REFERENCES
Hot job at Koverhar
Tackling 1000-degree-hot ash!
In spring of 2006 Hans Langh Cleaning Services was contacted by Ovako’s Koverhar steel mill, who requested help in solving the problem of how to vacuum up ashes in the blast furnace’s cowpers. The waste material was at a height of some ten metres and almost 1,000 degrees Celsius!
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Our Cleaning Services accepted the challenge. Our goal was to develop a solution in which the 1,000-degree-hot ashes piled up in the cowpers could be sucked away without having to shut them down for weeks.
For the job, we had hoses that could withstand temperatures of up to 1,100 degrees Celsius specially made in Germany; we designed and manufactured a separate sorting intake tank and cooling system, and we manufactured several different models and lengths of steering rods for the intake hoses.
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The work was carried out flawlessly and exactly as planned. The same task was carried out at all of Koverhar’s other cowpers.
Our extensive experience and skills helped solve this new challenge
Abating asbestos
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Removal of the asbestos-containing tile lining in a power plant boiler
We were assigned to remove the tile lining of the Voimavasu power plant’s boiler in Salo, Finland. The grout used in the brickwork contained asbestos, which naturally required special working methods.
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One challenge of the project was related to transporting tiles down more than ten metres in the negative-pressure space. We could not build stairs or ladders in the space, because there were other teams working at another level in the same boiler room. The solution was a high-power vacuum truck, which is also suitable for vacuuming asbestos. The tiles were carried to a crusher the size of a concrete mixer, which crushed the fire bricks and insulating bricks so that they fit into the intake hose. The method turned out to be efficient, fast and safe.
Conservation in Dakar
A saving of 50 days is no mean feat!
A ship, anchored off the coast of Dakar, was badly burned and the lower two levels of the engine room were filled with both water and heavy oil.
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Using the specialist equipment and methods we have developed we were able to contain the spread of the damage and begin cleaning while the ship was already heading for the repair dockyard at Las Palmas. As a result, the repair work could begin as soon as the ship had docked.
Thanks to our special expertise we were able to offer the customer the benefit of our fully specialised working methods, different from competition, saving them both time and costs. In this particular case, Ship Cleaning Services’ solution speeded up the re-introduction of the ship by 50 days.
MS Pelikan
18 days of action!
Hans Langh received an urgent distress call from Poland. The MS Pelikan, a 202-metre-long 31,000 DWT container vessel had sustained serious damage in a collision, resulting in some 80 tonnes of heavy oil getting into the engine room, pipe tunnel and cargo holds.
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The personnel at the dockyard thought saving the ship was a ‘mission impossible’. We believed otherwise and accepted the challenge. We committed to cleaning up the ship within 21 days under condition of a fine for going beyond the deadline.
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We took our equipment aboard and had it running in just 10 minutes. Thanks to our broad experience and expertise, the work advanced rapidly, and the entire ship was perfectly clean in just 18 days.
Taking up the challenge in Greece
Pack up the gear and off to Piraeus!
A large automobile transport ship was damaged in a fire. Heat had caused damage to the main and auxiliary engines, of which the ship had an exceptional amount.
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This proved to be a challenging task, involving a lot of neutralisation, chloride measurements and conservation. The repair dockyard didn’t have the exact equipment needed, so we took the required machinery with us from Finland in containers and lifted it all aboard the damaged ship at the harbour in Piraeus.
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Here again, our cleaning experts were able to provide fast and efficient service, and once the job was done the inspectors praised the results. The results of the cleaning and the conservation were in their opinion of exceptional quality, and the speed astounding.
