My old foreman told me to always keep a spare pump seal in the tool locker, and I finally saw why.

We were on a job in Mobile Bay last month, pulling up oyster shells. The main pump started spraying water everywhere at 2 PM on a Friday. If I hadn't had that spare seal right there, we would have lost the whole weekend waiting for a parts delivery. He said, 'A seal is cheap, downtime isn't.' What's the one piece of gear you always keep a spare of on your rig?

3 comments

3 Comments

ross.christopher16d ago

What's the most expensive downtime you've avoided with a simple spare part?

phoenix14916d ago

Had a $20 cooling fan on a server that was making noise... swapped it out before it failed and took the whole rack offline. That little thing would have cost us days of lost sales during the holiday rush. Just keeping a few key spares around saved a real headache.

adamt8416d ago

My old service truck always has two spare fuel filters for the main engine. We were on a logging road in Oregon when the primary one clogged with junk from a bad fuel load. Swapped it in ten minutes and drove to the next town instead of waiting six hours for a tow. That fifty dollar part kept a forty thousand dollar truck moving. You just don't risk being stuck over something that cheap and easy to swap.