Wandered into a boiler room at a plant in Gary and saw a pipe patch that looked like a 3 year old did it

I was down at the old US Steel plant in Gary last week doing some weld inspections and found this steam line patch job that was straight up scary. Someone had used what looked like hose clamps and bathroom caulk to seal a 4 inch crack in a 150 psi line. I snapped a pic and sent it to my foreman and he laughed for like 5 minutes straight before calling the plant manager. Has anyone else run into sketchy field repairs that made you double check your insurance?

2 comments

2 Comments

morgan_jenkins901d ago

Are you sure that wasn't just a temporary fix by a guy who knew the plant was shutting down in a month? I've seen guys use duct tape and silicone on 200 psi lines because the part to fix it right was a week out and the line had to run today. Sometimes the real hack is the safety inspector who pretends not to see it until the next major outage.

tara3451d ago

You really think a safety inspector is just going to look the other way on a 200 psi line held together with duct tape? That's a bomb waiting to go off. Those guys might get away with it for a day or two, but the moment that stuff lets loose you've got a major injury and a lawsuit that shuts the whole company down. More often than not, it's a guy who knows the exact part number and is willing to wait the weekend to do it right, not risk his neck for a temporary fix. The real hack is the manager who signs off on overtime so the proper repair can happen on a Saturday.