Pump overhauls – preventive maintenance refurbishments – aren’t done very often. They’re a complicated, time-consuming process that hopefully only needs to happen every 15 years or so. And, by that time, the craftsmen who have handled it in the past, may not be doing the same job.

So, Central Arizona Project turned to the magic of time-lapse photography to document the process for future craftsmen. During a six-month period, an overhaul of a pump at Mark Wilmer Pumping Plant was photographed every 15 seconds; six hours of that footage was edited into a 20-minute video to accompany written instructions on the process. You can see a condensed three-minute version, giving a glimpse into this rarely seen process.