Quote:
Originally Posted by sammyg2
That place stull exists?
Guess I lost that bet.
I worked there back in the 80's and recognized it was a BS scam immediately.
A place to turn federal tax money into local revenue. Not cost effective, did more damage to the environment than good.
It was also very poorly engineered and designed.
Example:
Al big furnaces have forced draft (FD) and induced draft (ID) fans to blow the air through the furnace.
The motor on one if their ID fans had failed and they called my company to replace the motor despite the fact that we were very expensive and specialized in stuff that was too difficult for typical plant forces.
The reason they called us: The ID fan sat in the middle of a maze of large duct work.
Ducting that was around 8 to 10 feet tall, and the motor was probably around 3000 pounds or so. it was a long time ago, caint remember the 'zact details but it were heavy and inaccessible.
A crane large enough to reach it and pick it would have cost tens of thousands of dollars and take a few weeks to get shipped and built on-site.
So we built a combination of a small gauge rail system with an adjustable pedestal car that we could slide the motor onto, and roll it around the track with the use of tuggers to a location that was close enough to the road where a large (but not giant) crane could pick it and load it on a semi trailer.
re-installation was a the same steps reversed.
One thing I clearly remember was how gross the place was. Thee bolts that held the motor to the base were covered with maggots and had to be brushed off before putting a wrench on them.
And there were a few places where there were puddles of maggots on the ground and they were slippery when stepped on.
You can imagine the smell, don't have to go there.
But the money was really good.
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Did some checking, they were planning to shut down that plant last year but Long beach spent $14 million in upgrades to keep it alive until 2024.
for reference, a couple of pics of similarly sized ID fans:
