Loading…
6
DAE have a tube sheet leak show up right when the job is almost done?
Honestly I was on a small package boiler job outside of Gary, Indiana last month and we were maybe two days from wrapping up the hydro. I had just finished walking the drum one more time when I heard that little hiss that nobody ever wants to hear. Turned out a rolled tube on the lower rear row was weeping just enough to leave a wet streak down the sheet. We had 3 guys on that job and the super was already talking about pushing the startup back a week. I grabbed my tube map from the truck and figured out which one it was instead of guessing. We ended up pulling the tube, cleaning the hole with a wire brush on a drill, and rerolling it with a new ferrule. Took about 4 hours total once we stopped panicking. Ngl that hiss still lives in my head rent free. Has anyone else had one pop up right at the finish line, and did you reroll it or just replace the tube?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
grantl9427d ago
That "little hiss that nobody ever wants to hear" is the worst sound on a job site, but I have to push back on the reroll being the right call here. A weeping rolled tube two days before hydro usually means the hole itself is out of round or the sheet has some wall loss at that spot, and rerolling just buys you time until it leaks again on startup. I have seen guys chase a seeping tube with a reroll three or four times and burn a full shift every time, when pulling the tube and welding in a new one would have been one and done. The wire brush and new ferrule trick works great on a fresh rollout that just did not seat right the first time, but on an old sheet you are rolling into a hole that has already given up. Four hours feels fast in the moment, but if that tube lets go during the hydro walkdown you are the guy who has to explain it. Pulling the tube is more work up front, but it saves you the second trip and the second hiss.
7