During this Centrifugal Pump Minute, James Farley, Senior Director of Product Management for Griswold, discusses the conditions that could cause your centrifugal pump to experience excessive seal leakage and provides remedies to troubleshoot the problem.

You can also have excessive leaking through the steel chamber. This can happen to pumps operating in normal hydraulic conditions, the pumps are running and you’re getting the flow and head out of the pump, but you’re getting an excessive leak out of the steel.

If this is a packed pump you can look at adjusting your packing gland making sure that it is properly heightened so that you’re reducing the leak. You’re not going to stop a leak in packing but you can control it. Additionally, you need to make sure the packing is installed properly. And so you need to make sure that the packing rings are installed so that the slit is never aligned otherwise, you’re going to get excessive leaking through the packing and so you could recheck the packing.

If you’re dealing with more of a mechanical seal you can check to make sure that the shaft or the shaft sleeve has not been damaged. If there is a sweat score or nick on the shaft or the shaft sleeve where the mechanical steel fit, you may need to replace the shaft or the shaft sleeve so that the seal does not leak near the shaft. You could have a worn or damaged mechanical seal. There’s a whole slew of things that could contribute to a worn mechanical seal, but you may need to replace that and or look at the seal flush system to properly maintain the mechanical seal in the system.

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