With over 300 installations across North America and Europe, here is a sampling of what our customers have to say about their purchase:
Maintenance Planner - Coal fired power plant in Wyoming - “ By the way…the balloons worked excellent again this year. With the two big balloons isolating upstream and the smaller one we added downstream this year, it completely isolated the Air Heaters from the ID Fan suction draft. That reduced the wind sucking through the man doors to almost nothing which made a much safer environment. We didn’t have any eye injuries from flying dirt or hard hats disappearing down the duct work. Needless to say the workers were much appreciative and very happy with the improvements.”
Plant Manager - Coal fired power plant in Colorado - “ We purchased two large Duct Balloons and installed them in front of the ID fan dampers during sand blasting. There was zero leakage through the dampers and we had no opacity issues at all. They saved us time and money on the outage and we can use them again in the future ”
Boiler Process Specialist - Coal fired power plant in Chicago: “ We were installing wood frames and plastic sheeting in front of the ID fan dampers during fly ash removal between the precipitator outlet and the ID fan inlet. We could never get our homemade barriers to seal properly and they took forever to install. The Duct Balloons installed quickly and sealed tightly, which prevented fly ash from escaping through the dampers and up the chimney. Another method was to install a chimney cap at the start of the outage which was very costly, weather dependent , and added more time to the outage ”
SCR Compliance Manager at a large Midwest power plant - “The Duct Balloons provide our workers with a much better working environment when we need to work in the SCR Reactor during catalyst inspections and maintenance ”
Plant Manager - Coal fired power plant in Pennsylvania: “ Our contractor installed 18 multi-section design Duct Balloons during a major SCR rebuild in just 6 hours. We allotted 18 hours, so that’s big money”
Maintenance Manager at a large coal fired power plant in Texas “ We have used Duct Balloons in the FGD outlet ducts of our wet scrubber and they work great! I have worked in the power industry for over 20 years and haven’t ever seen something this unique and work so well. It’s one of the best things I have ever purchased! ”
FGD Operations Leader - New York State power plant: “ Maintenance of the FGD duct work is done annually, but the plant holds to a compressed outage schedule to increase market availability. As a result, schedule constraints led the plant to always seek schedule improvement opportunities to shorten the outage critical path. The Duct Balloons helped us meet those goals ”
Electrical Maintenance Supervisor - Midwest Power Plant - “ The Inflatable Platforms that we use in the precipitator hopper during maintenance allows us to use our man power more effectively. Prior methods required us to have an individual stationed outside the hopper as any access inside the hopper is defined as a confined space with inwardly converging walls. Now we are no longer required to have someone standing by as the inflatable platforms create an easy access way out of the hopper as they inflate to the same elevation as the access door ”
Maintenance Manager - Combined Cycle Plant - “ We use our Stack Balloons during lay ups on the weekends in cold weather. They prevent freeze ups by keeping the residual heat from the HRSG from going up the stack. The temperature below the balloon was about 100ºF (37ºC) without using any sparging steam with an outside temperature of 20ºF (-6ºC). The benefits are that we use less fuel via warm start ups, reduces off line corrosion and lessen equipment fatigue due to cold starts ”
