The first one I did was a saddle tap. It had a bottom half and a top half. Bottom half had a 6" outlet where I had to weld an elbow to run the new line. Top had a flange so the hot tappers could come out and open it up and divert the gas, uninterrupted. We had to do this because of the asphalt plant down the road, don't want to tell one of your best customers you have to shut them down for a few days.
They dug out as much as they could but I was only a foot and a half or two off the straight bank on one side. I remember I could sit with my back against the wall and had just enough room to weld. It was about an 8-9 foot wall straight up, a foot off of that or maybe two was a busy highway. I preheated and tacked the fittings then got to burning rod quickly as the 300-400 psi of gas trucking thru this 6" mainline cools it off quick. I remember that day vividly. I got home and was dead tired. I think I fell asleep in my chair around 6 p.m. I put it out of my mind what I was doing but always joke that I had images of it blowing flash thru my mind. I told the guys, who were over a thousand feet away that if it went boom they would have had to dig up the road to find what was left of me.
I set my heat at a normal setting for 1/8 5P+. Preheated the pipe as instructed with a propane flame thrower! Using Superflux's trick, a ball peen hammer to check the pipe in different locations was my only test. Line looked relatively new compared to some of the other stuff I've worked on for these guys. This pipe at least had the green coating, not the old asphalt coating like I have seen on other line around here. Those are a bit nerve racking as they have been in the ground for a few years!!
Yes, gas was flowing away in there the entire time. Can't shut it down because of all of the customers. We did two hot taps, ran 1500 feet of new line around 30 feet south of the old line, tied everything in, blew the new line out, diverted the flow from the old line and the customers never knew it unless they drove by us working.
Praying?? Well, for me even now it is just another thing BUT I am still aware of what I am doing and that it is a dangerous situation. It's like the other work I do. I enjoy the heck out of it and it's no big deal but never get so relaxed that you forget where you are. Last count about a month ago and 15 guys plunged to there death so far this year. Being aware of what you are doing and knowing that it is still serious business even though you've done it a hundred times. Praying?? Maybe not praying but like the other work I do, you find God and I have heard guys say, GD 300 feet up in the air then see them look up and say, "sorry". We cuss up there but you don't hear the JC or GD's and if you do, it's normally followed by a "sorry" and that's no joke!
Maybe some will say I'm being to dramatic, that it's no big deal. Those might be the guys we read about in news when a line explodes like them poor souls that got blown to bits this year. All that I have to say is it's still on your mind but your brain has a way of dealing with it, pushing it to the back of your deepest thoughts while maintaining awareness of what you are doing. Those 15 poor s.o.b's laying dead at the bottom of a tower somewhere this year had the same "I've done this a thousand times" attitude, became to relaxed in their surroundings and one mistake and your done. Like I said though, you don't dwell on it cause you'll work yourself up. I was falling asleep on the tower one day at 280 feet while waiting on the other guys to move a boom, relaxed, yep, sure was. I had my safety connected, positioning lanyard hooked. Laid my head against my spreader bar and closed my eyes. Always in your mind is "safety connected?", "positioning lanyard hooked?" "good hand holds?". I knew I would not fall, so could relax. Same goes for doing the hot taps, you have things in your mind that you know you need to do, things you need to watch while welding but you don't dwell on what is trucking thru the line.
Those are my thoughts on that.
Shawn
>the same "I've done this a thousand times" attitude, became to relaxed in their surroundings and one mistake and your done.
Dramatic?...nah, being aware of what CAN happen = Smart, and still alive to tell about it.
Shawn, it is no different than moving around structural steel in a shop full of people....one moment thinking about something other than what you are doing and someone can get hurt or killed. We don't handle cottonballs for a living and distractions usually come with some painfull consequences.
Keep your head in the game brother.
Same to you my friend, eye on the ball sort of speak!
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wait....you didn't mean literally, did you?
Good morning;
When I was younger I worked for a contractor for a major utility running residential drops and supply lines for neighborhoods. I guess the biggest was 6"; a mix of poly and steel pipe. When we had to run steel lines off an existing main, we would have to hot tap. We would get the hole ready for the welder and locate the area for the saddle. Then we would get the old manual cutting apparatus and start cranking away. Was not fun tapping a live line out in the bald eye sun. If it was good pipe, it would take forever. The more rotten, the easier it was. It got real interesting when we would have the tap opened up and the welder had more welding to do. The old machines would always leak by a bit and catch fire out of the top of it. This didn't bother the old welder though. I, on the other hand, was vacating the area in a not so orderly fashion. The poly was much easier; just pinch it off and go. Had some good times though.
Have a good one;
Matt
Thanks for sharing Shawn.
No problem, oh, and p.s., don't come home and tell your wife that you fell asleep dangling 280 feet from the side of a tower!!
