What builds up, and why it matters
On this kind of work the problem is oil, carbon, scale and hydrocarbon residue on generation and process equipment. Energy equipment is large, awkward to access and costly to take out of service, so cleaning in place during an outage is worth far more than a faster method that requires teardown.
Work is planned around outages and turnaround schedules. The people who call us about valve are usually operations and maintenance planners, and the thing they are actually worried about is extending an outage that was already tightly planned.
The method
Why dry ice and not the alternatives
- Non-abrasive
Chrome, anodizing and powder coat are the finishes people worry about most. On most of them the ice removes the dirt and leaves the coating.
- Low moisture
Because no water goes on, none has to be drained, wiped or blown out of the equipment afterward.
- No secondary waste
No pile of sand in the corners afterward. The pellet is gone on impact, and only the original contaminant needs cleaning up.
- Often no teardown
Hard-to-reach spots get cleaned without pulling the equipment apart. That alone often matters more than how fast the blasting goes.
More energy work
Related jobs we get called for
Questions we get asked first
Will it damage the surface underneath?
No grit touches the surface, so there is nothing to wear it down. The ice hits, breaks the deposit loose and vanishes. On anything we have not cleaned before, a quick test spot comes first.
Do you have to take the equipment apart for valve?
Sometimes a guard or a cover comes off so we can get the nozzle where it needs to go. Full teardown is rare. We will tell you which parts, if any, before the day of the job.
How much mess does it make?
Less than you would think. There is no water, so there is no runoff, and no media, so there is nothing to recover except the dirt.
Do you come to us?
Every job is on site. Your car can stay in your garage and your boat at the dock while we work. We cover South Florida, from Miami out to about a hundred miles.
What does a job cost?
Honestly, it depends, and we would rather not quote blind. A few photos and a sentence about the access usually give us enough to price it properly.
How soon can you look at it?
Pictures get you an answer fastest. A few clear shots of the equipment and the buildup usually tell us enough to talk timing on the first call, before anyone drives out.
The comparison
What the alternatives actually do
- Hand scraping
Hours of work for an inconsistent result, with gouges where the blade slipped.
- Media blasting
Abrasive by definition. Anything with a tolerance or a finish worth keeping comes out changed.
- Pressure washing
Pressure pushes moisture past seals and into connectors, and then you wait. Panels and motors rule it out.
- Solvent and degreaser
Trades the deposit for a residue, plus ventilation and waste to deal with, and it is hard on the finish.
- Dry ice
Thermal shock breaks the bond. The pellet sublimates, so nothing abrasive touches the part and nothing is left to collect but the contaminant.
What comes off
What this takes off
The method does not care much what the contaminant is, only that it sits on top of something. Here is the usual list.
- Food residue
Carbonized product, fat, starch and sugar build-up on processing equipment, cleaned without chemicals touching a food contact surface.
- Grease and oil
The greasy base coat that traps grit and dust. It releases early and takes the loose material with it.
- Carbon and soot
Baked-on carbon that a wire brush would scar the part removing. Under dry ice it shrinks and comes away from the metal.
- Adhesive and sealant
Whatever the last repair left stuck to the mating face: gasket, sealant, deadener or adhesive.
- Resin and mold release
Mold release and resin that build up cycle after cycle. The cold lifts it cleanly, with no solvent film left behind to carry into the next part.
- Paint and coatings
Selective removal, layer by layer, on parts where media blasting would cut into the substrate.
- Salt and corrosion product
Salt deposit and the oxidation it starts. Anything abrasive removes the protection along with the salt.
How a job runs
The sequence, start to finish
There is no mystery to how these jobs run, and no part of it we would rather you did not ask about.
- We test a small area
The test is short and it is never skipped. Getting the pressure and pellet size wrong on a visible face is the one mistake this method can make, and a hidden patch is how we keep from making it.
- We blast, then clean up
There is no spent media to recover, only the deposit, which we collect before packing up.
- You look before we pack up
If something needs another pass we do it then, on site, while the rig is still running. That is a better outcome for everyone than a callback.
- You describe the job
The machine, the deposit and the downtime you can afford. Those three things decide the whole job, and we would rather know all of them before quoting.
- We look at access and containment
Access drives the plan: reach, siting, masking, and the route the removed material takes off the job. It is the part customers think about least and we think about most.
Before we turn the rig on
We cover what should not be hit before anything gets blasted. It takes minutes and saves arguments.
Part of every indoor job is airflow. Dry ice turns from solid to gas without leaving residue, and that gas displaces oxygen in a closed area. We plan for it at the start, the same way we plan the hose run.
This is not a quiet method. Ear defenders are standard issue on site for anyone nearby.
If the equipment needs to run right away, tell us. A cold surface can collect condensation, and we can plan around that before it goes back in service.
Describe what you are dealing with.
Send what you have, even if it is just a description. The owners handle every request themselves, from first call to final pass.