A substantial cost of running a pumping system comes not from the hire or purchase price, but from the amount of diesel used to run the pumps. With pumps often running 24/7, the costs can quickly add up when using a thirsty pump and it’s critical that options are explored before diving in.

Unfortunately, many people base their pump hire or purchase decision based on the price of the pump and don’t take into consideration the costs to it. With fuel prices being high, the difference in running costs between pumps can be enormous and end up costing you an arm and a leg if you make the wrong deciesion.

With margins and competition becoming so tight these days, companies need to look at how efficiencies can be found to reduce operating costs. We recently decided to do the leg for you and even we were pretty amazed at what we found.

We pitted 6 different 6″ pumps against each other to see which was best and what the savings could be for choosing the right pump. In the line up were all of the usual suspects from Sykes, Selwood, Pioneer, BBA and SPP.

Running at manufacturers BEP, the difference in diesel used was astonishing, with the difference between the best and worst performing pump being over 364% more diesel used per hour.

The BBA Pumps PT150 was well and truly ahead of the pack using only 1.4 litres an hour, performing 150% better than the closest performing pump and an incredible 364% better than the worst performing pump in the field which chewed up 6.5 litres an hour.

Here is the math. By choosing to use the BBA PT150 over the worst performing in the range, you will save yourself more than a staggering $1,100 a week if your pump is running 24/7! Yes that’s right, based on a diesel cost of $1.30 a litre, the BBA PT150 costs $306 a week to run compared to $1,420 for the competitor pump.

BBA PT150

$1.30 x 1.4l/h = $1.82/hour

= $43.68/day ($305.76/week)

Competitor Pump

$1.30 x 6.5l/h = $8.45/hour

= $202.80/day ($1,419.60/week)

These savings we seen first hand recently by the large contracting company, Georgiou Group, when they trialled the NPE supplied BBA Pump to look for improvements in efficiencies across their work sites.

Georgiou were interested to see how the latest wellpoint dewatering model from BBA compared to their existing fleet.  Feedback from Georgiou was more than positive with the PT150 out performing their current pumps in overall performance, sound levels and ease of operation and most importantly, cost savings. Trials proved that the PT150 was a clear winner and an obvious choice, using just a fraction of fuel compared to alternative brands.

So, next time you are thinking about your pumping package, make sure you think about more than the daily hire rate. Better yet, call the pump, power and compressor experts and NPE will sort it our for you.