Confined Space Entry is rightly considered the most hazardous operation in the maintenance of production plants or refineries. Often there is no option to a manned entry involving all the consuming complications of isolations, erection of staging, and safety precautions that accompany this high risk activity.

Now, Hydroflow offer a real alternative for cleaning and inspection which does not require personnel to be exposed to the risks of tank entry. The Manless Entry equipment and techniques allow most cleaning and inspection operations to be undertaken whilst the people remain outside the tank or vessel.

Special cleaning tools remotely operated give a cleaning standard as good or better than those offered by man entry. The automatic tools don’t suffer fatigue or want a break and consistently give a high quality result. Corrosive chemicals present no danger to the machines involved with their rugged stainless steel construction and certainly they don’t need protective clothing or breathing apparatus.

After cleaning, the tanks can be inspected by remote controlled C.C.T.V cameras which have their own high powered light sources. A permanent video record can be made for future wear comparison and a full report made on C.D. for easy storage and play on any computer.
OSHA Regulation Title 29 CFR 1910.146
Confined Space Entry Precautions
This regulation protect workers who enter confined spaces from asphyxiation, and other hazards of an environment not normally safe for people to work in. similar regulations have been adopted by other countries. These common sense rules require that all sources of hazardous materials, powered equipment and inert blankets be isolated from the vessel.

Adequate ventilation must be provided, with backup provisions. Furthermore, rescue personnel and equipment are required in case the workers do become overcome by hazardous materials, or inadequate breathing air.

Training of personnel must be completed and documented. These precautions save lives, and are really important for contractors who must do this type work.

These precautions are costly though, making it wise to avoid vessel entry whenever possible. Use of 3-D water blast nozzles can often eliminate the need for vessel entry, allow more thorough cleaning than possible with men inside the vessel, and completion of the job more quickly. Downtime costing $ 15,000 per hour in lost sales is not unusual for a process plant, making the service more valuable for the contractor who can turn the cleaned vessel back for production in the least downtime.