MY MORON STORY

I was working for Brown & Root (KBR) on the South Texas nuke job. We were completing a big ass wall pour inside a building. We were using a line pump with 5” gear and had 50 or so diversion discharge gate valves in the system and probably a total of 1000’ of system. The mud was typical NRC 2” slump max. We finished the pour about 21:00 and needed to get the crete out of the lines. The pump was on the way to the wash rack behind our rubber tire loader. I had asked for a compressor earlier and (they always delivered) when I went to turn it on I saw what a monster they had brought me.

We put in the rubber pig, fixed the blowout cap in place and got ready to blow it out.

I don’t know how many of you have ever used diversion discharge valves for a pour. They work very well; but leak air like a big dog. I looked at the compressor and thought that I had just the trick for those valves… try and leak this, Pal!!!

So we cleared everyone out from around the system and let her fly. That compressor would have filled the Goodyear blimp in 9 min’s flat.

The crete was just barely moving and I was getting nervous; I was the clown that was suppose to know what he was doing and every one was looking at me just thinking about the mess we were going to have if the system didn’t blow out. There was a small pile of mud in front of the rabbit catcher and it was dry enough to walk on…… gulp! The pig had 40 valves and 900 ft of system to go.

My great idea was… we got a bunch of 4x4 and we lifted the end of the system up and put it on this x frame we built; and yea, I took off the ball catcher ;~).

Shortly there after, the mud began to move a little faster, we all cheered and yelled, knowing that we were not going to need to empty all that system by hand; ALL RIGHT, YEA!!!

The furthest thing from my thought process was turning off that compressor, NO WAY!

The mud was moving at a pretty good clip by now; the faster it went, the louder we screamed, big smiles all round.

There was a 90deg elbow right where the system exited the building, and then about 300 ft to the end. When the pig cleared that elbow the remaining pipe started to shake.

As we watched, open mouthed, the last 300 ft of full 5” system began to rise off of the ground, and the mud was flying out the end.

When the rubber pig cleared the end of the last pipe, the pipe was 20 feet in the air; pointed at the moon. It sounded like ten tons of TNT when it blasted out the end of the pipe, WOW!!!

Everyone looked at me and laughed their asses off. I was pretty much the butt of my own joke; that is the way it usually works. I told two guys to go find the pig and they took off. We wound up the air line and got it ready to move as the guys came running back to get me. They said that there was something I needed to see (NO, they didn’t have the pig).

So we climb up out of this big ass hole the building was in and they said “Look”

The engineers had a brand new job trailer, full of instruments and plans and engineer stuff on the top of this hill, problem was it had a 5” hole, dead center of the wall. So I creep around to the other side and it also had a 5” hole in the wall. I looked in the window and it looked like hurricane Katrina had set up camp inside the trailer.

Damn vandals!!! We hauled ass. ;~)

TRUE STORY  

Those are GREAT real life stories! Thanks for sharing!

Good Stuff.

3

Art,

In my own weak defense... That was in 1975 or76; I have learned two or so things since then (I hope).

The industry was just like me; young and learning. ;~) truth of the matter was that none of us had much of a clue

thats a great story started laughing when pipe started to ridse off the ground thank god noone was in the trailer lol

by the way bob pigs do fly huh lol

Bob,

I have to laugh! I can feel the joy in your story when the mud starts to move. Then the excitement from the achievement you have just accomplished. Then the TERROR when the realization of what your actions have caused! Glad everyone lived through it! Great stories guys. It takes BALLS to pass the "keeping it real" Stories along! 

What did your boss say about the trailer?

Seed

I did the right thing..........................

I never told him ;~)

Pumped on that same job myself plenty of times Bob, Those were the days!  Reminds me of the the guy who had the field jacket on and was cleaning out his pump with the grate open.  Sad Days then..............

My horror story was at New Melones Dam! 1500 ft of 5" system and the only way to clean it was air. We had started out piggybacking 2 pumps,then the inside pump blew a seal so I said put a pipe in the middle and I'll try to pump it with one pump! Well hell ,38 yds an hour was all the two pumps could average,and 30 minutes later I was giving them 55! Clean out time came and they hooked up the BIGGEST BADDEST compressor I'd ever seen! Then they brought a couple of sheets of plywood and a loader expecting the plywood to stop the pig. It didn't !! And the loader acted just like a ball return!!! The pig hit the loader at 2' above the ground at at least 100mph and returned at 100mph at about head high! It came to a stop about 700' down tunnel! We never used a compressor again!! We used a high volume water pump and a series of 5 pigs and bentonite