Just realized that simple tube patch took me 3 days to figure out

I had a condenser tube leak on a job in Baton Rouge last week. Thought it was a bad weld, so I cut it out and rewelded. Leak was still there. Then I checked the tube sheet and found a hairline crack running behind the tube. Three days of chasing my tail, and it was a 2 hour repair once I found the real problem. Anyone else ever waste time on the wrong fix first?

3 comments

3 Comments

felixm2913d ago

That tube sheet crack is a sneaky one. Happens a lot in older units where the metal gets fatigued from thermal cycling. I've seen guys spend days swapping out tubes or re-rolling them only to find out the sheet itself was the problem the whole time. Usually if you catch it early you can drill a stop hole at each end of the crack and weld it up, but if it's running behind a tube you pretty much have to blind it off or retube that section. The frustrating part is how simple the fix is once you stop looking at the obvious suspect. It's like your brain locks onto one possibility and you can't see anything else until you step back and look at the whole system fresh.

emma_wells8313d ago

Yeah, "obvious suspect" is basically my middle name at this point.

emma_garcia13d ago

A buddy of mine spent three whole days chasing a bad sensor on a chiller loop last summer. He replaced the controller board, rewired half the panel, even swapped the pump relay out of desperation. Turns out it was just a loose ground wire that he'd nudged when he first opened the panel, and he didn't notice because his brain was locked on the sensor being the problem.