Remote monitoring for pumps, sumps and site dewatering

Unmonitored pumps still cause wasted visits across UK construction sites, basements and hire fleets. A sump that stops clearing overnight, an overpumping set that loses power or a hire pump that drops offline often only shows up when water is already where it should not be — or when the client calls. By then the visit is paid for, and the fault may turn out to be a flat battery, a dropped cellular link or a controller that needed a reset.

That pattern is expensive for hire desks and main contractors alike. Overnight call-outs, wasted journeys and "is it even running?" checks eat into margin on temporary water equipment. Flooding does not wait for morning, so teams are forced to react even when the underlying issue was simple.

Remote visibility of pump power, connectivity and wired level or IO status closes that gap — so you know whether the system is alive before assuming the pump itself has failed.

In the TrackSyte® Portal you see power, connectivity and site status — plus level or IO signals where they are wired to the gateway. Alerts highlight offline links, power problems and conditions that justify a visit, and separate them from issues that can wait for the next planned call.

Operations teams, hire desks and site managers share one view of every pump. That matters when the person who can swap a SIM or check a battery is not the person who first hears "the sump's full".

Fewer unnecessary site visits means lower operating costs for hire and temporary pump fleets. See the commercial impact page, or estimate your own savings with the site visit calculator.

Permanent water and wastewater sites use SCADA systems to monitor pumps, but those are built for fixed infrastructure and take time and specialist engineering to extend. Temporary dewatering, overpumping and hire pumps need something that can be fitted in an afternoon and moved to the next job.

TrackSyte provides that pump telemetry as a retrofit. Neo 2 reads the pump controller over RS485 / Modbus where it has one, or simple GPIO signals such as pump running, fault and float switch level where it does not, and sends them over cellular to the Portal with alerts. There is no server to install and no telemetry outstation to programme.

Thousands of small sewage and wastewater pumping stations serve housing developments, commercial units, farms and rural properties that are not on a gravity sewer. Most have a high-level alarm — a beacon or sounder on a control panel — that only helps if someone happens to see or hear it. A pump failure or power cut can mean a full chamber, a sewage spill and an expensive clean-up before anyone knows.

TrackSyte turns that local alarm into a remote one. Neo 2 picks up the high-level float, pump run and pump fault signals from the control panel, plus loss of power, and sends an alert to the maintenance contractor or site owner straight away — by email, webhook or Slack. Station status and alarm history sit in the Portal alongside any other assets you look after. In the US the same installations are usually called lift stations, and the same approach applies.

For pumps and sumps, the connections that usually matter first are RS485 / Modbus, Ethernet, LTE-M / NB-IoT cellular and GPIO for discrete status or level signals.

TrackSyte Neo 2 brings those connections together and sends the data into the Portal over MQTT or API. RS485 is fitted as standard — see RS485 / Modbus for how serial pump controllers connect, and Ethernet and cellular IoT for wired and remote options.

Neo 2 also has a 9–30 V DC supply and Bluetooth, and works with Victron equipment, smart/lithium BMS batteries and Smart Shunt on powered trailers or pump compounds. Where plant shares the compound, CAN bus brings machine data into the same view.

Construction overpumping. A temporary overpumping set on a civils or basement job needs reliable power and connectivity. Neo 2 reports Modbus/RS485, Ethernet or cellular status to the Portal so the hire desk knows about a problem before the client calls about standing water.

Sump in a basement or compound. Basement and compound sumps run quietly until they stop. Remote alerts on power, connectivity and wired level signals cut out the "drive out to check it's pumping" routine — especially overnight, when flooding risk is highest.

Hire pump fleet. Operators with pumps spread across several counties need one place to see which are healthy, which need a visit and which can wait. The Portal gives that shared view, so real faults drive the diary instead of a rota of check visits.

Pump and generator compound. Many wet sites run on temporary or hybrid power. Hybrid and temporary power monitoring covers the generator side, in the same Portal. Compounds with security towers can add CCTV tower or PID monitoring too.

Physical. Pumps and sumps sit on wet compounds, basements and temporary sites where flooding and power loss are real risks. Monitoring power, connectivity and wired status supports that job alongside your pump controllers, not instead of them.

Cyber. Data travels into TrackSyte over MQTT, protected by authentication, TLS encryption and certificates.