Had a very successful digester shutdown in 2002. I credit much of our success to Sky-Hi Scaffolding for their innovation and hard work. There are 3 outstanding things that Sky-Hi did this last annual shutdown to help us safely meet our tight schedule and budget:
Digester Hydro Wash Dishes In 1997 Sky-Hi designed a dish (Hydro Dish) that they installed in our digester to allow for hydro washing at two elevations at the same time. The first time we used it we completed the hydro wash 14 hours ahead of schedule. Now Sky-Hi installs two of these dished to allow for hydro washing at 3 elevations at the same time. Before we used the hydro dish the hydro wash took 32 hours. This last year we completed the hydro wash using the two dishes in 12 hours. The 12 hours includes the time taken to install and remove the hydro dishes.
Digester Ventilation System
Last shutdown we weld overlaid two circumferential welds in the digester. This work creates a lot of carbon monoxide and we needed a good ventilation system to allow other work to proceed in the digester at the same time. I asked Sky-Hi if they could incorporate a ventilation system into their scaffold. Sky-Hi did design and supply a ventilation system for us that worked very well. We monitored the CO levels throughout the digester continuously and always found the levels well below the WCB and OSHA acceptable levels. The other work in the digester proceeded without incident and all work was completed on schedule.
Digester Scaffolding Design and Modification to allow for load increase
Last year we needed to upgrade the capacity of the digester scaffold because we had a larger number of people and more equipment going into the digester than we normally do. Sky-Hi found a way to minimize the modifications and essentially eliminated any additional cost by designing and installing additional leg supports that fit right into the 4 counter nozzles in the bottom of the digester.
I would like to thank Sky-Hi for their attention to safety, hard work and ingenuity and look forward to working with them on future projects here at .......
