Got called out for my old way of setting a boiler on its pad

Was on a job in Spokane last month and the foreman saw me just eyeballing the level. He said, 'You're leaving a quarter inch of stress on that one pipe leg, it'll sing in six months.' I started using a machinist's level on every pad now, even for smaller units. Anyone else have a small change that made a big difference in the long run?

4 comments

4 Comments

hayden_ramirez2mo ago

Wait, a quarter inch of stress can make a pipe sing? That's wild. Guess my eyeball isn't as good as I thought.

robertcarr2mo ago

So what were you trying to eyeball, a bend or a weld?

gavin3652mo ago

A quarter inch causing noise? That's way less than I would have guessed. Makes me rethink my own eyeballing for sure.

jadej508d ago

Honestly, I gotta stop you there a bit. It's not exactly a quarter inch of stress that makes the pipe sing, it's the fact that the boiler being off-level means one pipe leg is carrying more weight than the others. That uneven load creates constant tension that can make the pipe vibrate at certain frequencies once everything heats up and expands. So the foreman was right that eyeballing it can cause issues, but the problem is really the uneven weight distribution over time, not just that one measurement alone. Machinist's level is definitely the way to go though, no argument there. Ngl, I do the same thing now after getting burned on a commercial job a couple years back.