Another successful flow meter install by the Calibrations & Controls crew!
This time we were out in Lake Lillian helping our friend Alissa replace a failed magnetic flow meter.
Greg, one of our newer techs, got on site early and knocked out the wiring and transmitter programming before Brad and I (Garrett) joined him to handle the sensor replacement. Sounds simple… but let’s just say this one had a few surprises.
The old sensor was buried in a 12-foot pit, bolted in tight, and caked with layers of paint. After chiseling our way through the bolts, we hit a snag — the sensor was wedged so tightly between two flanges (thanks, pipe settling) that we had to break out a suspended winch and car jack to ease it out — slowly and carefully, to avoid damaging the surrounding piping.
Once the old sensor was out, we faced another challenge: whoever installed it originally skipped the ground rings (a big no-no). So we trimmed back a quarter inch of pipe to make proper room for the new sensor and the ground rings. After that, we bolted everything up to spec, checked for leaks (none, thankfully!), and completed a clean calibration.
Huge shoutout to Greg and Brad for the great work — and to Alissa at Lake Lillian for being awesome to work with.
