Hurricane Harvey stalled over Houston in August 2017 creating what has been called the most extreme rain event in U.S. history. The storm dropped more than 50 inches of water on the city. What’s more, it was the third 500-year flood Houston experienced in as many years, and while much of the city is well into the rebuilding process, it will no doubt take years for the damage to homes and businesses to be fully calculated and corrected.

Most valve professionals take more notice of the oil or fluid flowing through the valve than the oil that lubricates the valve’s mechanical parts. That should not be the case. Virtually every valve with moving metallic parts needs lubrication, and some valves such as lubricated plug valves simply cannot function without it.

The words, “maintenance” and “repair” are so common in everyone’s vocabulary that we use them almost daily, and sometimes we’re not exactly happy about it. Whether it’s our cars and the oil change or tires they need or the washing machine that’s been making strange noises, most of us aren’t happy with the necessity of maintenance or repair in our personal lives. So why is it so different in our business lives? It isn’t. We hear phrases all the time such as: “run to failure,” “budget cuts,” “extended outage periods” that make us shudder. But are there better ways to deal with what’s happening?

When it comes to linear valve installations, gravity is our friend. The most common and preferred installation for these valves is to have the stem in the vertical position. This orientation, with an assist from the laws of gravity, aligns the stem to the disc and the disc to the body guides, which keeps everything in proper orientation throughout the open and closed cycles.