phase, then a rebuild phase—you’re
going to pull all that equipment and
send it to [the] shop then send it back to
the plant for reinstallation.”
One of the biggest problems with a
large-scale disaster is shortage of infor-
mation, parts and people. For example,
in many disasters, much of the plant’s
engineering and other documents are
lost, which is exacerbated in older plants
where the information was already insuf-
ficient because valves weren’t tagged or
the companies that made the valves and
actuators have gone out of business or
been acquired. “That’s when the site
engineering takes over and determines
the characteristics of flow for that given
area, or characteristics for the valve or
actuator for that place,” Roubik says.
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ture [the part] this year and then have
China manufacture it the next year,” he
says, as well as companies that simply
keep inadequate records, which causes
specifications that are off. This can be an
expensive problem, he adds, because: “If
you’re talking about … a $75,000 valve,
and you can’t preorder a stem because
you don’t know what the stem is, you
have to take it apart and get a dimension
so it’s a long process.”
On the other hand, suggests Bohan-
non, many manually-operated valves can
be salvaged even with no OEM parts
available, especially manual gate globes
and checks, and some quarter-turn plugs,
he says. As far as older control valves are
concerned, “you have soft goods and
parts that may not be supported any
longer, but usually those are on a list for
replacement,” he says.
As far as deciding whether to repair
or replace a valve, there are simple ways
to determine what’s best. Roubik says
that if the cost to repair a valve or actuator exceeds 50% of its replacement cost,
it’s better to “give the customer the
option of replacing or getting it
repaired.” The decision usually depends
on both timing and budget, he adds.
Still, it often is a good idea to send
equipment that seems to be in reasonably
good shape to the shop because of liability issues, suggests Bohannon, if only to
be re-tested and re-inspected. Such steps
are not that different from normal maintenance, but “you still need to go through
the valves and satisfy yourself that they
are in good order,” he says.
WORDS OF ADVICE
When asked how to prepare for any disaster, many advise the best method is good
records. By keeping careful records of
serial numbers and spare parts, and by
stamping serial numbers into the bodies
of all valves: “It helps when you go to fix
the valve, because just a tag alone doesn’t
work; those will melt,” McCoy says.
Roubik advises valve companies to
remember that their relationship with
customers is “a complete process from
the sale, the construction of the plant to
the sale of new product to the repair.” He
notes that following hurricane Katrina,
there were some valve companies that
