All The Hidden ‘TAXES’ That Nobody Ever Anticipates When you buy a pump with a 20 year lifespan you aren’t just buying the sticker price of say $68,333, you are committing to spend some $689,000 in installation, maintenance and operating costs over the next 20 years according to The Hydraulic Institute. Of which $415,812 is the […]
Recently I wrote about 5 categories of problems we see when we are called out about centrifugal pumps. Today I’m going to go through the remaining 5 categories of problems we see all too often with centrifugal pump installations. Centrifugal Pump Mistake #6: Pipe size and pump geometry mistakes Centrifugal pumps are the exception to the […]
Common Mistakes We See With Self Priming/Centrifugal Pumps Part 1 We do our share of field service for centrifugal pumps – when we get there we often see them being used beyond their specifications and obviously that is when trouble strikes. If you boil all the problems down, they fall into 10 categories. I’ll deal with the […]
To think that so many pumps operating today were built up to 50 years ago… It shows you what happened in the good ole days when it seemed we were more skilled at matching operating demands to the pump selected and the pump designers were good too. Pumping applications still account for more than 20% […]
5 Roadblocks To Optimizing Your Pumping Systems Working towards upgrading your pumping systems is a worthwhile goal. System upgrades can save you a fortune from reduced operating costs, while increasing output and minimizing the cost of repairs and duration of downtime. Here are the five roadblocks to optimizing your pump system Roadblock #1: Selecting the […]
A few weeks ago I wrote about what a good Supply Side Compressed Air Audit should cover (Compressed Air Audit Part 1). Today I’m going to run you through what should be covered on the demand side. Auditing and improving the supply side should give you the quick wins and cost savings in order to tackle the demand […]
“Tell Me A Man’s Metrics And I’ll Tell You About His Behavior” Bill Hewlett (Founder of HP) My favorite story about this idea comes from Federal Express. Just after they’d started they had a problem with the night shift. It was always finishing 2 hours late. Didn’t matter how many people they put on, who […]
When To Buy Nitrogen Imagine having a raw material that is 78% pure and there is no royalty, lease or other fee associated with extracting it. Why on earth would you go and buy a refined version of the raw material at $5 to $17 per m3? The only reason I can think of is […]
Air Compressor Short Cycling If your air compressor comes on for a short burst then turns itself off… then starts cycling again your compressor is short cycling… We’ve just been through this problem with a couple of clients and I feel it’s important to share this with you. Short Cycling is *almost* always a symptom […]
The Choice is Yours A lot of workshops and ‘less complicated’ compressed air systems owners often face a variation on which compressor option should we take? The choice is between: Installing single large compressor that can deal with the peak load of the system (as well as future increases in demand)? Or Installing two compressors […]
