Plumbing test goes seriously wrong

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Mooderator
Staff member
Hearth Supporter
Nov 18, 2005
106,294
South Puget Sound, WA
Testing for a high-pressure central hot water system goes very wrong in Kiev. The fools were trying to use pipes that hadn't been in use for 37 yrs.. Fortunately no one was hurt.

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And insurance
 
Testing for a high-pressure central hot water system goes very wrong in Kiev. The fools were trying to use pipes that hadn't been in use for 37 yrs.. Fortunately no one was hurt.

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Just another demonstration of the capability and mentality of municipal planners and engineers.
 
Oh..muni techs aren't that bad... they inherit the debris of eons, and try to make the best of it
 
Just another demonstration of the capability and mentality of municipal planners and engineers.

Hey, I resemble that remark. It has nothing to do with planners, they're just worried about the color of your siding. The engineers in Ukraine likely had nothing to do with this either. They don't operate the systems. What you have here is an actual blue collar guy turning valves that caused the blow.
 
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Having worked for a water utility and also working for a large industrial plant that moved a lot of water around both with old infrastructure, stuff happens and when it does it makes a mess. I used to test fire hydrants for the utility and there was a usually a repair crew following us as we inevitably would expose leaks in the system. On a lot of those systems, the main line valves were old and due to hydraulics the main line valves would need to be closed over a period hours if not days, otherwise they could break or the pipes attached to them could split due to water hammer. Some were over 100 years old and many were 50 to 75 years. I was on a break once where a line was broken and one of the crew was turning a underground main line valve, luckily he was trained and wasn't standing over the valve but rather working it from the side. The valve bonnet bolts snapped and the top works came up out of the ground and into the air followed by a geyser. They moved down the street to the next valve and it happened again and then a third time before they found a valve that didn't blow. The water system was gravity fed from a lake so there were no pumps to shut down.

I missed out where a painting crew were assigned to paint the inside of a large water tank. Usually the manholes swing inwards so they cannot be opened until the tank is drained. The drain apparently became plugged at one point and progressively the flow reduced so they assumed it was empty. The manhole wouldn't open so the crew took a plank and put it up against the cover and backed their van into it. The tank still had some level of water in it and the manhole did open at some point. Next thing the driver knew he was being carried down a hill side by a stream of water and in some spots the ditch was 30 feet deep. This was long before youtube and all the photos were put in a locked file as the management really did not want the publicity.