Why do I always have to be the first person to do something?

I'm on site yesterday, attempting to commission the membrane treatment units. We'd been messing around with units A and B for a couple days. The bugs appeared to be tuned out of the process, and efforts were turned towards making unit C operational.

The first step in accomplishing the commissioning of a membrane unit is to fill it with water. There is a lot of piping, and feed space in the membranes themselves. It takes awhile to fill the unit up but its necessary because you can't hammer a dry system with 90 psi water. THAT=not good

So we're trickling water into the unit with a butterfly valve that's open about 10%. My technician is giving the system some casual interest as he does other things. It takes a decent length of time to fill a unit, so he was doing other things at the same time.

The unit reaches about half full when it is noticed that there is drip coming from the booster pump disconnect switch. (for those of you that don't know what that is, its a rugged electrical switch that controls the feed of electricity to an electrical device) That shouldn't be. We'd had an accident earlier that sprayed water all over the plant. So it wasn't given a whole lot of importance. Tim had a few spare moments so he investigated where this water was coming from.

He opened the disconnect box, and there was a small pool of water that had formed inside. That really shouldn't be, because the whole point of the box is to protect the electrical circuit from being disrupted, shorted, engaged/disengaged by accident, etc. Further investigation found that the water was originating from inside the box. Even more examination brought us to the realization that the water was entering the box from inside of the wires, that connected the pump motor, to the disconnect switch.

I phoned our pump supplier. The initial response was incredulity. That's not supposed to happen. The wires run from the pump motor, inside the submersion cannister, to the disconnect switch. It is supposed to be completely sealed, and impervious to penetration. As this is a submersible pump, and the entire unit, motor and all, will be completely encased by water, it is vitally important that water not be able to get into the electrical line. But it had, and the pressure of the water was sufficient to push it between the strands that make up the elctrical cable, to terminate in a pool inside my disconnect box.

Lots of incredulity, from lots of people. Which is fine but I'm wetting my pants because I'm using two other of these pumps already. And the indication I'm getting from the electricians on site is, this water in the cable situation is very, very bad. So I'm quite freaked out. Then the pump supplier phones back and tells me that they have no idea of what to do next. This has never happened before.

Which brings me back to my initial statement. I hate being first. If you're the first person with a problem, it always takes a long time to fix, because a bunch of things need to be checked, before you do anything that will work. And I'd rather not commit to a long, drawn out process.

So all of you pump/electrical people, please email me with your solutions to my problem. I have padlocked that disconnect switch so that no one can operate that pump without my supervision. Beyond that I am left with no choice beyond being highly nervous about my pumps. Stress relief suggestions would also be worth recieving.

I hope all of you are having better days that mine yesterday. I am back for awhile, so hopefully I can amuse you with my writings.

Toodles people!