Hit 500 boiler tubes replaced on a single shutdown job in Tulsa and my hands are wrecked

My crew and I just wrapped up a 14-day turnaround replacing those tubes in an old power plant boiler, and I honestly lost count around 300 but the foreman confirmed 500 total when we buttoned up. I've been in this trade for 12 years and never came close to that number on one job before, my forearms are still buzzing from the hogging and expanding. Anyone else ever have a shutdown where the tube count got that high and you just powered through it?

2 comments

2 Comments

linda_murphy13d ago

...and here I was thinking I was tough for swapping out 80 tubes last spring on a little package boiler, 500 is just nuts. Did you guys at least have one of those fancy hydraulic expanders or were you still swinging on the hand tools like a bunch of cavemen? I swear the worst part isn't even the tube work itself, it's the next morning when your hands decide they don't want to open or close anymore and you gotta peel your coffee cup off your palm. My buddy did a job in Baton Rouge a few years back where they hit 400 and he said the only thing that kept him going was the thought of that per diem check at the end. Hope you're icing those paws down and not trying to be a hero with a beer in one hand and a wrench in the other.

ellis.rose13d ago

Woke up this morning and my hands made that noise like stepping on old snow.