Photo of the Day: Frozen Ball Valve on Water Truck

Quicker than we would like ~ cold weather will be here, and I wanted to share an old incident that happened to us years back that I thought was worth a share with the group this fall.

We had a ball valve on the back of a water truck years ago that froze up and a mechanic’s crew was tasked with fixing the dilemma. They chose poorly, and decided to defrost it with a rose bud tip on a torch assembly. The valve was quickly thawed using high heat which converted the ice to steam which expanded and burst the valve sending flying debris in three directions and peeled other pieces of the valve back like a soda can (valve photo attached.) Fortunately, the fourth direction is where the two miner were positioned so no injury occurred only a busted valve and some dirty shorts.

Immediately after this event we decided to park equipment with frozen components inside a heated shop to thaw them slowly and avoid the superheating of frozen parts. Controlling energy sources does not always include placing a lock and a tag onto a disconnect or placing cribbing under some raised hydraulics. Learn from the mistakes of others. This sleeping energy source could have been really bad. Now, years later, the valve is a story starter in our New Miner LOTO presentation.

Keep ‘ Em Safe!  Be a cataylst for Safety.

Thanks for the share, MB!