Epic Failure

[Senile Old Fart]

NOT automotive related. I didn't know were to put this. the POR 15 thread about the micro cracking got me to thinking about sharing this.

By trade I am a Pipe fitter/plumber. You know- the guy that knows shit flows downhill and payday is Friday,lol.
Enough about me.

Before Christmas I was sent to a Level 4 Bio-lab facility in Montana to remove some plumbing our company had installed a few years ago.

This place is scary creepy to say the least.. level 4 lab rooms are like nothing you have ever seen, HEPA filtered air in / double HEPA filtered air out. Hermetically sealed doors. ( 1 silicone door seal is $2500 for the seal, then there is the recertification etc.)
Lab Workers wear the "space suit" which is connected to breathing air supplied by a system you really wouldn't believe unless you see it.

There are 2 doors to each room, one off the main hallway, basically the maintenance entry, and the other door goes into the decon chem wash, uv bath, & who knows what else room.

Security cameras view 100% of each room and tape 24/7. The cameras are in stainless steel enclosures that are hermetically sealed and pressurized with some type of gas.
These people are serious about keeping the bugs under control.

I hope the TSA never learns of these peoples security measures, it take about a half hour to enter the facility. Tunnels, wands, dogs, facial recognition, all to get through the entry door into a building, that's after tunnels and wands and vehicle inspection just to use the parking lot. $700 per person security screening before you even think about going there.

Now to the heart of the story.
The walls ,floor and ceiling are all poured concrete. The concrete was coated with epoxy with a thickness of a bit less than 3/32" .
The product is bad, if you examine an area say 2'x2' closely you will see hundreds of star burst cracks.
After a mellion dollar study of the coating failure the outcome was take it all out and replace it.
They have tried a number of different techniques to remove it. Naturally sandblasting would, but this is a working lab and the dust from the blasting most likely cannot be controlled to level 4 requirements.
The technique they arrived on is liquid nitrogen, freeze it off the walls.

In about 1 year the epoxy will have all been replaced. As it is a working lab they can only shut down so many rooms, that means we work in a room and they work in the room next to us. Remeber those door seals, sure hope they work real well,lol.

Just thought you might like to know this little bit.

 

[Barry]

They actually use Liquid nitrogen to remove bed liners.

This story makes me feel bad, as we just go room to room with our coffee her. LOL

 

[Mike K]

Product opportunity here Barry......
Obviously the engineers did not realize that concrete "breathes" and used too hard a sealer to contain any bugs.
Like POR,it was probably a ceramic style sealer and has no expansion capacity.
Heck,Looks like bed liner would be the ticket.Seals great,is flexible and can be washed down.LOL....
I've been in some of these type environments as well and it's a real test to your patience.
Prisons,med labs,operating rooms,IT server rooms. Actually the worst was at UAMS and replacing some hot/chilled water air handler room units,the "problem" was we had to store all our stuff in a large storage room in the Gross Anatomy Lab.Nothing like going thru a room full of metal coffins with cadavers and the smell of formaldehyde along with the students "practicing" exploratory procedures. Uggghhhh....
I went into one office room to replace the air handler and there were all these opaque plastic tubs on shelves filling the entire room,.......full of white rats in solution....I never bothered to ask.
And then there was the rendering plant......WHY they had a break room in between the processor and storage area was just "wrong".I guess some people can get use to anything.Lunch anyone????