Boiler tube sheets at the old power plant off Route 9 looked rough

Was at a shutdown gig last month at that decommissioned plant near the Route 9 bridge. Those tube sheets had erosion so bad you could see the reamer marks from the last repair, probably 10 years back. We had to drill out 40 tubes that were peened over twice, and the ligaments were getting thin in the corner. My foreman said they'd been welding patches instead of replacing sections for years. Anyone else seeing older units get patched to death instead of doing the real retube? How do you talk a client into spending the money upfront when they keep kicking the can down the road?

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gavinp4416d ago

That "patched to death" line hit home, we had a job last spring where they'd laid weld over weld so many times the tube sheet looked like a waffle. The client kept asking why we couldn't just "fix the bad spots" and I finally had to show them the ultrasonic readings to prove the whole sheet was done. Some folks just won't learn until the thing fails on a cold night and they're paying triple for an emergency crew.