If you stay in process safety long enough you will see some scary stuff! It seems that “piping inspections” are become the norm these days, which after only 27 years of OSHA’s PSM standard being around I guess it is “about damn time!”. Having grown up in the chemical industry, MI inspections were a way of life – heck I thought everyone was doing piping inspections and using API 570 as their RAGAGEP. When I started consulting I found out quickly that if I wanted to scare clients I only needed to dress up like a “piping inspector”! Still today I come across some business that still believes they are different and somehow their piping is different. The video below is a section of pipe that we found in a recent inspection (PLEASE NOTE: SAFTENG does NOT do piping inspections – I only help clients manage their inspections). But this was 12-year-old insulated pipe that had an ice ball on the size of about 8 basketballs lined up – a true sign there was a vapor barrier breach. Jokingly… it was the ice that was keeping this pipe from blowing out!
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