Water & Flush Consumption

Gland packing looks like a bargain when you are staring at a $50 box on a storeroom shelf. The problem is that you do not run a plant on purchase price, you run it on operational expenditure (OpEx). When you compare mechanical seal vs gland packing cost, most of the real money sits in water, energy, and repeat maintenance that rarely lands on the same line item as "packing."

The best mental model is an iceberg: the visible tip is the packing set and a few hours of labor, while the submerged mass...