Texas City Water Utilities Uses The Valve Out Tool To Conserve Resources
“We’re extremely pleased with the Valve Out tool, a new piece of equipment that Corbin Ballast, Director of Utilities found for us at a technical conference he recently attended,” said Tim Stamford, Water Utilities Operations Superintendent for the City of Texas City.
“With increased safety for our workers, portability, reduced personnel and equipment costs, the Valve Out Tool has paid for itself many times over in the short time since we made the investment. It’s a cost-effective use of our budget funding.”
Corbin Ballast first deployed the Valve Out tool at the City of Texas City Water Tank to replace a leaking gasket on a 14″ flanged pipe connection.
“We would have had to excavate, cut pipe, install a repair coupling, and backfill. A two-day job was completed in one hour,” said Ballast.
The latest job involved the replacement of a 12″ Plug Valve that would not completely close due to age and lack of maintenance. The Plug Valve was replaced with a 12″ Mueller Resilient Wedge Gate Valve as part of the Utilities ongoing efforts to upgrade and update the Texas City infrastructure. The Mueller valve is cost effective and has significant modern advantages in design and operation.
This two-hour project was completed with a smaller crew in 30 minutes. The use of the Valve Out Tool eliminated a four hour set up of emergency wells as a precaution to prevent disruption of the City water supply if the project lasted longer than two hours.
According to Tim Samford, the risk of injury when using the Valve Out Tool is greatly reduced because hammers and impact tools are not needed and maneuvering the valve out and in without restrictions greatly reduces possible injury.
“Valves that are larger than 6″ can easily exceed one ton and with this amount of weight it doesn’t take much for things to go wrong. Hand and finger injuries can easily occur in re positioning heavy replacement valve, fittings and gaskets without proper equipment like the Valve Out Tool keeping our people safe. Utilities do this type of work every day and prevention of injury to staff is one of our highest priorities,” said Samford.
Corbin Ballast, Director of Utilities said, “The Valve Out tool represents another example of prudent a cost-effective use of public resources by the City of Texas Utilities Department to improve the City’s infrastructure.”
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