MAINTENANCE There are three aspects of successful 'maintenance' so far as handpumps are concerned which are of equal importance. These are, 'is there a will to carry out maintenence', 'is the pump maintainable' and 'are spares available'. IS THERE A WILL If an organisation exists, or one can be set up, the first of the essentials is present at some point in time. It depends on the type of organisation whether the situation is sustainable over the longer term. The literature is full of ideas on the maintenance of hand pumps - mostly bemoaning the fact that it is a difficult problem or describing failed systems; successful schemes seem hard to find - you need to start by having a good design of pump and a committed manufacturer, like Consallen, who is interested in the performance of his product. There are some good, practical, working schemes and we have details of these which we will share with interested parties. Our knowledge and experience is automatically at the disposal of users and specifiers of Consallen hand pumps. One example is shown below. IS THE PUMP GOOD ENOUGH It is more difficult to maintain anything that starts off in the 'poor quality' category than something which was designed originally to be easily maintained. The Consallen was designed from the outset to be easily and simply maintained using an affordable level of spare parts. The result has been a hand pump that it is feasible to keep in operation indefinitely using a low total cost of easily replaceable small size spares; a pump which is better value than any competing hand pump available. SPARE PARTS DISTRIBUTION The fact that the Consallen employs only wearable spares which are industrial standard components, means that the pumps can be maintained and supplied with spares which are obtainable locally everywhere.   Industrial 'standard' components are not only used in hand pumps.   They are also essential spares for a wide variety of industrial, agricultural and construction machinery, and are stocked everywhere by Engineers' and Agricultural Merchants.   Our piston seals, for example, are standard hydraulic seals used in agriculture, construction and manufacturing industry;   similarly with bearings, bolts, screws and O-rings. Another good method of spares distribution is Mail Order. This is highly successful as a means of distributing of a wide range of goods all over the developed world, and can be used to do the same in the developing world.   A fact which many find surprising is that the postal services in many developing countries work very well. We can distribute spares by airmail cheaper than they can be stocked locally. Top