Most sewage spills start at a pump station no one was watching.
A treatment works can be running perfectly and a town can still end up with sewage in the street and the river — because the problem is upstream, in the collection network. A pump trips, a power feed drops during load shedding, a panel is vandalised, a line blocks — and the wet well fills and overflows long before anyone drives past. addanode puts continuous eyes on the sewer network itself: wet-well levels, pump and power status, rising-main pressure and manhole surcharge, so a stalled pump or a starting spill raises an alarm in minutes — not when residents do.
The works is monitored. The pipes that feed it usually aren't.
Pump stations fail silently
A sewage pump station is unmanned, often remote, and its failure modes — a tripped pump, a blocked impeller, a high wet well — are invisible until the overflow is already happening. One stalled station can spill thousands of litres an hour of raw sewage.
Load shedding stops the pumps
When the grid drops, so do the pumps — but the sewage keeps arriving. Without a power-loss alert and a known wet-well level, a multi-hour outage quietly becomes a spill. Knowing which stations are dark, and how full, lets you get a tanker or generator to the right one first.
Spills become pollution and penalties
A sanitary sewer overflow is a public-health and environmental incident, a likely Section 19 / DWS matter, and a Green Drop mark against the collection system. Catching it as it starts turns a reportable pollution event into a contained call-out.
Infiltration drowns the works
Cracked pipes and illegal stormwater connections let rain and groundwater pour into the sewer. That inflow & infiltration overloads pump stations and the treatment works in every wet spell — and you can't fix what you can't localise.
From the wet well to the works inlet.
Wet-well level
Continuous level with high-level and rate-of-rise alarms — the earliest sign a pump isn't keeping up, long before the overflow weir.
Pump & power status
Run, fail, trip and duty/standby status, run-hours and power presence — so you know a pump stalled or a feed dropped the moment it happens, not on the next site visit.
Overflow & spill detection
Level sensing at overflow weirs, problem manholes and outfalls that flags sewage escaping the network — the alert that lets you contain a spill in minutes.
Rising-main pressure
Pressure on the rising main reveals a blockage, an air-lock or a burst on the pumped line before it backs the station up.
Inflow & infiltration
Dry- vs wet-weather flow and level patterns that localise where stormwater and groundwater are leaking in, so rehabilitation targets the worst sections first.
Power & security
Load-shedding and power-loss alerts, plus door and panel intrusion sensing for stations exposed to cable theft and vandalism. Pairs with solar, off-grid monitoring.
One sanitation picture — collection through treatment.
- Start with the highest-consequence stations. The stations whose overflow reaches a river, a school or a main road first — instrument those, then extend across the network.
- Read what's already there. Most stations have float switches, a panel and sometimes a flow meter; we tie into existing signals and add sensing only where there's a gap, rather than ripping out the control gear.
- Alarm to the responder. High wet-well level, pump failure or a starting spill goes to WhatsApp or email so the standby team rolls to the right station with the right fix — pump, tanker or generator.
- Feed the works inlet. Network flow and level connect straight into treatment-works monitoring, so the works sees its incoming load instead of being surprised by it.
- Survive the outage. Edge buffering and solar keep the record and the alarms alive through load shedding — exactly the window when spills happen — on the addaNet platform.
The payback is the spill you prevent: a single avoided sanitary sewer overflow can mean no pollution incident, no DWS penalty, no clean-up, no Green Drop knock and no community fallout. Most networks have a handful of repeat-offender stations — those are where monitoring pays for itself first.
Regulatory references (DWS, Section 19, Green Drop) are for orientation; confirm current obligations against your licence and the latest DWS guidance.
Sewer network questions.
Collection-system projects usually start with a station that keeps spilling or a works that keeps flooding in the rain. Here's how we approach both.
Stop the next spill before it starts.
Tell us about the pump stations that keep you up at night — the repeat overflows, the load-shedding casualties, the vandalised panels. We'll scope the level, pump and power sensing, the alarms and the solar backup, and tell you which station to start with.