Water transfer applications in many industries across Africa must often deal with unpredictable water quality, so it is important to specify a pump built for African conditions - tough, reliable and robust.

According to Henru Strydom, Sykes product specialist at Integrated Pump Rentals, the hardened stainless steel internal components on its range of Sykes auto-prime pumps is a key factor in ensuring their high performance and low maintenance needs.

Strydom points to the tough 316 stainless steel impeller and wear plate construction in the pump range from Sykes, making it suitable for harsh construction, mining and sewage by-pass environments with high water flow and long pipe runs.

“These pumps are at home transferring anything from clean water to slimes, sewage, sludge and liquids laden with solids,” he says. “In addition to the robust design of the internals, the priming design is also very user-friendly; our contractor pumps feature fully automatic priming and can run dry for extended periods without damage.”

This is achieved by an innovative oil bath mechanical seal assembly that allows priming with long suction hoses and suction lifts of up to nine metres.

“As fluid levels fluctuate, the pump will ‘snore’ until there is enough liquid for it to fully re‑prime itself automatically,” he says. “This means that they can be run mainly operator‑free, as the diesel powered units come standard with a minimum of 27 hours of fuel supply – much longer than the usual refill intervals of about 12 hours.”

Options are also available on standard models for full plug-and-play automation, in applications where automatic stop and start functions are required to regulate water levels.

Efficiency is also a strong point for Sykes, with an average efficiency across the range of about 78%, while handling larger solids than most other auto-priming units on the market, he says, highlighting the higher shaft stiffness ratios due to an over-designed shaft and bearing housing.

“The construction sector will find the rental units on trailers particularly versatile and easy to operate, especially as Integrated Pump Rental can provide all the pipework for quick and easy set‑up as well as lay-flats, couplings and adaptors,” says Strydom. “Where a specific application needs a solution to be designed and managed, we also conduct project work to the customer’s specifications.”

These pumps can be coupled to either diesel engines or electric motors. As the agents for Sykes for the past three years, the company also conducts in-house builds of electrically driven pumps in permanent installations with variable speed drives for lower energy consumption. Its generous stockholdings of wet ends shorten the lead-times on these builds by up to four weeks.