Lead Climb on 185 foot Stack

In project management one of the biggest goals is to give the customer the product they desire and the lowest cost to your company.  This 185’ stack needed to be inspected and there was no ladder system to the top of the stack.  Typically the only way to inspect a stack in this condition is to hire a crane at the average cost of $9,000 per day.  On this particular project rope access techniques were applied.  Using rope access techniques we were able to climb to the top of the stack, rig repelling ropes and inspect both the interior and exterior at a much lower cost than traditional access techniques.    

Church Steeple Rebuild

Some projects are just more enjoyable that others.  In my spare time I have a fairly good sized workshop where I like to build furniture.  When I was retained to manage the rebuild of the this church’s steeple it was nice to work with wood and brass for a change instead of the usual concrete and steel.  We rebuilt and repaired from the stucco up to include the metal steeple.  Being able to use ropes and rigging to most of the materials up and down saved the customer the costs of having to use a crane.  This steeple sits 85 feet about a crowded downtown area. 

Stack Replacement

Last Year we inspected a stack that was in horrible shape.  We recommended the entire stack be taken down and replaced.  A year later our customer called us and said they were ready to replace the stack, however they have only 7 days in their shutdown schedule to tear down the old stack and erect the new one.  This normally isn't an unusual amount of time, however this particular location was still getting snow and during the site visit experienced 60+ MPH winds.  Infact, during the previous year the wind ranged from 23 to 57 mph.  How was a 300' tall crane going to lift the sections of the stack in and out, each section was about 50' long and approx 15,000 lbs.  The wind load alone would cause a drag effecient of more than the crane's lifting capacity of 27,000lbs. 

To make matters worse the stack is surrounded by a steel derrick that supports the stack.  There is less than 2 inches of clearance around the stack.  Lifting the old stack out and placing the new one into the derrick would need to be completed with the utmost precision.  Upon inital rigging of the old stack it was discovered the cracks in the stack had deteriorated to the point where they covered 270 degrees of the stack.  When we lifted the stack it opened up like a soup can...




Can you locate all four workers on the derrick?

 

After significant amounts of engineering we came up with a solution that would allow each of the pieces to be lifted out of the tight fitting derrick safety.  This project invloved a great deal of risk from lifting to pinch points to technicians needing to be on the derrick to guide the stack in and out.  Each step of the project required a great deal of planning to midigate the risk as much as possible. 

In the end the replacement went off with out a hitch (minus some down time due to excessive wind).  We also up sold the customer on some additional stack components and were asked to come back the following year to inspect 4 more stacks they have.  In the end the 45 days of planning, engineering, ordering the necessary tools for the job and building the new stack were all worth while as the customer was very happy.

350' Concrete Stack Inspection and Metal Repair.

A customer contacted us after an earth quake rattled their plant.  We mobilized rather quickly and did an inspection on their 350' concrete stack, elevator, platforms and avation warning lights.  We discovered they had damage to the interior brick stack and one of the metal bands had fallen off and was laying inside the annulus space (space between inner stack and windscreen).  Although we recommended reapir of the brick work that was damaged they only had immeiate funding to replace the band as other more critical equiment had been damaged as well. 

Since the annulus space was far too small for any motorized lifting equipment the couple hundred pound steel band had to be manually hoisted into place.  Just like ancient times, it's amazing what several thousand feet of rope and pully systems can do.  A rigging system was created allowing only two people to easily hoist the entire band into position, 180' in the air so that other technicians could repel down to it from the top of the stack and install the metal band, thus resuppirting the brick chimney.

All equipment including the 20 foot sections of band and workers had to be manuvuered through these small spaces.

Pond Spillway Repair - Not all Chimney's go upward!!

When an automotive manufacturer called up about a chimney repair we weren't too surprised, after all it is what we do.  When they said they had water leaking in we weren't too surprised, after all condensation or cracks in the concrete can cause leaks.  But when they said it was 35' underwater we started to pay attention. 

The spillway in their waste water pond began to crack and leak water.  The EPA was telling them they had to patch the leaks in order to comply with waste water regulations.  The question became, how do you plug a hole in a damn if you can't find the hole?!!   On one side we could see two hole that were leaking water, but the other side of the 8 inch concrete spillway was covered in water and we couldn't see where the cracks were.  

We engineered a solutions to not only seal the leaks in the wall but seal all interior cracks and prevent future cracking. 

The video is the first of two holes that were 35' below the surface of the water. 

The picture is the top of the spillway located in the middle of the pond.

Government Contract for Chimney Inspections.

When our residential division was asked to inspect over 25 chimney's several states away my boss assigned me to manage to project.  I was assigned due to my familiarity with government contracts and military bases (where the chimney's were located) and my familarity with interstate travel and logistics.  The project consisted of inspecting and recommendation for repair on 8 different 100+ year old homes that currently house the senior officers of this military installation.  Travel, cordinations with families needed to be made, equipment rental, and sometimes even blocking off streets since the spring ground was too soft to support large equipment were all part of the projects pre-execution work.  Once we got all of our pieces in place the inspections went fairly quickly.  The homes were amazing and we are looking forward to returning to do the repairs very soon.

* Second largest single family government residence.   The White House is the largest.

Repeat Business!! Gunite Liner - Spray-able Acid Resistant Concrete

The customer who had to short stack with crazy timeline contacted us about one of their larger stacks.  This 350' concrete stack had a failed interior liner.  The emissions from their boilers were now starting to corrode the concrete itself.  To extend the lift of their stack we suggested a new liner.  Spraying a special gunite liner will protect the concrete and extend the life of the stack.  The only problem is getting the right volume and pressure of water and wet, heavy concrete from a truck to a moving platform 350' in the air.  I spent several weeks lining up all of the needed parts from lifts to air compressors to earth movers to hydroblasters to workers.  Weeks of planning came down to 5 days of execution from door open to door close.  I'd spent the week prior on site recieving and placing equipment so when the project started everything was ready.  Due to limited space we ended up shuttling over 100,000 lbs of concrete across the plant and into the gunite trucks in the middle of a shutdown (which meant there were hundreds of other contractors on site).  After 2 days of setting up the lifts, hydroblasting and rigging of water and air we began to spray concrete.  The concrete subcontract was great, he rotated people and kept his crews spraying nonstop for almost 20 hours the first day!  The concrete was finished on day four and on day five we tore down and presented the happy customer a newly lined and now protected smokestack!

As you can tell from the picture, a lot of planning had to go into getting all of the equipment into such a small space. 

We had to get the exact water pressure and volume to all areas of that stack and spray concrete from top to bottom.