “on” position and need to be reset, as we found during the

course of the project.

Furthermore, the Building Maintenance System (BMS), while an effective, automated

tool that streamlines the process of facilities management and altogether lessens the workload for

facilities managers, is not a perfect tool. We found multiple times during this project that the

BMS failed to alert us to potential hazards with SMP-14, SMP-17, and SEP2. It is useful for

monitoring complex hot water, chilled water, and air conditioning systems, to name a few; but


ironically less useful for monitoring more simple systems such as waste water removal and the

baptismal font, which is why we perform in-person analyses of the font daily. The same should

also go for the sump pump array.

The goal of facilities management is to create an optimal environment in which people

and facilities operate in harmony, safety, comfort, security, and sustainability. The Provo City

Center Temple is already well on its way to achieving that goal; but in order to continue, must

consider implementing a program to monitor and maintain its sump pump array, similar to the

project described in this report.


References

Bruns, Dave. (2016). Get Value of Last Non-empty Cell. Retrieved July 2016, from

https://exceljet.net/formula/get-value-of-last-non-empty-cell

Chapter 2 Definitions. (2015). In 2015 International Plumbing Code. Retrieved June 2016, from

http://codes.iccsafe.org/app/book/content/2015-I-

Codes/2015%20IPC%20HTML/Chapter%202.html

Chapter 7 Sanitary Drainage. (2015). In 2015 International Plumbing Code. Retrieved June

2016, from http://codes.iccsafe.org/app/book/content/2015-I-


Chapter 11 Storm Drainage. (2015). In 2015 International Plumbing Code. Retrieved June 2016,

from http://codes.iccsafe.org/app/book/content/2015-I-


Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The. (2016). Assistant Building Engineer [Job

description]. Print.

Harkins, Susan. (2008, August 6). Return the Last Item in an Excel Column. Retrieved July

2016, from http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/microsoft-office/return-the-last-item-in-

an-excel-column/

Satterfield, Rick. (2016, July). Provo City Center Temple. Retrieved July 25, 2016, from

http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/provocitycenter/

Using OFFSET, MATCH, and MAX to Return Last Value in Range. (2015, December 4).

Retrieved July 2016, from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/152407

Wyatt, Allen. (2014, November 1). Retrieving the Last Value in a Column. Retrieved July 2016,

from http://excel.tips.net/T002512_Retrieving_the_Last_Value_in_a_Column.html

sump pump analysis of provo city center temple

Documents