By ED FINKELSTEIN Publisher

How do you remove a worn out five-story, 59,000 pound cylinder with 141 attached tubes weighing 2700 pounds each from a 17-story boiler at Ameren Missouri’s Laba-die power plant and out of the build-ing housing it when the 40-year-old equipment was never intended to be removed for repair in the first place? And then reverse the process to re-install new equipment?

Answer: You call on Nooter Con-struction and the skilled members of Boilermakers Local 27, who provide:• Skilled craftsmen – Local 27’s highly skilled and trained union boilermaker welders were able to work in incredibly tight spaces, working two, 10-hour shifts a day to finish a job in record time. That was important, because the Labadie unit generates 640 megawatts of electricity for 250,000 homes and businesses each day. Ameren stag-gered shutdowns at its other energy centers while the boiler was down to ensure that none of its customers were without power.• Skilled engineers – Nooter’s skilled engineers planned and

executed the complicated upgrade of essential boiler components, in-cluding removing the 59,000-pound, 20-inch diameter cylinder and 141 six-inch thick u-shaped tubes, measuring several feet across and weighing 2,700 pounds each first from the 17-story boiler and then from the five-story building, despite the fact that the building was not designed to allow for the equip-ment’s removal.• Communication – The Nooter and Ameren staff have a great working relationship with the Boilermakers. They understand one another, said Nooter Project Manager Bob Davis. “That’s critical on a job like this. The union really worked with us to get the manpower we needed.”

Boilermakers Local 27 Business Manager/Secretary-Treasurer Eu-gene Gill said the retrofit was a ma-jor success for everyone involved.

“We’re proud of the work our guys did,” he said. “It required special skilled welders working in extremely tight spaces to complete over 2,000 critical welds.

“When the union, the owner and the contractor come together with a plan, success is bound to happen,”

Gill said. “That’s been our experi-ence not only with Nooter, but other companies we work with as well.”

THE CHALLENGETo get the project done last fall,

Ameren Missouri turned to Nooter Construction and the skilled mem-bers of Boilermakers Local 27 to replace the working guts of the first of Ameren’s four boilers at Labadie that produces one-quarter of the plant’s total electrical output.

The job had to be done quickly, safely and correctly the first time. But there were some substantial challenges to overcome:• Timing – Because of demands for heating in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, major energy producers like Ameren have to do major repair or maintenance work during slow demand periods – spring and fall. Thus, every major energy supplier wants to do major repairs basically at the same time. That’s good for the contractors and their employees, but bad for the energy suppliers because everyone needs work done at the same time.• Manpower – There were a number of area projects requiring special-ized welders at the same time last

fall when the Labadie boiler up-grade began.

To provide all of the skilled hands the project required, Local 27 called on its sister Local 363 in Belleville, and worked with its International Union to bring the needed skilled craftsmen in from other parts of the country.• Cooperation – Local 27 was providing manpower to a number of jobs simultaneously last fall. Because the union has a positive working relationship with its con-struction firms, it was able obtain cooperation from those firms to move specific skills sets off other jobs and move those men to Labadie. • Special equipment – Because of the size of the components that had to be moved, Nooter needed help. Alberici Constructors had heavy cranes on site for other work and was able to provide the needed equipment to move the 59,000-pound cylinder (the Superheater Header) and the 141 five-story, 2,700-pound u-shaped tubes (Superheater Pen-dants).

The pendants move wet steam into the header, which superheats it to drive the turbines, which power the generators that produce

VOLUME 78 No. 30 Thursday, March 5-11, 2015

78YEARS

Boilermakers 27, Nooter Construction completecomplex, difficult boiler overhaul in record time

CAREFULLY – The new, five-story Superheater Header is hoisted by Boilermakers Local 27 members through an opening cut into the side of the building where the 17-story boiler is located.

CRITICAL PLACEMENT – Working inside the massive 17-story boiler, (left photo) Boilermakers Local 27 members are hanging 141, five-story tall pendants from the Superheater Header. (Right photos, top to bottom) Removing the 40-year old pendants required a spe-cific welding skill. Making sure they are aligned properly requires a great deal of skill and patience. Once lined up with the Superheater Header, the 2,700-pound, five story tall pendants are ready to be welded in place.

How it worksIn a highly simplified explanation, here’s how the process to generate

electricity basically works and why the boiler and headers are so crucial:Step 1 - The 17-story boiler first heats water to 550 degrees Centigrade

to produce saturated wet steam. Step 2 - That steam is pushed

through 141 huge, five-story tall tubes called pendants and into the Super-heater Header, where temperatures soar to 1000 degrees (under 2400 pounds of pressure per square inch) creating thermally efficient dry steam.

Step 3 – This ‘dry steam’ drive turbines.

Step 4 - The turbines turn genera-tors that then produce our electricity.

HELPING OUT – Nooter Construction received the cooperation of Alberici Con-structors to use their on-site crane to haul the Superheater Header out of the building where the 17-story boiler that houses the header is located. The 40-year old Labadie buildings weren’t designed for these kind of major parts repairs, so sections of the building had to be removed.

electricity. (See related story at lower right.)

GETTING EVERYTHING OUTSince the 40-year building hous-

ing the boiler was not designed to allow for major component replace-ments, several structural changes had to first be made to the build-ing itself to make the retrofitting possible. This included punching large holes in the building through

which the old equipment could be removed, and the new equipment installed.

This was even more complicated than it sounds.

Nooter Project Superintendent Mike Stechmesser said the five story high pendants had clearances as small as one foot at times.

“Think of the pendants as a big sheet of paper six inches think,

several feet wide and about 50 feet (five-stories) long,” Stechmesser said.

“It was a challenging path getting those old pendant assemblies out,” said Ameren Missouri Project Engi-neer Jim Schmaltz. “And we needed to get the new ones in without bend-ing or damage of any kind.”

REINSTALLATIONOnce all the old equipment was

removed, the new Superheater Header had to be installed. Then, the 141 five-story pendants had to moved into the building, lifted into the boiler and welded onto the header, with very little room in which to maneuver.

“These were less than ideal work-ing conditions – very, very tight spaces,” said Ameren Missouri Labadie Energy Center Director David Strubberg. “That made the re-installation task that much more difficult, but the boilermak-ers did it.”

SAFE AND ON SCHEDULEDespite these and other compli-

cations, the experience and exper-tise of the boilermakers and Nooter staff allowed the $13.4 million proj-ect to be completed a day ahead of its 45-day schedule, without a single injury, Strubberg said.

“The safety of this project was wonderful,” Davis, the Nooter proj-ect manager, said. “Safety is a big concern with Nooter. While other contractors say it, Nooter lives it.”

Of course, the training and skill of the boilermakers plays a big role in maintaining project safety, he added.

Davis said the company has completed 22.3 million man-hours of work without a lost-time injury.

Because of their efficiency, Ame-ren was able to take advantage of the shutdown by having Nooter and Local 27 boilermakers complete an additional 15,000 hours of other preventative maintenance on the boiler, adding almost $2 million dollars to the total cost.