Retirement of Founding Partner Willem Gooren

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Flovac’s global management team gathered in Greece to congratulate Mr Willem Gooren on his retirement from the business he co-founded in 2005.

Mr Gooren has been involved with vacuum technology since 1981 and established Gooren BV in Holland in 1988. Mr Gooren has designed over 200 systems and has established 15 Flovac offices throughout Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. Mr Gooren is widely considered one of the experts in vacuum technology and was a member of the European committee that developed the first vacuum sewerage standard in the world, EN 1091, the European standard that is now used throughout the Middle East and Asia as well as in Europe.

Willem will still be involved in some ongoing projects in the Middle East as there are very few people with his years of expertise that can assist in some of the more challenging projects that are found there.

We all wish Willem and his wife Rosa and family all of our best wishes and our hearfelt thanks for all of his guidance over the years.

How to identify 5,000,000 litres per year of salt water entering your sewer network at a single glance

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For many coastal communities, infiltration from stormwater and inflow from ground water (I&I) causes major problems. Not only are systems not designed to handle large extra flows, but the additional power costs and operational problems can bring a network to its knees.

St Huberts Island

The coastal community of St Huberts on the central coast of New South Wales in Australia is a beautiful town, surrounded by fantastic fishing spots and has a very high water table. As is common in these coastal communities a vacuum sewer system has been installed to handle the wastewater from the houses. The system was installed in the mid nineties and over the years there has been an increase of I&I into the system.

Vacuum systems are usually installed in high water table areas because they are less susceptible to infiltration than are gravity systems. Over time homeowners gravity pipes and even old collection pits can break and allow ground water to enter the system.

Central Coast council realised that they had a problem which left their residents vulnerable to a loss of service and hire Flovac to come up with a solution that would help locate areas within the network where stormwater was entering the network.

Flovacs monitoring system was installed and within weeks it became evident that the system was taking in water, not only during storm events, but also during high tides. Vacuum valves within the vacuum collection network operate pneumatically every time 40 litres of water enters the collection sump. In this community we would expect to see each valve operating 40-50 times per day or 2,000 litres. In the first month we noticed that one pit was activating between 200 and 500 times per day, even when it wasn’t raining. When it rained it activated even more. this represented between 10-17,000 litres of water every day.

The collection pits in most of this community were old and made out of fibreglass. Over the years there was some evidence of wear. when operators investigated this particular pit, highlighted by the monitoring system, they found that the floor of the pit was broken, allowing ground water to enter the sump. once discovered, the pit was replaced and you can see that from mid August the daily valve activations have reduced to only 10 activations per day as it was found that one of the houses connected was empty.

You can see from the video that water is entering the sump from the pit bottom and not from the incoming gravity line. As this is a high water table area, it was discovered that all of this water was salt water from the bay. each year this pit was adding at least 5 million litres of sea water to the system. A program is now in place to locate other points of infiltration.

The operators having had great success with this, also installed monitoring at a nearby town. After the first major storm, more than 20 collection pits had more than 300 activations each, a major amount of infiltration.

Without Flovacs monitoring system it would of been impossible to locate the problem

Contact Flovac to find out how we can solve your I&I problems.

First Vacuum System in the French Caribbean

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Flovac has recently commissioned the first vacuum sewer system in Grand Case in the French Caribbean. Other systems have already been installed by Flovac in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Puerto Rico and the Netherland Antilles.

Grand Case is a small tourist town on the French side of the island of Saint-Martin, with a long beach with turquoise waters. It is well known for the large number of bars and restaurants located next to the beach and along its main street.

Flat and sandy terrain with a high-water table

With such a high-water table a conventional gravity sewer would have been too difficult and expensive to install and would have required multiple pump stations. Fortunately, by installing vacuum mains, all pipework could be laid between 1.2-1.8 meters (4-6 feet) deep and above the water level.

Another advantage of installing vacuum mains is the absence of ground water infiltration into the network. This is very hard to prevent in gravity networks when the pipes are laid under the sea level. When gravity pipes take in ground water it causes problems at the treatment plant. Not just through increased flows but also through the salinity of the water.

Just as you don’t get infiltration, it is also impossible to get exfiltration. The negative pressure in the vacuum mains shows sewage cannot leak out. (shown here)

The leak tightness test is done daily throughout the pipe installation. As Grand Case is an important tourism area, it relies on fresh seafood for its restaurant area and clean beaches.

A single pump station

Only one vacuum station is required to service the entire area, even with its very busy bar and restaurant area. A stainless steel collection tank collects the sewage and a generator os provided to ensure continual power supply to the vacuum pumps and sewage pumps. The area is at risk from major storms and hurricanes and was devasted in 2017 from Hurricane Irma, so power at only a single location can keep the systems running. See more about the hurricane impact here

Please contact us for more information

Why is a Vacuum Sewer the Best Collection System for the Environment

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Gravity/Low-Pressure/Vacuum – which has the Greenest Credentials

It is very clear that septic tanks and cesspools are a disaster for the environment for a number of reasons. Leaking into waterways, poisoning fish and water birds, creating algae blooms. Affecting the overall health of the community.

The choice of a gravity sewer, low pressure sewer (grinder pump) or vacuum system is not as clear in many peoples minds. In many communities the health of the

Clean waterways are essential

community is important, but even more so, the health of the environment. Many people move to coastal communities because of their love of the natural environment. Maybe the beautiful lake, their favorite beach or special fishing spot. If the area is being affected by sewage spills or sewage smells on a regular basis, closing beaches or impacting local shellfish, how will that affect their property prices and quality of life.

Naturally, the cost of sewerage infrastructure is a critical factor, lets take that as a given, if costs are close to equal, what type of system would be best for the environment?

When clients have done carbon footprint studies in the past, the main areas they look at are in construction, materials and whole of life operational costs which include product replacements and energy use.

Construction

Gravity sewers tend to be either laid deep in the ground or have multiple pump stations. Deep sewers can mean pipes laid at 5-10 metres (15-30 feet deep trenches), we have seen deeper. In coastal areas this can mean dewatering which can impact the water table. If a contractor is dewatering the trench, that water goes somewhere else. This can impact the overall watertable which can kill off vegetation or impact the aquifer. Whole eco systems can be affected.

Both vacuum and low pressure systems tend to have shallow pipework and construction time is short. That means that equipment at site is much shorter. A project might be installed in a matter of months rather than years. A major carbon impact.

 

Construction Environmental Impact

Materials

Coastal area’s gravity sewers need either large diameter pipes or multiple pump stations. One of our earlier costal communities we used one vacuum pump station to replace 17 gravity pump stations. The amount of equipment required in 17 stations would be tremendous.

Low pressure systems it’s even worse. In a community of 1,000 houses, you would need 1,000 pumps and pump chambers. In a vacuum system you would require only 200-250 chambers. Vacuum collection pits are not filled with metal pumps and electrical components. They house vacuum valves which have a 50-year design life with minor parts changes every 10 years. The valves bodies from Flovac have a recycle stamp on them as the PP and GP can be recycled.

Whole of Life Operational Costs

Energy costs are the largest component of operational costs in sewer systems.

In cases such as the one in the section above where one vacuum pump station replaced 17 gravity stations, you can be sure that the energy costs of 17 stations were a lot more than a single vacuum station. That system looked after 1,800 houses. A low pressure pump system would require 1,800 pumps, each one requiring electricity.

Due to the low energy requirements, some vacuum systems are now being powered by solar.

The Bigger Risks

Sewerage leaking into the waterways.

In gravity sewers, you could have leaks for months before someone reports a bad smell or something nasty floating in the lake.

Low pressure sewers use a positive pressure and if there is a pipe break sewage can be squirt meters into the air and can be very hard to contain. Contamination of waterways can occur quickly.

Vacuum sewers cannot leak. They operate under a negative pressure and in some projects you will see water and vacuum sewer pipes in the same trench as you cannot get sewage leaking out of the pipe. This video shows how that is possible.

Other benefits

When we installed the vacuum system at the Eco Resort Couran Cove south of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia there were a number of reasons why a vacuum sewer was chosen – You can read about the project here. 

The environmental benefits that they looked at were:

  • Ability to handle low flush toilets thus reducing the ultimate treated water disposal problem
  • Minimal impact on the landscape during construction with shallow trenches
  • Maximum water recovery for reuse in the re-vegetation irrigation system
  • Construction route flexibility thus minimizing the damage to vegetation
  • Ability to transport grey and black water in the one small bore pipe
  • Ability to safely lay all services in the one trench with minimal spacing
  • Zero infiltration and exfiltration
  • Ability of the system to service the entire site with one centralized pump station
  • Ability of the scheme to service the Boardwalk accommodation and even the boat sullage

Flovac vacuum systems are referenced as The Green Future of Sewerage. It is easy to see why. What outcome do you want for your community, lets hope its the Green one.

My Vacuum Pumps are Due for an Upgrade – What Next ?

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When a vacuum sewer system was planned in your area, there was probably an options study done showing whole of life costs. There was an expectation that over the life of the system (100 years) there would be items that would wear out and need replacing. Just as there would be components that would needs parts replaced through normal maintenance. (Asset Life)

For the rotary vane vacuum pumps, that would mean oil and filter changes. According to the pump manuals you would expect to do a fairly extensive motor overhaul at year 5 with a possible replacement at year 15. Through good care, we have seen many vacuum pumps have their lives extended considerably. That has been especially true of liquid ring pumps.

Many of the systems built prior to 1996 used liquid ring pumps (the days when water wasn’t considered a scarce resource). Since then, there has been a mixture of mainly rotary vane pumps for larger systems with smaller systems using dry running claw pumps. There have been a few outlier pumps like oil sealed screw pumps and even some rotary lobe pumps.

The vacuum pumps in your system would have been sized based on an air to liquid calculation based on the length of vacuum mains and the volume of the mains. Operationally we always look to the amount of air it takes to move the liquid through the system. A well run fully developed system should run at about an 8 to 1, or 10 to 1 air to liquid ratio. We know that if that creeps up to 30 to 1 that there is too much air in the system, and it should be tuned. A high rate like that would suggest that the vacuum pumps would be running far more than they need to. If the ratio though was lower at about 4 to 1 or 6 to 1, we would know there was too much water relative to air. This might mean the discharge pumps are running longer than they should, relative to the vacuum pumps. This might be due to I&I (infiltration and inflow) or higher flows than expected in the catchment. (Ask us for the calculation sheet for the air to liquid ratio)

With a good air to liquid ratio, we would expect the vacuum pumps to run at about 6 to 8 hours per day, in total, in a fully developed system. If your pumps are running longer than that you should check your air to liquid ratio to see what is impacting your system.

Two of the biggest mistakes that we commonly see when utilities are looking to upgrade their pumps is

  • Increasing the size of the pumps as the current run time is excessively long
  • Changing from a oil lubricated pump (R5) to a dry pump (Mink) to reduce operational costs.

Increasing the size of your pumps

This might be a great idea if done for the right reason. Talk to your engineers. If you can increase capacity at the station maybe that will allow you to accept more flows from subdivisions, new areas, higher density (more revenue).

If though you are only increasing the size because your pumps are running a long time then you need to fix the problem first. Why are the pumps running so long? Is the system tuned correctly? Are there leaks in the valves or pipework? Oversized pumps can increase the problems in a network by creating more leaks.

Once the system is tight and you have an accurate idea of your air to liquid ratio then you can make a more informed decision.

Changing to Mink Pumps

If the change is because you are using too much oil and too many filters, then it would suggest that your pump run hours are too long and you should take the steps mentioned above.

In small systems Mink pumps and their equivalent have improved substantially but in large systems where you are changing over from R5 630 pumps or their equivalent there are a number of downsides that utilities are now discovering.

In the larger sizes the Mink pumps run a lot hotter and potentially noisier. The heat has an impact on pipe materials in the station, venting of the station, and will badly affect odour control measures.

On larger systems there is a limit to the depth of vacuum that these type of pumps will achieve and often the result is an increase in energy use and pump run hours.

Some utilities have also tried the addition of variable speed drives in their pumps as a way of increasing vacuum in the lines and decreasing line flooding. The speed is often varied due to the amount of vacuum pressure in the lines or at the end. It is rare to see this used in wet/sewer type systems and is more common in dry/food processing applications. As vacuum sewers are based on a ratio of air to liquid, the use of a VSD disguises problems in the system and can ultimately increase problems in the networks.

Upgrading of your vacuum pumps is inevitable – we can help you with finding the right solution for your system

Call our Engineering or Operations Group to organise the following as a first step.

  • System Audit To correctly size the vacuum pumps an analysis of the air to liquid ratio is needed. The system needs to be air tight to do this. If there are leaking vacuum valves, due to old age, air leaks in the pump station or elsewhere, these need to be fixed prior to any upgrade as any larger or new vacuum pumps could make these harder to find and just lead to higher energy costs and high oil use. An Audit will check the current state of your system; give you an understanding of what will be required to accomplish the outcomes you want
  • Capacity Audit What was the system designed to handle, what can it potentially handle for the next 15 years.

To read more about Upgrades Click Here

Interview with a Utility Ops Team Leader

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A recent interview with team leader David Parkinson of Byron Shire Council gives insights into their vacuum sewer system and just how installing a monitoring system can have time saving and financial benefits to councils.

The Byron Bay community on the north eastern coast of New South Wales is listed as one of the top ten destinations in Australia for tourists from around the world. Its pristine beaches and popular cafes and restaurants ensured that even through covid, domestic tourism has kept the area as busy as usual.

A vacuum system was installed in 1993 in a section of Byron Bay which encompasses light industrial, commercial and residential users. Increasingly heavy rainfalls on the coast revealed the need to pinpoint operational overload issues in the system, this could only be accomplished via the use of automation tools. Retrofitting their system with a monitoring system has given the Council operators a better overview of their systems operation, and a means to protect the mechanical health of this key community infrastructure investment.

A recent interview with Team leader Dave Parkinson of Byron Bay Council gives further insight into just how installing an electronic monitoring system can have time saving and financial benefits to councils.

  1. What has been your role at Byron Bay Council what has been your involvement in implementing the Flovac Sewerage System there and the monitoring system?

“Essentially my job as Team Leader was to oversee the install of the telemetry pillars to the 89 pits. Also overseeing the installation of antennae to receive telemetry from the pits, and also the roll-out of training and instructions on installation to staff. I deliver an overview to new staff on the system and how it works”.

  1. How long has your Flovac system and the monitoring devices been installed?

“The Flovac system commenced being installed in 1993. The monitoring system in 2020”.

  1. How does your monitoring system work?

“It’s a great system which has empowered staff to monitor the system in operation using their iPads and mobiles on a daily basis. They are able to fix and rectify faults quickly and seamlessly”.

Saving Operational Hours

  1. What, in your opinion is the main advantage of the Flovac system itself, and in particular their monitoring system?

“The main advantage is in time saving after hours. Staff can monitor the issue before leaving home and drive straight to the pinpointed problem pit or pits”.

  1. Is the monitoring device a time and cost saving system?

“Yes, it’s benefits are both; in time and cost savings for operations staff. For example, when it’s extreme weather like our recent big storm event on the East Coast of NSW you can locate the problem much quicker, lessening the time spent in poor weather/working conditions for our teams”.

  1. Would you recommend it to other councils with similar low-lying coastal terrain as you have?

“Absolutely if you’re going to install this type of system, we would recommend you have the monitoring system on it. We asked our maintenance staff to assist us with the choice of systems when we needed to replace the old one and the Flovac system was selected because of the whole package that was offered. After five years we gradually moved over to this system”.

  1.  How did you hear about this system?

“Flovac approached Council when we were deciding to replace the ageing valves. We were impressed by the ongoing support offered by John Radinoff and his team when he presented the Flovac system’s many benefits to the Management and Operational teams”.

  1. Do Flovac provide good operational support when you need it?

“Yes, they have followed through with their ongoing support 24/7. Flovac also offered us the first monitoring service. The company is innovative and developed it to assist us in more efficient delivery of services to our residents”.

  1. Has the addition of a monitoring system helped you operationally? If so, in what way?

“Yes, absolutely it allows the operational team guys to take control of the system themselves. There are definitely long-term savings which we should recoup within a five-to-seven-year period”.

  1. Would you suggest that any new vacuum system automatically should have monitoring built in from the start?

“For sure, it’s helped us considerably”.

  1. Do you prefer having a vacuum system, or would you prefer a low-pressure pump system and why?

“We have both systems in Byron, each has their own specific purpose”.

  1. Would you like to add anything that is not covered in the questions?

“As the monitoring system is more refined we will be able to better assess the current Flovac system for even more benefits”.

 

To read how the monitoring system saved Byron’s vacuum system during major flooding earlier in the year please Click Here

For more information about Flovac’s Wireless monitoring system Click Here

International Womens’s Day – Interview with one of the Industry Founders and Legends

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In 1984, with her husband Geoffrey Radinoff, Pat Radinoff formed the Australian company RSM (now Flovac), looking to develop the new vacuum sewerage industry and take it to the world. Eventually becoming Flovac, one of the largest designers, suppliers and operators of vacuum systems in the world and with two of her sons still involved. We thought it appropriate on this International Women’s Day to hear her thoughts on 37 years associated with the vacuum sewer industry.

  1. How did you become involved in the Vacuum Sewerage Industry?

    Sylvania Waters Australia’s first vacuum system

Environmental issues were important in Scandinavia where in 1981 Geoffrey Radinoff, Australia’s Trade Commissioner, and I, attended a National Day Reception in

Stockholm. We met Joel Liljendahl, the modern inventor of vacuum sewers, that in a designed system sucked away wastewater. Follow up meetings coincided with our decision to retire diplomatic life and find a new ‘later in life career’. Joel knew of an Australian canal scheme recently built near our home in Sydney, Australia at Sylvania Waters. It used his 50mm vacuum valve.  He mentioned that a 90mm valve designed for sewage transit was ready for the market. Enthusiastic, we joined other international ‘suckers’, so-called in the vacuum sewerage industry.

  1. How was it received when you began marketing it to authorities in Australasia?

Frustrating! After two thousand years of gravity, vacuum systems were not highly regarded as early systems using the too small 50mm valve, designed for liquid wastes, required more maintenance to clear solids flowing through the 50mm plastic pipes.  The 90mm was designed for that job. After three years of calls, info newsletters and conference attendances, an order – the Water Police boats dumping sewerage into Sydney Harbour was unacceptable. We built the vacuum pump station. An early visitor from Hindmarsh Island in South Australia declared this clean, easy to install vacuum technology perfect for a planned, staged development at Hindmarsh Island. In 1990 a tender put out by Sydney Water for the growing beachside and industrial suburb of Kurnell was won.  Three projects after a lot of unpaid for design work over ten years of effort.

  1. How were you received as being a woman in a very male dominated engineering world?

I never noticed that I was any different than anyone else. After a number of different careers in fashion, media and International trade I felt that if you knew what you were talking about, people listened. The vacuum industry was new so I was considered something of an expert.

Internation Vacuum Conference, Queensland, Australia 1998. In attendance, Pat and Geoff Radinoff, Peter Radinoff, David Saunders, Willem Gooren, Mark Jones, Frank Mathias and others.

  1. What did you enjoy about the business?

The challenges: we had the right product at the time when pollution, the environment and water saving were serious issues. Canal developments were popular. There were backlogs of projects to replace odorous septic tanks with vacuum. W.A. had $800 million put aside to fix their sewage deficiencies. Wastewater experts were reassessing the benefits of the technology moving into the digital age as installation damage was minimal, with flexibility to go around, under or over obstacles and easy maintenance were winners. An industry of people who did care.

  1. Did you expand outside the Australian region?

Systems were built for many communities with health and pollution problems, seaside communities in KawaKawa Bay and Christchurch in N.Z. In Brunei, dwellings were built on stilts over waterways where people defecated, washed, and fished for food.  Healthier now with a vacuum system installed the pipes slung under their walkways to the pump station built on the land, no longer industrial looking but fitting into the ethnic architectural surroundings.   A high-rise development on a flat area in Thailand required a large innovative pit to house eight robust 90mm valves working simultaneously.  In Bahrain, Oman and Dubai sewerage was sucked through pipes, through narrow allies in busy bazaars, marketplaces and dense housing. At times going uphill, hung from rock walls and under bridges serving communities on both sides of a river. Flexible vacuum sewerage systems serviced army units and workers on the move. The waste from the collection tank, treated to be re-used.

  1. Are you still involved with the company?

As the Matriarch, I have attended International conferences and whilst no longer hands on, am fully aware of developments in the expanding Flovac world enough to enthusiastically break out the bubbles to celebrate major, even minor, progress. The monitoring development alone is a major innovation for all vacuum systems.

  1. Do you have any message for those in waste water industry or looking to become involved in vacuum sewerage technology?

Population growth in cities and towns, remote villages and eventually out to other planets, dealing with human waste will always be essential. In this 21st century cost effective ideas flowing from creative thinkers will continue to keep the Flovac company a caring, competitive, and innovative group.

For more information about some of Flovacs International Projects Click Here.

Why are ISO Standards Important

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With the recent move to a new international production facility in The Netherlands, the first thing that General Manager Mr Leo Huijs had to set up was new ISO certification for the new facility.

ISO certification covers many aspects of our business and how we do the business.

ISO 9001 covers Quality and ensures that Flovac is set up to produce and deliver products to our clients in such as way as to ensure we will have every aspect of production and logistics set up to always deliver defect free product.

Our whole research and development process gets reflected within this, knowing that nothing can compromise the great efforts done by the staff in production to meet these quality standards are kept.

ISO 45001 covers our workers, to ensure that they work in a safe environment. Flovac has operated in conjunction with a sheltered workshop, working with disabled workers and so it has been upmost in Leo’s mind to make sure that all of our work processes are safe. Although the intent of ISO:45001 is in protecting our workers at the production facility we are also very mindful of the workers in the field.

Not just our own operators but our clients as well. Much thought is given to the design of our vacuum pump stations, our collection pits, our vacuum valves and our monitoring systems to ensure that at the front of our mind is the expectation that everything that we design and produce will provide a safe environment for all operators of vacuum sewerage systems.

The production facility also gets a number of visitors each year for training and education. This also includes a number of school children, coming to learn about where poop goes.

ISO 14000 is a family of standards related to environmental management that exists to help organizations minimize how their operations negatively affect the environment; comply with applicable laws, regulations, and other environmentally oriented requirements; and continually improve.

As Flovac is an environmental company and brands itself as the “Green Future of Sewerage Collection” the ISO 14001 was a very important standard for us to follow at a production level. We continually look for ways to improve our interaction and engagement with the environment.

Flovac Expands into the Korean Market

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Flovac Systems is very happy to announce the joint cooperative agreement between Flovac and Coway Entech of Korea. Coway Entech has agreed to represent Flovac on the Korean peninsular and will pursue a number of projects looking to use vacuum sewerage systems.

Coway Entech is the largest supplier of vacuum systems in the country and has completed more than 23 systems for primarily industrial projects including Manufacturing companies and Nuclear Power Plants. Coway was established 50 years ago as the first total water solution provider in Korea. CEO Juno Jung has created one of the most trusted companies in the water industry in Korea. With the recent addition of Green Entech, Coway has moved into sustainable solutions for clients both in Korea and in many countries internationally as well.

Coway Entech has developed many unique solutions using vacuum systems for their clients, including being the first company to use stainless steel for their pipework. They were also teh first to use a vacuum sewerage network within a nuclear power facility.

Mr Changil Koh the groups Deputy General Manager visited a number of projects in Australia with Founder and CEO John Radinoff and Flovac’s operations and engineering teams. Over the years Flovac has been host to a number of people from Green Entech and a close relationship of trust and appreciation has formed. Mr Koh felt that Flovac’s products were the most technically advanced on the market and would be able to provide the best support for the Korean projects.

We look forward to a long and happy relationship and an expanding market.

Interview with Marina Expert for Flovac, Francisco Rodríguez

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Francisco Rodríguez

At the end of 2017, aguasresiduales.info, Spain’s leading journal on wastewater and sanitation interviewed Flovac Spain’s Technical Director to understand the massive growth in the vacuum sewerage industry in Spain and elsewhere, particularly for Marina and Port infrastructure.

This is a translation from the original article which can be found here.

We speak with Francisco Rodríguez, Technical Manager of FLOVAC Spain, about vacuum sanitation in Ports and Marinas

The company FLOVAC Vacuum Sewerage Systems, is the world’s largest designer, manufacturer and supplier of complete vacuum sewerage systems Among its solutions, one of the fastest growing solutions is the complete sanitation of marinas and commercial ports, where a vacuum sewerage network allows the operator to manage the port’s own sanitation network and at the same time service the collection of wastewater from the boats.

Francisco, in general terms, how does a vacuum sanitation system installed in ports and marinas work?  

A Flovac valve connected to the vacuum network is installed at each connection point. When it detects that there is about 20 cm of water in the sump, the valve opens, sucks in the water, sucks in air and closes again in a matter of 2 or 3 seconds. All this without electricity, only with the force of the vacuum.

The only point that needs electricity is the vacuum station. The vacuum pumps located in the station maintain a constant vacuum level in the vacuum network that covers the entire port or marina. A tank collects the wastewater before being driven or pumped to the municipal collector or sewage treatment plant.

What advantages does this vacuum sanitation offer compared to traditional sanitation in this type of site? In marinas and ports, the water table is very high and has often been filled with breakwater, so deep ditches are extremely expensive and technically complicated. Thanks to the force of the vacuum, the pipes can be installed at a shallow depth and serve the entire port or marina with a single vacuum station. The wells where buildings and megayachts are poured can also be shallow, since the valve only needs 20 cm of water to act.

The vacuum station itself can be buried (for space or aesthetics) or it can be on the surface, without the need for excavation. Another advantage would be the absence of odors, since when emptying the well each time there is 20 cm of water (about 50 liters), the residence time is minimal and avoids the appearance of the smell characteristic of pumping. In addition, the valve remains open a couple of seconds after emptying the well, so it renews its air. The network of pipes is watertight, since any leakage is detected in the vacuum station and an alarm occurs. In addition, in case of leakage, air will be sucked through the fissure and no residual water will be spilled. Therefore, it is the only system that ensures correct environmental protection of the port or marina.

As for the installation costs of this technology and maintenance costs, replacement of equipment, etc., what can you tell us? The reduction of excavation in such difficult conditions as a port, means a reduction of important costs, and the reason why sewage collection by vacuum is the most economical solution. The maintenance costs of a system with a single vacuum station, compared to an alternative that would require multiple pumping, are also clearly lower. The valve is specifically designed to work with wastewater. They are manufactured in glass filled polypropylene, with a stainless steel shaft. The result is that the first valves installed in Spain, specifically in Empuriabrava, 15 years ago, continue to operate with a minimum consumption of spare parts

Currently FLOVAC is the benchmark in the installation of vacuum sewerage systems, both in residential areas and in ports and marinas, what are your main references and projects at this time in Spain? The first installations in ports that we carried out in Spain, more than 10 years ago, were sewerage projects for the existing buildings in the marinas or ports. Later, we added sewage suction points for small boats that had to move to that point. In the most recent marinas, a single vacuum station serves buildings, suction points for yachts located at the gas station, megayachts on their own mooring and even a network of bilge water suction points that are treated before they are sent to the public sewage system.

The result is that among our projects in Spain there are all kinds of facilities: large commercial ports, such as the Port of Barcelona or small ones such as Arenys de Mar, marinas for yachts or mega yachts such as the Royal Marina Juan Carlos I (Valencia), Port Vell and Marina Vela (Barcelona) or industrial facilities such as Marina Barcelona 92 ​​for megayacht repair.

To empty wastewater from small boats, suction points are available, usually next to the gas station. Likewise, Flovac valves open and allow the emptying of yacht deposits. The megayachts, on the other hand, have their own sewage pumps, which drive the water to small wells located on the same dock where Flovac valves evacuate the water to the vacuum station. Finally, to evacuate the bilge water from the gas stations, a second vacuum network is required, so that these waters end up in a different reservoir that allows their treatment before being sent to the public sewage system. But the equipment at the vacuum station is the same for both networks.

Finally, Francisco, are marina and port projects being installed in other countries?

Flovac is leading the world in providing sewerage solutions at Marina’s and many countries are now following Spain’s lead which we feel is a world leader in using best environmental practices. Greece has always been another leading country for marinas and we have done a number of projects as far away as Australia and more recently in the Caribbean, Italy is also a very good market for us.

For more information please visit www.flovac.es or www.flovac.com