One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

I've seen a lot in my recent months of employment. As I grow with this company and my responsibilities increase I can only expect to see more.

I don't know if I can handle that.

I only have 3 semesters worth of co-op experience (1 year for all practicle purposes) and nearly 8 months bona fide real world experience. I'll admit I'm still new to the game, but the things I see would make a freshman engineer weep.

Most of my gripes come from plant managers. I know what you're thinking "but what if they don't have an engineering degree! how else could they know?". Well I don't have a degree in culinary arts and I did just fine slinging taco meat. I've dealt with plenty of maintenance people who learned by experience and reading the same common practices we learned in school.

Case 1: Air compressor overheating

They don't have temp gauges anywhere on the loop. When I asked how hot the outlet water was, I was told "I touched it and it was 'really hot'". Thank you, Beau Seefus. It turns out the water quality was beyond horrid and the HXs were ruined. After cleaning the tower and replacing the HX, Beau also put in some added equipment - temp gauges! He also installed some gate valves to "meter the flow". *shudder* Perhaps I can interest you in an inexpensive orifice plate...

Case 2: Dirty chiller loop

Poor piping practices strike again. This time the project engineer, plant manager, or contractor decided to go against our filter recommendation and install whatever they wanted. Instead of a simple side stream cartridge filter that would take about 15GPM from a 450GPM line and dump back into the suction line (ensuring proper flow), they installed an array of bag filters that would come off the main supply line and return back about 4 ft from where it started. A butterfly valve was placed between the inlet and outlet on the supply line to "throttle the flow and force it into the filter array". See P&ID below for clarity:

                    __>filters>___
                   |                      |
IN>>______|___valve____|______>>OUT

Now whenever the filter gets "full" the dirty water will just go along the system - path of least resistance. They don't want to shut the valve completely to make the system a true "full flow" because it would starve the process. this is because the supply line is 6" and the filter line is 1 1/2". You ain't getting 450GPM through that... sorry!!

As a lagniappe, this system also runs propylene glycol, an anti-freeze agent. People don't understand that if the concentration drops below 25%wt, the glycol will break down into food for microbes. Pretty soon the loop smells like something rank. When prompted to add glycol to the system, I was told "why? it's summer time!" -_-

Case 3: Insulation OCD

Our final engineering mismatch is on a chilled water loop. The contractors went to insulate the line, but completely encapsulated the filter housing making it inaccesable. Nobody noticed until I asked how often they are changing the filters with the new chiller... Who does the final inspections before firing up a line?

I just don't see how seasoned veterans of the industry can make such mistakes. Especially when others are checking off on the job, too.

As my boss describes it: "Get ready to push the rope with these guys"