Business feature: Prime Pump

Prime Pump provides sales, hire, and lease options for customers ranging from farmers and civil contractors to managers of large-scale quarries and mines

Sound attenuated pumps and compact water treatment solutions, such as the solar-powered Envirohub Lamella Plate Clarifier are hire staples for confined urban sites

For a few nights in May last year, Prime Pump was managing the flow of an entire river and the wastewater of an entire suburban valley through its temporary bypass solutions.  

Over-pumping Nelson’s Maitai River so that flood resilience works could be undertaken, and temporarily taking over the sewer lines of the Hutt Valley while an upgraded system was commissioned are at the ‘challenging end’ of Prime Pump’s projects, says national hire accounts manager, George Everest. Despite that, he still thinks of it as ‘all in a day’s work.’

George Everest, Prime Pump national hire accounts manager

Running such a large-scale project is rewarding, says George, but his hire team gets a kick out of “any improvements we can make to site productivity and safety, whatever the project size.”  

“What we do, depends on the location,” says George who’s based at Prime Pump’s Christchurch branch. “Here in the South, with large areas of gravel, we wellpoint using our own design of steel wells because nothing else can handle the ground conditions.

“Further north, the Prime Pump Wellington team is regularly challenged by confined urban sites, and in Tauranga, the sandy earth needs an entirely different approach to wellpoint and dewatering.”  

Sales-hire-lease 

Prime Pump has six branches and a network of sub-hire branches around the country. They provide sales, hire, and lease options for customers ranging from farmers and civil contractors to managers of large-scale quarries and mines.  

“Our aim is to provide a pump set or system that ticks all the boxes — reliable, efficient, low maintenance, and fuel-efficient,” says George.

“Site conditions play a big role in what we recommend because even a small change in flow rate, rpm, or say a pump’s self-priming reliability, adds up to savings in time and money.” 

Water treatment and discharge compliance

Prime Pump over-pumped the entire Maitai River for flood mitigation works in Nelson

George says that water treatment — conditioning for discharge or for re-use back on site — is a growing part of their service.

“Our on-site crew are all trained in chemical handling and its effects,” he says, “and we know to ask questions about protections, limits, and consents when we’re pricing a job.”

Again, the business model is to provide fit-for-purpose solutions. “We’ll recommend a water treatment set-up based on need. That might be settlement tanks, lamella plate clarifiers, discharge monitors, pH correction, or automatic dosing, as well as the pumps and pipework to put it all together.”  

The Envirohub Lamella Plate Clarifiers are in demand, particularly for tight urban sites.

“Our HL50 Envirohub, for example, has a 5.5sqm footprint yet has the equivalent settling surface area of a 50sqm settlement pond,” says George. “It’s solar-powered, which makes it useful on remote sites, too, and it will run 24/7.”

George says demand is also growing for hire projects for remote monitoring and intelligent dosing. “As regulations around discharge quality and site contaminants increase, civil contractors are looking for ways to better monitor their sites. Mistakes cost money and your reputation.”

Prime Pump’s focus on tailoring pump systems and water treatment solutions to the situation and the site underscores their commitment to customer satisfaction and innovation, making them a trusted leader in the industry. 

For more information, contact 0800 482 747 or info@primepump.co.nz.

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