PUMPING MACHINERY NOTES
Parkersburg, W. Va., has decided to employ Morris Knowles to make a thorough examination of the pumping station and the present waterworks system, with a view to improving the supply.
At Cincinnati, Ohio, the California pumping station cost $800,000 to build; the main pumping station on Eastern avenue, $725,000; the Western Hills station, $100,000. Four triple-expansion pumping engines at the California station for the filtration plant cost $900,000 and were built by the Camden, N. J.. Iron Works. At the main station the pumping machinery was built by the Holly Manufacturing company, at a cost of $900,000. There are three high service engines, each of 12,000,000-gal. capacity and three low-pressure service engines, each with a daily capacity of 25,000,000 gal. At the Western Hills station are installed two Snow engines, each with a capacity of 2,500,000 gal. daily.
Reports from Waterbury, Conn., say that the plans of the special water committee, in case a pumping station has to be established there, have been made known, and all preliminary details in relation to the erection of the plant have been carried out. Once the order of the board of public works to proceed with the work has been received, Superintendent Kennedy will start to pump water into the city’s mains. The station, if ordered, will be erected on the site of the old plant, near Mad river bridge on the Plank road, at Harper’s Ferry, so called. Instead of pump ing directly from the river at this point, however, it is proposed to carry the water from the dam north of the plant of the Mattatuck company by means of a chute. The dam is much higher than the station, and the water, it is expected, will flow down through the trough without the necessity of pumping. At the station will be a pump well, and the water will be pumped from the well into an 18-in. main, which runs though the Plank road and at present connects the city with the distributing reservoir at East Mountain.
At Augusta, Ga., the strong competition which developed in the letting of the contract for the new’ auxiliary steam pump to be stationed near the present pump, saved the city not less than $5,000 on the price of the pump. The contract for the pump went to the WilsonSnyder company for $10,825, and $3,388 wil 1 be paid the Lombard Iron Works for the boiler. The building for the machinery and the installation of the machines, it is estimated, will make the total cost of the pumping outfit reach from $32,000 to $35,000—a saving on the estimated cost of about $7,000. The building for the machinery will cost about $10,000, as it will be of brick, with an exceptionally heavy foundation. • The pumping engines will weigh about 300,000 lbs., which calls for a very safe foundation.
An official test has been made of the 12,000,ooo-gal. pump at Montreal, Que. The engine is a Worthington triple-expansion horizontal pump. It is a duplex pump, having two sets of three steam cylinders each, six in all, and two sets of water-cylinders. These work, side by side. This engine has a contract rated capacity of 12,000,000 Imperial gal. per twentyfour hours, or 500,000 gal. per hour, and lifts this amount of water to a height of 208 ft. into the reservoir at McTavish street. The total cost of the pump will be $60,000. The pump could fill the McTavish reservoir in two days.
Five bids have been submitted at San Francisco, Cal., for the steam turbines and pumps for the two fin-boats and the shore pumping stations which are to form important features of the auxiliary fire protection system. Tile bidders were a-, follows: the D’Olier Engineering com pany of Philadelphia; the Byron Jackson Iron Works, local; the Allis Chalmers company, Mil wankee; the General Electric company and the Westinghouse Machine company the first named being the lowest bidder and the Ryron Jackson company the next lowest. The award of the contract will be made later. The total amount asked by the D’Olier Engineering company was $192,520, the estimated cost, according to the figures prepared by the city engineer’s office, being $257,01×1. The bid was submitted upon units of apparatus to be furnished, each of these units consisting of a steam turbine engine and a pump Two units are to be provided for each of the two fireboats making four in all for the vessels, and for each of these four the lowest bidder asks $12,1×15. There are also eighteen similar units to be installed in the two land pumping stations, and for eight of these the D’Olicr company demanded $8,125, and for the remaining ten, $7,950 each. One of the pumping stations is to handle salt water and the other fresh.
