One of the most important safety features on boats and floating structures is the bilge pump. The bilge pump works by pumping water that is inside of the structure and putting it back into the ocean. While we can build our structures to be as watertight as possible, we still need to have bilge pumps for the inevitable water that will get inside, and in the case of a more serious emergency.
We will have four bilge pumps that each have their own sensor. We are using pressure differential sensors that can sense how much water is in the area based on the pressure of that water. These sensors report back to the monitoring system twice per second so they are constantly measuring the water level and they will know immediately if the water is too high.
When the sensor sees that there is water that needs to be pumped out, the sensor will send the signal and turn on that specific pump to begin removing the water. We have four separate pumps but they are able to operate independently depending on where the water is.
This is an absolutely critical system so we wanted to make sure that it was constantly reporting so that it can respond immediately. Without these pumps, water could get into the structure and cause it to either be too heavy and create an unsafe condition, or it could cause it to sink. So we really wanted to make sure that this system was up to the task of keeping our floating homes above the water. So far, the results have been great and everything is working as intended!
