Jim Elsey on the mysteries of the twilight zone
06/05/2019
People of a certain age, and those that enjoy TV reruns, may remember the show called “The Twilight Zone.” In each episode, there was always a surprise plot twist and a subsequent moral or lesson at the end.
In my career, I have witnessed many pump issues that I have assigned to this zone of unexplained reasons for pump failure.
At first I was “mentally filing” them simply as pump mysteries, but later I just started calling it the twilight zone because no one seemed to know what caused the problem. I learned—after some time, persistence and acknowledgment to the twilight of unexplained things—there was always a good lesson at the end.
Before going further, I want to add a disclaimer: I am not blaming anyone for the issues that occurred. There are guilty parties all around and no names will be used. It is the intent of this article that we all learn from the lessons they teach. All of these examples are true; I present the issues first and the answers follow.