When blowing off into a pig, ALWAYS double check to ensure the vent valve is open. Been running a lot of loads to a highway project lately and they’re pouring at night and we bring in 18 loads during the day. I was the first one to offload yesterday morning. Apparently, they forgot to open the vent when they finished. Of course, my fault for not double checking before offloading. Boy, the pop off valve wasn’t happy with me.
We used to unload lime directly into spreader trucks from our pneumatics. The spreader trucks had a little dust bag on top that was supposed to keep the dust down. If you used too much line air you could blow the bag right off the top of the spreader truck. As one of my co-workers said one morning when I'd forgotten to hold the air down...."Good shot Terry...not much accuracy but you got good distance out of it"....as we watched the bag sail out over the construction site.
What? A poster taking responsibility for their brain fart? How unique is that? Come on Frank, you should blame it on the driver before you, the facility maintenance for not checking, or heck blame it on the bum down the street. It's his fault as he wasn't there today and you were peckish from not getting the light snack you expected before showing up
I just watched a fellow do the same thing on Friday. Little backstory: We had this customer, they were our main customer, our bread and butter, so to speak . Lots of other bulk carriers wanted the contract, but our service kept us there. We weren't the cheapest, nor the most expensive. The guy in charge wanted to save some money, so they dropped us for a larger, much cheaper carrier. And they were happy for a while, until they started running out of cement in the middle of jobs. Then they started calling us to help out, which we refused to do. Fast forward to this year. They needed fly ash, one load a day, and their quality carrier couldn't do it. So they call us, and we take the work. Friday I'm unloading ash, and here comes a load of cement. The guy hooks up to the pig, fires the blower up and the pop off valve immediately starts to scream. I could see the vent valve was closed, but hey, it's not my problem. He's standing there scratching his head, then he switches hoses around. Hooks his product line to the vent pipe on the pig, and hooks the vent hose to the pipe he's to unload into. When that didn't work, he stood there staring at it until I couldn't take it anymore. So I go over and offer some assistance. I explain what he's doing wrong, and that I've delivered here hundreds of times. He glares at me "If I wanted your help I'd have asked". So I replied "ok obviously you know what you're doing, have a good day". I unloaded and left, meanwhile, he's on the phone with someone. An hour later my phone rings, and it's the plant operator, who I'm friends with. He's laughing hysterically as he's watching the poor guy struggle. I ask why he's not out there helping. " I ain't helping them, I don't want them idiots to look good. I want your guys back" He ended up leaving with the load, after he melted his heat plug on his blower..
