Mike Mitchum, President, has 38 years of industrial demolition experience. he began his caeer in demolition a Vietnam Veteran having served as a Ranger/Pathfinder in the United States Army.

Katherine Weldon-Mitchum, Vice President, was an Internet entrepreneur who after selling a “90s” tech company joined San Jacinto College to lead their effort to automate the district’s website. After achieving that goal, she left in 2006 to plan ODIN with her husband Mike.

Launched in 2008, ODIN, Ltd. now has over thirty employees and will have achieved approximately 5MM in revenue by the close of  2011.

Many companies submit a scope of work that includes too many finite details that could easily be negotiated with the successful bidder. There is a fine line between submitting a detail scope of work and a scope of work that has too many details. Also make sure all relevant departments are involved in the process of developing the bid package and scope of work.

In too many cases a contractor was awarded a project only to find out they had not allowed for additional costs associated with stringent safety requirements or did not plan for working around a pipe rack that was being built 5 feet from their work area.

When possible, delineate boundaries of where the scope starts and stops on each side (e.g., …the project includes removal of everything west of the storage tank on the east side; everything east of the pipe rack on the west side; everything south of the heater on the north side and everything north of the control room on the south side). Also note there might be work outside of these boundaries that will be negotiated with the successful bidder.

For purposes of bidding include relevant assumptions to keep all contractors on an even keel. For example, assume all piping and utilities will be air-gapped at the perimeter of the project on all sides; assume all piping and process systems will be purged and cleaned of residual product; assume concrete will be broken down to grade or assume all insulation to be non-asbestos. Remember keep the scope as close to realistic as possible, but create an environment where you will be able to compare apples to apples. You can negotiate the fine points with the successful bidder.

Have the contractor submit their bids in a manner that will allow you to compare them fairly. How many man-hours have been allocated to each task? What type of equipment do they plan on using to accomplish the work? What quantities have they estimated as the basis of their pricing? Have they submitted a schedule? Can they accomplish the work in the time frame represented with the resources they have assigned?

Example, if they list one excavator on the project with 3 workers but represent they will be able to move 50 trucks of materials per day. Ask yourself is this possible. Also if they note in their bid they estimated 150,000 pounds of 316 stainless steel scrap to be generated from the project and the other contractors estimated 50,000 pounds, you need to ask the question in advance about the difference.

Have dispute resolution measures and pricing conventions been put in place to handle change orders when they happen. Is it more cost effective to handle a change order as a unit price, time and material, or negotiated lump sum? How will you address the additional salvage value if any?

Do you have other alternatives to having the work performed in the event the contractor’s price is completely out of the ball park? Some companies thrive on pricing extras to a captive audience. Would you rather pay standby time while the situation is resolved or pay an inflated change order request? We all know that taking the position “we just won’t pay it” might work on the other side of the looking glass, but not always in the real world.

In conclusion, by properly representing the project and robustly scrutinizing the bids you will eliminate many of the sources of unwarranted change orders. Change orders will happen, but you need to create a proactive environment that will minimize the opportunity for “opportunists” that bid low to “buy” change orders once their foot is in the door. The most costly change orders are a result of poor communications and planning on both sides rather than contrived traps by unscrupulous companies.  Comments or suggestions are encouraged.

On most industrial dismantling and demolition projects the preferred procedure is for the facility owner to purge and clean all residual products from the process lines and equipment prior to allowing the demolition contractor access to the unit.

While sometimes it is necessary for the owner to include the purging and
cleaning in the same scope of work as the demolition, the most common scenario involves having this done by others before demolition begins. While this creates a safer working environment for the demolition contractor, it also creates a false sense of security that no product exists in the system. In combat zones many military veterans will attest that fake mines in a mine field have killed more soldiers than the real ones.

It is common practice for troops putting in a mine field to put in more fake mines and booby traps than real ones. The reason is to lure soldiers tasked with the duty of disarming the mines into becoming complacent and making mistakes. It is very easy to develop the mindset that if the first 5 mines were fake then all of them must be. As soon as complacency sets in then a live mine is encountered thereby causing devastation.

This is not so different from removing the piping and process equipment
in a petrochemical or industrial facility. The owners made a very diligent
effort to ensure that all product was removed, but it is up to the contractor to make sure no pockets were missed. Using the analogy of the mine field you can remove 75% of a unit without running into trapped product. All that it takes is one pocket of trapped material to ruin many lives forever. First and foremost be diligent and alert until the project is 100% complete. Do not let complacency sneak into the mix through a false sense of security.

What are the most common places where trapped product might be found? The
most common are as follows (Contact your supervisor or site safety
representative if any of the situations below are encountered):

• Inside low lying manifolds-If the manifolds have not been removed product might be present;
• Behind closed valves-You might have been working on the same pipe all day without incident, but if you come to a closed valve there might be trapped product on the other side;
• Behind blind flanges-The same point as the closed valve. Slip blind flanges seem to sneak up on you the most;
• Under tank bottoms-This holds especially true for bulk storage tanks. Tank bottoms normally leak over the years and whatever was in the tank might be trapped under the bottom;
• In compartments of process equipment-Even after cleaning, man-ways need to be removed and the equipment allowed to air out prior to beginning work;
• Clogged piping and vacuums-depending on the process, a pipe might be clogged allowing pockets of product to accumulate. Additionally, vacuums might exist in certain systems. This could be best illustrated by the old trick of placing a straw in a glass of liquid and then putting your thumb over the top. You have the liquid trapped in the straw until you remove your thumb and then it pours out the bottom. Correlate that to a large pipe coming off the top of a large column. Make sure that the pipe is empty before releasing the vacuum or be certain that none exists. In conclusion, take all of these scenarios and incorporate them into your
  project specific health and safety plan along with response and mitigation
  procedures. Know and have Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS’s) onsite for
  everything that you might encounter.

Not only have them onsite, but also make sure that everyone on the site know what is in them. Make sure that appropriate PPE is being utilized and additional training provided as deemed necessary. Also have an explosimeter onsite at all times to check the Lower Explosive Limit (LEL) in the piping and equipment prior to working on them.

One last suggestion would be to address and mitigate the potential of trapped product prior to performing any other work at the site. It makes more sense to bring in a small HAZWOPER trained crew ahead of the main demolition team to mitigate the hazards referenced above. Why expose an entire crew to a potential hazard when it is not necessary. It makes perfect sense, promotes safety and is more economical as well.

The best solution is to perform your due diligence in the planning process prior to mobilizing of mainstream demolition personnel onsite. Enlist the help of licensed electricians, process engineers and others when there are absolutely any gray areas where you (or others) might have missed a disconnect that might prove costly or even fatal.

Make it your mission to know the location of all utilities and processes that fed a building or unit as well as the point of each and every disconnect. Do not settle for verbiage in a bid document or contract that states that everything has been disconnected. Verify that all process feeds and utilities have been located and disconnected, including both above and below ground utilities.

The above ground utilities and process lines are “normally” very easy to identify and isolate. These should be identified, verified as being de-energized and air-gapped at the project boundaries prior to beginning any other work. Historically the main problems arise from utilities and process lines that run underground. Be extra wary of anything that leaves the building and goes below grade. This also applies to uncharted lines under concrete slabs being removed or excavation activities. Most places have a “Call before you dig” program. Use it if it is available.

Pipe could be disconnected above grade, but designed to drain into a sewer. If the sewer is in a chemical plant or oil refinery that could take on an entire new level of importance since those sewers could be filled with explosive vapors that will flash with the introduction of one spark.

Electrical conduit going into the ground might also mean an underground electrical feed into the building. If this exists then have an electrician verify that the line is de-energized prior to disconnecting. An extremely good practice is to delineate your demolition project into sections either by room or by portions of a unit. Issue a brief hold point at the end of each section just to verify that everything has been de-energized in the next section prior to moving forward. Assume that all wires are hot and that all closed piping/containers & manifolds contain explosive vapors unless you have proved otherwise.

Every project should have an explosometer as well as a volt meter onsite at all times along with someone with the proper training to use them. A good explosometer can cost under $500 while a good volt meter can run as little as $20. It is important to note that the goal is not to turn a demolition worker into an electrician or process engineer, but rather to provide them with tools to ensure that everyone else has done their job to provide a de-energized work area. If you can prevent one accident it will be the best $520 that you ever spent.

One last note on utilities involving sewers and heavy equipment. Heavy state of the art demolition equipment can weight upwards of 50 tons each. This could cause a sewer to collapse under the weight of the machine, much less the additional force created by shearing and lifting activities.

Know where your sewers are located and take appropriate safeguards to ensure that your equipment is properly supported to prevent damage them. Utilizing crane mats under your equipment and modifying your work plan to stay off of sewers with heavy equipment could make the difference between an uneventful safe project completion and an accident.

These are just our opinions based upon experience. We are open to any comments or constructive suggestions that you might have regarding this or any other matter as it relates to safety.

Mike is an expert at demolition, dismantling, and asset recovery.  He has been in the demolition business for the past 38 years, after a successful career in the military.  After many years of service with a very large corporation in the field, Mike & Katherine Mitchum started ODIN Demolition, to focus on their goal of providing quality demolition & dismantling services, while ensuring proactive safety on their jobsites.

In the last 10 years it seems as if the trend by owners to require that all process equipment coming off of their projects be scrapped has increased dramatically. The justification for this decision predominately resulted from the fear of being party to a product liability lawsuit.

Let’s face it that you cannot legislate common sense. If someone buys an atmospheric storage tank and implements it into a process more suited for a pressure vessel and a mishap occurs, it is important to realize that same person could just as likely drive drunk down the wrong side of a freeway.

The bottom line is that the sale of process equipment from demolition projects has generated substantial revenue streams without which many of the projects would have never happened. Unless you have substantial funds set aside for your projects, it is not feasible or practical to completely exclude the sale of process equipment just because you are afraid that the buyer might use the equipment in a manner outside of its design specifications. You need to evaluate and manage your risks rather than try to avoid them.

With that being said, you definitely need to get your legal department involved to insure that all of the contractual language is in the sales contract. The majority of serious buyers don’t want problems either so expect or insist that they perform their due diligence to make sure that what they are buying will function in the manner that they are buying it for. Expect them to perform pressure testing, gage the metal thickness and perform other tests as part of their due diligence.

What items pose the greatest threat of a product liability lawsuit? If you ask 10 different demolition professionals you will probably get 10 different answers. The following is a list of questions to begin with:

1. Is this designed specifically for an owner/operator that you would normally not find in generic operation?

2. Is it visibly corroded or deemed unsafe (I.e., refinery components from an oil refinery built in 1930)?

3. Is the ROI (return on investment) as compared to scrap worth the risk? (i.e., If something is worth $1,000 as scrap, but $1,500 as salvage then why bother).Is the risk to save substantially greater than the benefit? For example, if it is going to take 5000 man-hours and heavy crane lifts to salvage something for reuse versus 500 man-hours and no heavy crane lifts to scrap it, what will your total net return be from one as compared to the other?

4. Did you qualify the sale “as process equipment”? In addition to all of the other disclaimers and indemnification language it is always important to note that you are selling the equipment as scrap.

Rest assured that as hard as you try you cannot legislate your liability away in any contract. The best that you can hope for is to minimize your risk just as you do everything else in life.

• OSHA (29 CFR 1910.1001)
• OSHA (29 CFR 1926.1101)
• Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA)
• National Emissions Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPS)
• State Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Health
• State Department of Transportation
• United States Department of Transportation (USDOT)
• United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)
• Other Federal, State, County, City and Client standards as applicable.

It is our opinion the lead paint does not have to be removed prior to torch cutting. Both standards promote the use of proper personal protective equipment (PPE), employee training and engineering controls as means to protect workers.

All should agree on the use of proper personal protective equipment (PPE) and employee medical surveillance in your program. The level of PPE should exceed the maximum potential hazard. The only way to know the degree of the hazard is through representative personal monitoring. Once that monitoring is obtained it can be used to establish baseline PPE requirements. If site conditions change then additional monitoring might be required.

Many of us take lead in to our bodies and expel it each and every day. It is when the amount taken in exceeds the amount expelled that the major problems surface. This is why employee medical surveillance is so important.

If anyone on the workforce has elevated blood lead levels then it is up to the employer to prove the elevated level did not come from their project. The affected employee is on your payroll until the level of lead in the blood is reduced. Pre-employment blood lead monitoring is inexpensive and paramount to protecting the workers as well as the employer.

It is important to implement a lead safety plan as part of your overall safety program. It is also important to note the facility/project owners safety requirements and procedures might exceed what is required by OSHA.