Case Study 207

Helping to Keep
DiMillo’s Afloat
DiMillo’s famous floating restaurant utilized
Gorman-Rupp pumping solution to move
wastewater from restaurant to city sewer system
Once a converted car ferry thatoriginally ran between New Castle,
Delaware, and Pennsville, New Jersey
and later between Newport andJamestown, Rhode Island, today,
DiMilio’s Restaurant is one of the largest
floating restaurants in America. Risingand falling with the tide twice a day,the restaurant is surrounded by water,offering spectacular table views, fresh
seafood, choice cuts of beef and Italianfare to Portland Harbor’s Long Wharf
residents and tourists year round.
But where there’s a restaurant business, there’s
wastewater – and a lot of it to be moved. Thewater that is used within this 65’ x 206’, three story
restaurant for normal day-to-day operations –cooking, dish washers, toilets, floor drains and more
– is all pumped up and away from the restaurant via
a unique mission critical design. “Health department
regulations are strict. If our pumps malfunction, we’rerequired to close our doors,” shares Sam DiCenzo,
Pump Maintenance Engineer for DiMillo’s. To avoid acostly shut down – even for a day – the DiMillo family
made the decision to invest in a smart design, smart
technology and support they could rely on.
The floating nature of the restaurant requires theengineered design to pump wastewater from a holdingtank located in the bottom of the vessel up to the pier© 2007-2017 Gorman-Rupp Pumps

DiMillo’s, docked in Portland, Maine,
serves a variety of surf n’ turf for locals andout-of-towners. Sam DiCenzo sees that theGorman-Rupp base-mounted pump station
keeps all three levels of the floating restaurant
fully operational.
sewer connection – an incline of approximately 90 feet.
When the holding tank reaches its level, the tank will be
automatically pumped down, forcing the wastewaterout another 500 feet to the city’s main sewer line –carrying everything from gray water to sanitation fortreatment. To meet this unique challenge, two
Gorman-Rupp T Series® pumps are enlisted, designed
to perform on an alternating basis. In this automatic
alternation design, pump efficiency is maximized while
pump wear and tear is equalized. As the first pumpshuts down, the second pump automatically kicks in on
the next pump down cycle.
1were the old float switches,” adds Thayer. “We have since
refitted the level control system via the Gorman-Rupp
EPS (electronic pressure switch) retrofit kit with theelectronic solid state pressure transducer set-up.”

Working quietly behind the scenes, 2
Gorman-Rupp T Series® pumps handle ahigh volume of solids-laden fluids including
wastewater from the kitchen and restrooms.
The discharge to the city’s main sewer is further
accomplished by using flexible piping, a design
specification created to address the need for thedischarge operation to move up and down with thetide. “The normal tide is 10 to 11 feet, but we can get
more extreme tide here,” offers Steve Thayer, of Hayes
Pump Inc. “With such extreme deviations in travel ways,
pumping the waste from the restaurant to its eventual
destination at the city sewers was a design challenge.”
The technology used to address this unique challenge
is a Gorman-Rupp LE model packaged pump station.
The total solution, which incorporates duplex pumps
and the associated piping, settings and control panel
technology, further incorporates high water alarms,
alerting DiMillo personnel of potential problems withthe pumps, before they arise. “Everything I need toknow is right there on the panel itself,” adds DiCenzo.
“In the course of any given day, I’m probably in and outof the control room 25 times – I’m not servicing thepump during those visits, I’m poking my head in to see
what the controls are telling me, and then I go about
my day. To me, these controls are a visual check.”“The pumps are the original Gorman-Rupp Classic T
Series design, including original level controls which2

Routine maintenance to unclog a troubled pump is
to be expected in this high volume, mission criticalenvironment. In most cases, debris has fowled theinlet, whereby the unique self-priming, centrifugal
Gorman-Rupp design allows DiCenzo and his teamto ready the system without calling in maintenancetechnicians to clean the pump’s parts that plugged,unclogging the blockage. By draining the tank andthen identifying the source of the problem, DiCenzo
can also pull the spare parts that the restaurant keeps
on hand to immediately rectify the situation.
“Generally, I’m never down more than 30 or 40
minutes – and when I am, 99% of the time, it’s a debris
blockage, a very simple fix, or one of the air releasevalves have jammed or the inlet to the sump has
clogged,” shares DiCenzo. “But even if a pump goes
down due to debris, they’re so easy to maintain thatit’s as easy as one-two-three for us now. We simply
look at it and know what you’re going after. And if themaintenance requires something a little trickier, all I
have to do is make a call to Hayes Pump, and they cangenerally walk me through it – to get me back up andrunning. I love these pumps.”
In fact, to date the restaurant has enjoyed a relatively
maintenance- and problem-free solution for now
nearly 24 years, with the original technology outperforming any industry standard and continuing tofunction nearly flawlessly today. Only once in morethan a two decade history has the restaurant found theneed to replace a pump – due to a casing, which hadworn out after 23 years. During another particularly
stubborn blockage, the engineer at DiMillo’s opened
one of the pumps by removing the cover plate, only toreveal a badly worn impeller. The impeller, which had
been functioning well for more than eleven years, wasworn to just 6” – reduced more than 30 percent from astandard 8 ¾” impeller diameter.

©©
2014
2007-2017
The Gorman-Rupp
Gorman-Rupp
CompanyPumps

“Even when worn to just 6”, the pumps were stillworking. I’ve worked with a lot of pumps in my time inthe ship repair business, but I swear by these pumps,
shares DiCenzo. “I’ve seen these pumps handle a lot ofdebris and drain water. They work great. Typically, when
you put six months on most pumps, that’s when you
start having problems. That’s not the case with thesepumps we have here, I trust them,” boasts DiCenzo.

About The Gorman-Rupp CompanyThe Gorman-Rupp Company is a leading manufacturerof pumps and pumping systems for the municipal,
water, wastewater, sewage, industrial, construction,
petroleum and OEM markets. The company’sEngineered Systems operation also manufactures afull line of water pressure booster stations including
pumps, motors, valves and controls – all housed inweather-proof fiberglass enclosures – meeting about
any municipal water supply need.
Ultimately, Gorman-Rupp prides itself on manufacturing
and delivering the right pump for the job.

GORMAN-RUPP PUMPS | P.O. BOX 1217 | MANSFIELD, OHIO 44901-1217 | USA | 419.755.1011 | GRSALES@GORMANRUPP.COM | GRPUMPS.COM2
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©©
2014
2007-2017
The Gorman-Rupp
Gorman-RuppCompanyPumps