The Water Doctors

08/12/2024

Maintaining one of our treatment to storage systems that service 3 cottages.

It treats hardness. Manganese, ferrous iron, Arsenic, Uranium and pH.

The treated water goes to storage and we use a high efficiency variable frequency drive pump system that provides a constant 70 psi city water pressure to the cottages no matter how many faucets, showers, etc. are being used.

08/11/2024

I was out serving a desalination system on Isle a Haut lighthouse to correct whatever was causing it to not operate.

The common theme was seawater supply pump failures, several installed by others had failed to produce pressure and eventually burned up the motors on the pumps.

My Audit found the suction piping adequate, discharge to the desalination high pressure pump adequate but not enough pressure and flow to keep the High pressure pump online.

I brought a new seawater supply pump with me and found several failed pumps on a rack at the pier head shed.

Tried using the existing pump and could not develop enough pressure and flow. The voltage was correct amperage was not where it should be and motor was way too hot.

I extracted the old pump installed the new one and checked the connections and power supply voltage and amperage.

Restarted the system and tuned the production, everything works as designed. The lighthouse keeper was surprised that we got the needed pressure and flow that they could not.

While running I torn down the old pump and motor, the windings and power connection were scorched in places. The inlet power supply switch was set at 115V not 230V a big problem. Every pump on the rack was set the same. No one checked this.

The photo shows you where to look and how easy it is to change.

08/01/2024

Working in one of our Condominium desalination systems that was nearly taken out by the previous storms that tried to cut the island in half.
The Digital PLC controls with redundant analog pressure and flow monitors support operations. The alternating PLc pump drivers keep the pump systems exercised and support each other if a pump goes off line as it did earlier. Back to making over a 100 gallons per hour during production cycles. We were lucky it wasn’t far worse.

07/26/2024

Searching for answers on why the well water treatment is not working like it used to and the water quality is getting significantly worse.

Our investigation found the backwash discharge right behind the garage was 28 inches down onto ledge that was 30 feet from the well and the ledge sloped to the well. The backwash choking into the well introducing all the metals the system ( by others) into the well, the well pump pumped it back to the system in a recirculating loop until the water treatment failed.

The photos show the bore hole and well line in one and the backwash entry point into the well in the other ( huge orange blob on the right side)

07/03/2024

Desalination rebuild after severe weather earlier in the year

07/03/2024

South Bristol rebuild project. The devastating storms tore up the pier and flooded everything destroying our
Touch Screen computer control systems for the desalination system ( we make freshwater from salt water). It was an undertaking to reinvent a temporary process until we can get the process controls designed and built but I got it online and producing water.

Yes, We can make any water meet drinking water standards

The green LED screen shows the water quality at 58 ppm ( parts per million) we started at 24, 000 ppm water from the harbor.

06/30/2024

Completing a Rain Water harvesting system from the rough in to just before final trim to grade with new turf.

This is designed to supplement the well system building a 5000 gallon reserve capacity with the ability to be filled remotely.

When we have trimmed out the landscaping it will be virtually invisible.

06/29/2024

Custom build batch plant for a very large hydroponic farm, a balancing act of water use from the main greenhouse’s a 1/4 mile away to portable storage, repump to treatment and fill the 370,000 gallons needed for the boilers without interfering with Operating greenhouse demands,

06/29/2024

Doing the regular maintenance on one of our desalination systems, dual alternating wells, treatment process to prepare the water to separate the salts. The desalination system which removes the salt and dissolved solids with programmable PLC controls, storage tanks with 40 gallon per minute variable frequency drive to deliver water to the homes.

04/25/2024

In the field offshore for a couple days so,

Where’s Wilson ?

11/10/2023

Red in the morning sailors take warning, first touch of snow and sleet while working at one of our favorite places, the trip back from the island was one of the calmest rides this time of year,

10/18/2021

08/08/2021

04/22/2021

The Captain and crew off to start up one of our offshore desalination systems. That Unlimited Master Mariner license comes in handy.