Sewer pump station monitoring in South Africa — most spills start at a 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.

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Why the collection side

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.

What we monitor

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.

How it fits together

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.

Frequently asked

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.

Yes. Continuous wet-well level with high-level and rate-of-rise alarms, combined with pump and power status, flags a station that's filling or a pump that's stalled well before the overflow weir — so the standby team can respond before sewage leaves the site.

The pumps stop, but the sewage keeps arriving — which is when many spills occur. We send a power-loss alert and keep reporting the wet-well level on solar-backed sensing, so you know which stations are dark and how full, and can get a generator or tanker to the most critical one first.

No. We integrate with the float switches, panel signals and any flow meters already on the station, adding sensors only where there's a gap. It's a monitoring layer over your existing gear, not a control-system replacement.

Yes. By comparing dry-weather and wet-weather flow and level across the network, the data shows which sections fill abnormally in the rain — the signature of stormwater and groundwater leaking in — so pipe rehabilitation targets the worst offenders instead of the whole network.

We design for it: low-profile, solar-backed sensing, door and panel intrusion alerts, and the option to keep the monitoring running independently of the main panel. You also get an immediate alert if a station goes dark, which is often the first sign of theft or vandalism.

Yes. Collection-network flow and level feed straight into treatment-works inlet monitoring on the same platform, so the works anticipates incoming load and you manage sanitation as one system from house to final effluent.

Go deeper on sewerage.

Insight

Sewage pump stations & spill prevention

Why stations overflow — and how to catch it early.

Solution

Treatment plant monitoring

Where the collection network delivers its load.

Case study

Preventing pump-station overflows

Catch a spill as it starts, not after.

What a sewer pump station monitoring system measures

What is measured	Device class and typical specification	Why it matters
Wet-well level	Non-contact radar or ultrasonic, 0–10 m, IP68, corrosion-resistant housing; float switch as high-level backup	The overflow warning comes from level rising while pumps should be running
Pump run, trip and current	Contact inputs plus CT clamps per pump; dry-run and overload detection	Separates a tripped pump from a power outage from a blocked rising main
Mains presence and generator state	Voltage sense + genset run/fuel	Attributes a spill to a load-shedding or load-reduction window rather than to the crew
Overflow event	Spill sensor at the emergency overflow or manhole	Timestamped evidence for the DWS incident report
Rising-main pressure	0–16 bar transmitter	Blockage and burst detection between stations
Rainfall and inflow	Tipping-bucket rain gauge; works inlet flow	Wet-weather infiltration diagnosis
Telemetry unit	4G RTU with battery for the outage window, local buffering, Modbus/4–20 mA/digital inputs; LoRaWAN where signal is thin	The record survives the power cut that caused the spill

The how-to detail — sizing the battery for the outage window, choosing radar over ultrasonic in a foaming wet well, what to send to the works operator — is in our sewer overflow monitoring guide.

Pump station types we instrument in South Africa

Pump station type	Priority signals	Typical alarm
Municipal sewer pump station (urban)	Level, pump run/trip, mains	High level with no pump running
Rural or peri-urban station on marginal signal	Level, mains, genset	Level rising during outage
Estate or industrial private station	Level, pump current, overflow	Overflow contact
Works inlet	Inflow, screen differential, level	Inflow surge after rain
Rising main	Pressure, flow	Pressure loss between stations

Named with permission: Coca-Cola Beverages South Africa, where we monitor plant water on the addaNet platform. Other South African deployments — municipal and private borehole schemes, treatment works, farms and industrial sites — are described as representative cases without client names. We deliver from Johannesburg to every province, and hand over the data path as yours.

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.

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