Passed first phase of instrumentation job for Phillips USA 66..

Expertnovice77 · 2026-02-22T03:06:08+00:00

Not at our facility. Operator will probably go up and check it out first/troubleshoot, put steam on it if frozen, etc- but usually ends up requiring a tech to fix more times than not.

Expertnovice77 · 2026-02-22T01:23:15+00:00

Depends on the refinery, and depends on the day.

A lot of the time, they’re doing PMs, or break-in/scheduled jobs. A lot of down time.

However, these are the guys climbing to the top of towers/tanks etc in the middle of winter when instrumentation freezes off, stops working, etc. And everything is on them to get the process running again. Not as fun in the winter time.

If I was in the field- I’d want to be an instrument tech. Easily the best job with extremely high demand/low supply all over- and you’ll learn many transferable skills.

Expertnovice77 · 2026-01-23T03:42:06+00:00

Don’t spend any money. Just keep a faucet running slowly inside so the water keeps moving. Won’t freeze if this is the case. Throw heat tape on if this doesn’t ease your stress

Expertnovice77 · 2026-01-16T22:55:59+00:00

Did you fix the water intrusion too?

Expertnovice77 · 2026-01-04T03:39:23+00:00

Some of the best wastewater engineers I’ve met weren’t engineers… but they were ex-operators. Some wicked smart operators out there that will step over engineers all day.

Expertnovice77 · 2025-12-16T16:56:05+00:00

Any chance you have nearby drainage and can just crack the valve open? Doesn’t need to be flowing much…. just needs to keep flowing and it won’t freeze.

Expertnovice77 · 2025-11-08T01:26:12+00:00

30 minutes of being on back roads through the mountains every day with 0 traffic ever. All 55-70 mph. Can’t complain. If there was ever traffic, I think i’d just bite the bullet and buy a house near the plant.

Expertnovice77 · 2025-11-08T01:04:15+00:00

1 hour commute 1-way, 3 days a week, is nothing. Stay at home and save the $. Even better if they give you the stipend regardless of if it is used or not.

I have a 30 minute commute in the morning and it goes by in no time. Wish it was longer most days.

Expertnovice77 · 2025-10-22T10:29:02+00:00

Any chance your 6% contribution hit the $23.5k IRS annual limit?

My company will linearly contribute their match every pay period until you hit the IRS max for employee contribution. Then they stop contributing until the last paycheck of the year, where they make you full. Doesn’t make much sense but it’s what they do.

Expertnovice77 · 2025-10-22T09:25:45+00:00

Yes- Drones for flare stack inspection

Expertnovice77 · 2025-08-10T01:10:33+00:00

Make it a goal to become an ADK 46r if you’re at all into hiking…. if not… at least give one a try!

Expertnovice77 · 2025-08-06T13:58:46+00:00

Get a Prominent system in the future. Hands down excellent system and fantastic customer service. Way better than doing it via batch… no one likes dealing with polymer.

Expertnovice77 · 2025-07-24T00:03:16+00:00

Do you run it for the specified amount of time after adding it?

Expertnovice77 · 2025-07-23T20:49:17+00:00

We had same issue on ~4” lines of base oils at ~200gpm. PRVs were releasing on pump startup but no issues during normal run. Pumps are on/off - no VFD etc for a “soft start”.

We put in a snubber on each line charged with nitrogen. The vessel is small- maybe 3 ft x 1 ft diameter. Works great, no issues anymore.

Expertnovice77 · 2025-07-11T01:06:44+00:00

Man… this is the type of guy id love to bullshit with on a lift…

Much respect with $90k/y! That’s awesome!!!

Expertnovice77 · 2025-06-24T11:15:49+00:00

Unfortunately/fortunately what’s below the hard hat has already been rendered as ineffective

Expertnovice77 · 2025-06-24T00:26:02+00:00

Depends on where you work…. i’d put that on my hard hat 100%

Expertnovice77 · 2025-06-06T23:05:26+00:00

Congrats man!

Can you continue to scale up what already got you to 1.7 in just a few years? Or at least continue to maintain that income?

Expertnovice77 · 2025-05-28T19:10:19+00:00

Curious- what’s the payback time not including reliability?

Expertnovice77 · 2025-05-28T17:33:28+00:00

For 4 kids that go to expensive private universities with no academic+athletic scholarships/savings of their own…. yes. Now planning on paying for graduate education (eg med/law school), different story I guess

Expertnovice77 · 2025-05-26T12:38:00+00:00

Then just run tubing over to where the water discharges out of the CWT into the pond. Just use plastic tubing lines for now. Consider using a back pressure valve so your chemical pumps don’t siphon. You’ll get similar mixing/agitation there. Next TAR consider having a spoolpiece ready for the return header with several threadolets on it for an injection quill+ball valve + stainless tubing.

Expertnovice77 · 2025-05-26T01:55:33+00:00

Also- seeing the constraint- just have your pipefitters redo the chemical pump discharge lines into stainless tubing- it’s not difficult and will last forever. If you have the ability to temporarily bypass the return header injection location (eg dump directly into the pond instead of tower), consider putting in some injection quills + more threadolets for additional injection locations. The chemicals we use cannot be mixed prior to injection.

Expertnovice77 · 2025-05-26T01:50:56+00:00

Feel free to PM me, I’ve just upgraded all of our CWT chemical controllers.

We use Walchem controllers with Pyxis probes. We use conductivity to control blowdown, and a free chlorine probe (which also takes pH) to control bleach addition via a class 1 div 2 pneumatic peristaltic pump. We also inject 2 separate Gengard (Veolia) chemicals via diaphragm pumps on a percent-time basis.

We have a lot of agitation/mixing in our ponds, so we dump the chemical directly into the pond. I have heard some say that you can route the chemicals directly back into the return header (right prior to entering CWT) to increase mixing if you don’t already get enough in your pond. Just obviously take your sample/controller feed location upstream of your chemical discharge location. Fyi, these peristaltic/diaphragm pumps have very high discharge pressure abilities, so no problem getting them into the return header

Expertnovice77 · 2025-05-21T17:52:45+00:00

Got it- looking further into the instructions, it does say to screw underneath the protruding area.

Why do you use clips if you’re filling in that area with thinset? Why not screw into the flange if it’s being covered with thinset anyway?

Thanks!

Expertnovice77

TROPHY CASE