Day 1: 5 Interesting Things I Heard Today at the Pump Guy Seminar

Jan. 15, 2013

I pick up new and interesting information each and every time I sit in on the Pump Guy Seminar.

Larry Bachus demonstrates the principle of shutoff head and explains the role of suction pressure in pump operation during this week's Pump Guy Seminar in Decatur, Ala.

We are kicking off the New Year with our first Pump Guy Seminar of 2013 this week in Decatur, Ala. I’ve sat in on the Pump Guy Seminar many times since we began presenting it back in 2007 with our resident expert on all things pumps, Larry Bachus (a.k.a. “ The Pump Guy”), but I pick up some new information each and every time. The following is the first in a series of posts I will be offering up to highlight some choice tidbits from each day of this week’s training.  

RELATED: Register Now for Early-Bird Rates for the Aug. 20-22 Pump Guy Seminar in Philadelphia

If you drove your car in first gear at 70 mph on the highway, would your car vibrate? If you slowed your car down to 10 miles per hour in fourth gear, would it vibrate? This is the same as running your pump on the extreme left or right of the curve.
When starting an installation with two pumps in parallel, which pump should you start first? Do you know? If not, perhaps you should register for the next Pump Guy Seminar? Is it OK to run alternating pumps together in parallel? Do you know? Pump Guy Seminar anyone?
 
A pump is slightly more complicated than a butter knife. A butter knife has no moving parts, and a pump has one moving part. 
On a suction pressure gauge, the relationship between inches of mercury and PSI is two-to-one—30 inches of mercury equals negative 15 PSI.  
A cavitating pump is starved of energy on the suction side. To eliminate the cavitation, you can add energy (head) on the suction side of the pump. Another way to stop the cavitation is to reduce the energy leaving the pump on the discharge side.