Pumps and Bores in Oak Beach

If your pump keeps tripping the safety switch, stop resetting it. The safety switch is doing exactly what it was installed to do. Something in the pump, the cable or the controls is leaking current to earth, and every reset puts that fault straight back into a circuit your family uses. It is also the single most common pump call we get.

We have done 1,051 pump jobs since 2020. In Oak Beach alone, 40 of our 206 jobs there have been pumps, which tells you what life is like on tank and bore water once you get off town supply.

What is usually actually wrong

Ants and geckos. That is not a joke, it is one of the most common causes of pump faults in Far North Queensland. They get in through a cable gland or a worn seal, nest inside a pressure switch or an outdoor isolator, and bridge the contacts. The pump either will not start at all or it trips the RCD the second it tries. Wet season humidity does the rest. A terminal box that was dry and clean in September can be full of condensation by February, and coastal pump sheds get salt in them as well.

Submersible bore pumps fail differently, and you cannot see any of it. The motor winding goes down to earth 40 or 60 metres underground. We test insulation resistance and current draw at the switchboard end first, before anyone starts pulling poly and cable out of the ground. That test tells you whether you have a dead pump or a problem in the shed.

More than one pump, and only one tap

Most acreage properties out here run at least two. A bore or creek pump filling the tank, then a pressure pump feeding the house. When the house has no water, the real question is which one stopped and why. Float switches, level probes, tank transfer controls, changeover timers and pressure switches all fail in ways that look identical from the kitchen tap. We work backwards from the switchboard, so you get an answer rather than a guess and a new pump.

What we handle is the electrical side of it. The circuit and cable run out to the shed or the bore head, the isolator, the pressure switch and controls, weatherproof enclosures rated for where they actually sit, and the safety switch protecting the lot. If the pump itself is finished, we will tell you that too, and we fit Davey, Onga, Grundfos and Lowara.

After a storm or a flood

Do not switch a pump back on just because the shed looks dry. If floodwater has been through a pump shed, a switchboard or a bore head, verification testing is required before reconnection. A licensed electrician has to perform that task, and the certificate of test is what allows your local electricity distribution entity to reconnect your service. We are on call 24/7 through storm season for exactly this.

Who is doing the work

BH Electrics holds Queensland Electrical Contractor Licence 82270 and we are fully insured. Brad and Leanne Sims have run the business since 2017, and it has been trading in Port Douglas and Craiglie since 2007. Four electricians and two apprentices. Where the work is installation work, you get a Certificate of Testing and Compliance for it. We service Craiglie, Port Douglas, Oak Beach, Wonga Beach, Mowbray, Julatten, Mossman and out towards the Daintree.

Source: Electrical Safety Queensland, electrical safety during storms.