Demanding groundwater reduction, Grand Hotel Titlis Palace
An exclusive luxury hotel is being renovated in the historical city center of Engelberg, Switzerland. During the construction phase, specialists of Marti AG, Bern are ensuring dry construction pit and robust foundation of the adjacent building with the help of level-controlled pump operation.
Only for professionals
To ensure the ongoing underground work, Marti AG, Bern is operating a computer-monitored groundwater reduction system. A five-member team is busy keeping the construction pit dry round the clock and seven days a week. The groundwater level is being balanced out within the specified reference values so that no damage caused by cracks occurs in the adjacent buildings. Jochen Rudath, groundwater reduction specialist at Marti, calls the local conditions extraordinary: "The ground water flow is extremely inconsistent. Massive storms, snow-melts and the hydro-geological underground conditions pose a great challenge to us. On peak days, the system extracts up to 50,000 liters of water per minute. In the other extreme case, we have to pump back plenty of water into the underground in order to be able to maintain the necessary pressure."
Top equipment
In the process, what is indispensable is the quality of the equipment, explains Ernesto Valguarnera, construction leader and Project Manager for special civil engineering at Marti AG, Bern. "Recently, there was a power outage caused by a strike of lightning. Without the immediate starting up of the emergency generator, the entire construction pit would have been standing in water within a few minutes." The team demands the same, uncompromising reliability from the submersible pumps. Submerged at a depth of 19 meters, up to forty Grindex pumps are deployed continuously day and night. "I work only with Grindex" emphasizes Valguerna. "The high-quality Swedish pumps have also operated without any failures here in Engelberg so far and have already extracted more than 12 million cubic meters of water since February until June this year".
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