Asheville, North Carolina City of Asheville, 24 Apr 2019

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From YouTube: Wet Lab: Water Maintenance Training Facility

Description

Before they hit the field and real waterline break and installation situations, Asheville Water Resources puts its maintenance employees to the test in a hands-on simulation setting. They get wet! They learn how to fix a pipe that’s under several feet of water. This makes them better prepared when they encounter the real deal.

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Hi, my name is Tim Burton under the vision manager, overwater maintenance. This is our wet lap training facility. We kind of wanted to bring in and show you how we train our new hires on their probationary period to kind of get them prepared for what's about to take place in the field, I'm gonna actually go over and walk you through some of the situations we're going to be doing today. So let's go.

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The first tasks they're gonna be doing is basically taking this Corp stop, knocking it off at this at the tap saddle. This is an actual tap saddle.

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That's on a water main they're, going to actually knock this thing off and go inside to take the old threads out, then replace it with a brand new Corp stop in which they'll get the order, stop and then they're going to simulate the service renewal which I actually come over here to this was what we call the yolk set up: they're going to tie a piece of copper in get water to this. Yolk set up water meter sets down in here, and this is where our customer meters are set.

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So have the guys show you how this task is done.

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And I was installing a water meter, so you can get water to the service back to the resident customer.

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So what he just did he took completed some hair out of the line, so we don't send it into the customers residents of that's common practice for us once you get the meter back in and he'll have water ready to the service.

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The next task will do is show you how we replace this six-inch wraparound order player clamp when we have a split in the pipe or a hole in the pipe. That's a small hole. We use these two kind of like a band-aid, and this is an easy method to use. We actually use it on 4 inch, 6 inch, 8 inch, 10 inch, sometimes 12 inch pipe so now, I have the guy show you how it's done so.

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What we're doing now is charging the pipe you'll see water starts, shooting out of the pipe which simulates the main line break. Ultimately, we get holes in the pipe or a being break around it, and this is where we can use our repair clamp, which is what we call a wraparound to make the repair.

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And, as you see, he's starving from the side of the pipe, because you try to put the repair clamp directly on top of the brake, just gonna be hard to fight that. So we usually try to start out to the side and slide it over.

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And, as you see, the water is evenly spraying out of both sides of the pipe, which kind of tells us that a Senate.

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So before we go to the next task, I kind of wanted to explain why this saddle is placed at a 45 degree angle versus this saddle over here- that's placed at a 90 degree angle. The reason for that is with this saddle. This is for our residential taps and, as you see at the 45 degree angle, the top of the pipe. This is where your air is going to go anytime. You get it in the system.

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So to avoid having an air go to the customer service tab, we place the saddles at a 45 degree angle, with the saddle over here at the 90 degree angle. As you see it's perfectly on top of the pipe, because your air is going to rise to the top of the pipe which up at the top, is an air valve. It's our relief valve. This is where your air is going to be discharged, so the next station we have is where we use our two inch for pair clamps.

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The guys are going to demonstrate how we use a coupling clamp and how we use a regular repair, clamp in situations that we run in with smaller lines in the system. So now we have, the guy show you how that's that scenarios down.

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So as our final task, we're going to show you our training, this is kind of something that we introduced not too long ago. We wanted to place our new hire employees in a controlled environment, simulating what they'll see every day in ditches trenches and it's been a great training, we're proud of it. The guys love it.

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So now we have the guys kind of show you how it's done, but first, let's look inside and you'll see it's kind of the same setup as our two inch galvanized pipe over here you have a pinhole in the pipe which we'll put a repair, clamp on and then you're going to have a couple in Lincoln, which is in the center of the pipe and they'll show you how to put the coupling clamp on so we'll. Let the guys show you how it's done so.

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As you see, we've got the water in the training tube actually bubbling with a piece of galvanized pipe at the bottom, some two-inch. There are two repairs to be made in this water, so he's going to start with the first repair, which is the coupling clamp and then we'll move in to the regular clamp and kind of ease into it. As we go.

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Now, as you see there in a live situation, almost waist-deep in water, this kind of simulates our normal trenches and ditches that we see out in the field. So we want to put them in a controlled environment where it's safe and kind of gauge them, where they're at during their probation and get them prepared for the field.

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And, as you see sometimes we're in situations where we put our pumps in the water and they can't keep up so we're way, Steve working on this stuff, sometimes.

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And, as you can see, it's a pretty difficult task in Clearwater, so just imagine being out in the mud and wet weather.

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So, as you see, this is some of the ideal situations we face out in the field every day it could be middle of the night two o'clock in the morning four o'clock in the morning, our staffs out making these repairs just so we can make sure that we keep the water flowing to the residents of Asheville. So I'm going to thank you for hanging out with us in our wet lab, and you can confer free to come check it out. Sometime.