the_jason•9d agoMost Upvoted

That time a dry run saved my butt on a hydro test in Gary

We were doing a hydro test on a 12,000 gallon tank outside Gary last month and my foreman made us walk every fitting first before we even hooked up the pump. Found a cracked flange gasket on the manway that would have dumped water everywhere and blown the whole schedule. The repair took 20 minutes instead of a full redo, plus cleanup. Do you guys do a full dry run before pressure tests or just trust the checklist?

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daniel8576d ago

We did a 12,000 gallon hydro test last spring and skipped the dry run. The checklist said all the gaskets were good, we checked the torque on the flanges, everything looked fine on paper. Pumped it up to test pressure and one of the small 2 inch fittings on the side started weeping within five minutes. We caught it before it blew, but we still had to drain the whole tank and redo the test. That cost us a full afternoon and a lot of water. The dry run would have taken maybe thirty minutes and saved us the headache. But I also get your point about the checklist, if the paperwork is done right, it should catch most of the problems. We just had a bad gasket that nobody bothered to look at close enough, and a second set of eyes before we hooked up the pump would have seen it. I think the dry run is worth it if you have the time, but I wouldn't call it a hard rule for every single test.