R & R: It’s One of our Specialties

R & R is what we all look forward to, and we’re no different.  But the R & R most people long for – rest and relaxation – is a far cry from what drives us.

Barnhart’s definition of R & R is not about lounging on a beach in some exotic locale.  It means hard work, engineering, planning, and execution centered around one of our specialties – Removing and Replacing plant components in hard-to-reach places.

The fact is, in every industry things fall apart. Pumps, boilers, heat exchangers, all have a life span.  Components break down, and when they do, it’s never convenient.

Often that component is in a difficult place that’s not accessible with standard equipment.  It might be in a congested area that not only poses logistical issues, but safety issues as well. Then there’s the matter of downtime, shutting the plant to allow for the procedure.

If it’s head scratcher, that’s when our creative juices start flowing, engineering solutions that make what appears impossible, possible. Devising safe solutions that minimize plant disruption and downtime, saving customers money.

If the tool doesn’t exist to reach this component, we’ll invent one. For example, during a turnaround at a chemical facility in Illinois, Barnhart was contracted to remove and replace a vertical gas cooler. The old cooler was located deep within the production facility and surrounded by numerous obstructions. The only solution seemed to be dismantling the surrounding structure and removing an additional heat exchanger located on top of the gas cooler. In addition to being costly, this would have caused the shutdown of a second production line.

Barnhart came up with an innovative alternative that utilized their tip stick to make the initial lift after a initial lift after a prefabricated stand was installed onto the bottom of the cooler. Very tight clearances meant one crane had to be set up to make the tip stick pick and another smaller crane was utilized for the swing.

This just one example of our R & R expertise, and we do this kind of work for a broad range of industries and a wide variety of plants.