Water does not care about the view. The best spot for a villa is often on the ridge, the best spot for the treatment plant is somewhere else, and the sewer connection, if there is one, is rarely where the project would like it to be. When gravity alone cannot move wastewater or drinking water where it needs to go, the answer is a pumping station.
Ingeniería de las Aguas designs, builds and rehabilitates pumping stations as part of complete water and wastewater systems: lift stations that carry wastewater to a treatment plant or sewer, and pumping systems that move drinking water from a well or tank to the people who use it.
When a project needs one
Some situations where we usually find pumping is unavoidable:
- Flat coastal land. Near beaches and estuaries the ground has little natural fall, and a long gravity sewer ends up too deep to build sensibly. A lift station brings the flow back up.
- Hillside lots and terraced developments. Common in the Central Pacific and the Southern Zone, and in the Central Valley around Atenas, Grecia, Escazú and Santa Ana. Units below the plant or the drain field need to be pumped up.
- Connection to a public sewer that sits higher than the property, or far away.
- Developments built in stages, where the first phase must reach a plant that was placed for the final layout.
- Drinking water supply from a well or storage tank to houses, rooms or common areas, with enough pressure at the farthest and highest point.
- Treated water reuse, for example pumping treated effluent to irrigation, where the regulations allow it.
What makes a station reliable
A pumping station is a small facility that works every day, in the rain, often unattended. The difference between a station that runs quietly for years and one that floods a garden at two in the morning lies in a few design choices:
- Correct flows. The pumps are selected for the real average and peak flows, not only the average. A hotel at full occupancy at Christmas is a different load from the same hotel in September.
- Redundancy. Critical stations should not depend on a single pump. With two units, one can run while the other is serviced.
- A properly sized wet well. It controls how often the pumps start and gives time to react if something fails.
- Screening and grease control upstream. Wipes, rags and kitchen grease are the most common reasons wastewater pumps jam. A grease trap at the kitchen and a screen ahead of the pumps save many service calls.
- Alarms. A high-level alarm that someone actually receives, with a clear procedure for who responds.
- Backup power. Power cuts happen, especially in storms. For treatment systems that depend on equipment used every day, Decree 39887-S-MINAE, the regulation for approving wastewater treatment systems, asks for emergency power supply. For a lift station, it is what keeps wastewater in the pipes during an outage.
- Safe access. Room for a truck, a way to lift the pumps out without entering the well, ventilation, lighting and a fence. Maintenance that is hard to do does not get done.
- Odor control. Retention times and ventilation that avoid complaints from neighbors and guests.
An overflow from a wastewater station is not just unpleasant. Costa Rica's General Health Law (Law 5395) makes the safe disposal of wastewater the owner's duty, and spills can lead to complaints and health orders from the Ministry of Health. When the station feeds a treatment plant, sudden surges can also upset the plant and show up in the lab results that the Wastewater Discharge and Reuse Regulation, Decree 33601-MINAE-S, requires.
What we do
Design
We start with the layout and levels of the project, the expected flows and where the water must arrive. We define whether pumping is really needed, or whether a different route or plant location would allow gravity flow, which is always simpler to operate. When a station is needed, we size the wet well, pumps, force main and controls, and we include it in the plans that the Ministry of Health and the municipality review. More on our design page.
Construction
We build stations as part of a complete system, together with the treatment plant, the sewer network or the drinking water system, so that levels, flows and controls fit together from the start. We also work on public infrastructure projects; see public works.
Rehabilitation
Older stations at condos and hotels often show the same symptoms: pumps that trip, alarms that do not work or were disconnected, a wet well full of grease, controls that nobody understands anymore, or a station that was never sized for the project's growth. We inspect the station, check the real flows, and propose a sequence of fixes, from replacing controls and adding alarms to a complete rebuild.
Where we work
We serve Western Alajuela, the Greater Metropolitan Area, Guanacaste, Puntarenas (Central Pacific and Southern Zone) and Limón. See areas we serve.
Talk to us
If you are planning a project on difficult terrain, or you have a station that keeps failing, send us a message on WhatsApp with the location, a site plan or a few photos, and a short description of the problem. You can also reach us through our contact page.