Being observant is a great step to being a great salesperson. Having product knowledge can make you points for more sales down the road.
If you walk into a plant and you see a safety valve is not installed properly, you might save someone’s job or life. All safety valves need to be installed in a vertical position with the top pointed up to the sky. A valve installed on a 45, horizontal or upside down won’t work properly. All the parts inside of the valve need to be vertical to the ground.
We had a customer that bought a 1/4” valve at 4500 psig. He installed the valve on a compressor station in the middle of the New Mexico desert. The only thing out there was tumbleweeds, jackrabbits, and rattlesnakes. He left the end cap in the outlet, but he put a pin through it so he could hear it if it leaked. He also installed it upside down. He hit the switch and when the pressure got up to 3500, the end cap came flying out past his nose.
I asked him his operating pressure, which he never got up to, and then I asked him if he installed it in a vertical position. He told me what he did, and I told him if he would turn it around that he wouldn’t have any problems with the valve. I never heard back.
Then there was the plant in Springfield, Missouri that couldn’t start up because the safety valve was going off early. The owner was furious with the general contractor and they were desperate, so one of our customers told them to call me.
He had a 2 x 2 male x female steel valve set at 750 psig of natural gas. He was operating at 500, so that wouldn’t make the valve go off early. He had the valve installed in a vertical position, but he had unsupported outlet piping on the valve. He had a 2 x 3 line going up a story into a 3 x 4 configuration up another story. All that weight was pulling down on the valve causing the problem. I never got a thank you or a goodbye. He just hung up.
Then there was a plant that I was asked to walk through and give my advice on their safety valve installations. They were dealing with 500-degree hot grease, and they had outlet piping coming off their pumps chest high and nothing else. Needless to say, we came up with a safer solution.
If you observe a skid or two of used safety valves, you might ask the customer what he is doing with them. They are probably waiting to ship out for repair. Ask if they have someone doing their work, and you might hear that they are looking for someone new to do their work. HERO.
Allen Tanis
