Bonnie--At work

At work we just finished an outage. An outage is where we shut the plant down and do major maintenance and make changes to different systems throughout the plant. This one lasted 23 days, from my understanding they can last much longer, so I am relieved it was ONLY 23 days. The upside of it--off work at 5:30ish instead of 7 p.m. The downside of it--it was 23 straight days of work! So, after I finish work this Thursday, I will have worked 31 of the last 33 days. Yuck! (Although they have been more than decent paychecks. Don't want to do it often though.)

It was actually kind of fun most days.

Until the end when I was so tired and sore that I couldn't hardly move. Anyway, here is a brief recap of what I did...

Confined Space: Checking the air quality (sniffing) the space to be worked in, and occasionally hole watch. Hole watch could arguably be the most boring job ever. Really. What hole watch consists of is staying outside of the work area (confined space) and waiting outside while other people work. I know, I know, it doesn't sound bad, however, when you spend 8 + hours a day watching the same space AND YOU CAN'T LEAVE it gets boring. FAST. There was at least one day however, that I was relieved to be on hole watch because I was so tired.

Replacing air filters: in the above pictures we were at the air inlet. We had to change all the pre-filters in both units. 418 in each unit. It is a long process, luckily I was only involved in finishing up the project. Part of what I did was operate the man-lift and bring the filters up to the 3rd and 4th levels. While the man-lift can be fun, going up to the 4th level was outside of my comfort zo

ne. But I did it. Several times. (If you don't know, the man lift can hold two people or one and a load, rotate 360 degrees, raise to 90 feet, the platform rotates and tilts. And yes, you can drive it while you are lifted. It can be quite fun.)

Racking in breakers: There are many large breakers we had to open and lock so they wouldn't be used. These breakers are 4160 volt breakers. Very large and very dangerous if not done properly. So it was time for Loraine and I to learn. Because of the potential for fire, we had to wear special protective gear. Bibbed overalls, jacket, hard hat with hood, and rubber gloves with leather gloves over them. The clothing is fire resistant which makes it heavy. (Super glad we were doing this in Nov. instead of July.) So we dressed up for the task.

There was alot more, but these were the best pictures. I was in oil quite a bit, water quite a bit, up and down the stairs to the top of the HRSG (eight flights), there was so much going on. Many things to see that I hadn't been able to before. Lots of food. Most of the contractors brought us food at least once. (Okay, so the new Granger Tool Rep only did it because "someone" left a note on her car windshield with the message, "Next time you come bring food." I don't know who would have done that though. But apparently she got the idea and brought food a few days later. LOL!)

I didn't work on the cooling tower, but I went to see what was going on there. Up until this point I really didn't know how big everything was there. Once they got all the water out, I was able to climb down in there and look around. This is what I found:

That is a water pump. Yes, it is the largest pump I have ever seen! Really! The motor for that pump has 4160 volts behind it. As a reference, the washing machine uses 120 volts, and the dryer uses 240 volts. Anyway, while I was down in the cooling tower, I was told it holds roughly 2 million gallons of water. When we refilled it, we used water from the city water department. The residents around the plant don't particularly like it when we do that as we use about 3,000 gallons a minute when we refill. Tends to drop their water pressure a bit...

And it seems that the engineers that designed most of the plant assumed they would have Chinese Acrobats working on the systems because I don't know how they thought average Americans would fit into those places! Sheesh! I twisted and turned ways that I don't think I was supposed to anymore. Ouch!

Anyway, that is how I have spent the last month. Any questions?