Commercial No-Water Emergency Troubleshooting

No-water emergencies in the commercial industry are simply a fact of operating business. Finding a water treatment company that specializes in troubleshooting these kinds of disruptive situations can save your business hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. At Secondwind Water systems our team of Certified Water Specialists and Technicians are experts at solving the mysteries of pretty much any no-water emergency.

Multiple Root Causes

In any no-water situation, our team will need to sift through a number of possible causes for the problem.  It is rare that there is a straightforward or obvious cause. That’s where experience and expertise come into play.

A Recent No-Water Emergency Example

Over the course of two weeks, one of our hotel customers experienced a curious, repetitive no-water problem that interfered with their guest experience.

The Problem: 

Every day, for about 2-weeks, the customer has no water for approximately 20 minutes every day. This occurs at random times, including 2 in the morning. The problem doesn’t seem to be dependent on water demand. The only way the hotel knows if this is occurring is if a guest complains, so it could be happening more often. The customer doesn’t do a thing to make the water come back on – it just does. Mysterious!

The Equipment:

• 4-tank softener with one primary control valve and one meter.
• The meter functions to put the tanks online as water demand requires.
• 3 booster pumps after atmospheric storage tanks, which are storage tanks designed to operate at any pressure between ambient pressure and 0.5 psig.
• Our Secondwind Water treatment system is located after the boosters.

The Evaluation:

When we arrive to troubleshoot this no-water emergency, one of the 4 softener tanks has a hole in it and is offline. Two of the booster pumps are also offline. The hotel is going through renovations and does not have full occupancy.

The Questions:

Like any good detective work, troubleshooting a no-water emergency is really a process of critical inquiry and smart questions. Here are the questions our Commercial and Public Water Systems Manager, Steve Guercia, asked in this situation to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Q: Could the booster pump be turning off due to high heat and then come back on after it cools?

A: Maybe, but that seems very unlikely to happen at 2 AM.

Q: One of the 4 softener tanks is offline. When one tank regenerates, only 2 tanks are online. Could the building’s demand exceed the capacity of 2 softeners online while the third is backwashing and using water?

A: Maybe, but that seems very unlikely to happen at 2 AM.

Q: Each softener tank has a motorized ball valve on the outlet side that closes during the entire regen cycle. This makes sure that untreated water does not get into the treated water stream.

Could one of the valves stick closed when another softener goes into a regen?

A: This is very possible as this water is very hard and has a lot of iron.

Further No-Water Emergency Troubleshooting Process

We asked the manager to go to the system the next time there was no water to see exactly what was happening.

• Which softener was regenerating?
• Which cycle was it in?
• How many valves were closed?

When Steve showed the facility manager how to initiate a regen and how to tell if a valve was open or closed, he leaned against softener #1 and discovered that the tank was warm. He checked the other tanks that were online, and they were cold. He checked the tank and all of its connections and discovered that the ball valve on the outlet of tank #1 was stuck closed.

Ah-ha! No water was going through tank #1.

This meant that only two tanks were online.

When the system regenerates, only one tank is online.

This means that there isn’t enough water to supply the hotel.

But it should cause the building to have no water at all.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

The facility manager pointed out that this is a staged softener. Here’s how that works:

1. Tank #1 is in service.
2. As the meter registers more flow, it puts tank #2 online. Then #3, and if needed, tank #4.

But the motorized ball valve for tank #1 was closed. So, when the controller had only tank #1 online, it wasn’t actually online.

Mystery Solved:

If tank #1 isn’t online, there would be no water available to the building until the demand caused the controller to put tank #2 into service.

Temporary Solution

Steve energized and de-energized the motorized ball vale by unplugging it from the control valve and plugging it back in. It sounded stuck. He repeated this for about 5 minutes and it moved a lot. The tank started to cool.
Steve restored flow through tank #1 and thus solved the immediate no-water emergency.

Longer Term Solution

Now that we’ve discovered and remedied the immediate problem, we’re now working with our customer to devise a long-term solution so that they don’t have to go through the process of energizing and de-energizing the motorized control valve over and over again.

This requires another whole troubleshooting process. Could it be the high iron? Is it a mechanical function?

Stay tuned to find out what we discover and how we fix this problem.  Just another day in the life of a Commercial Water Treatment company.