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Floating Roof Temporary Repairs
Does anyone have any experience with applying temporary repairs to an external floating roof deck? Specifically repair to a small leak on the deck. The intent of the temporary repair would be to prevent product from accumulating on the deck while the tank is emptied, assuming emptying of the tank could take several day or weeks. I would be interested to know what type of products were used to make the temporary repairs.
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2 Replies
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As long as it’s not a severe leak, I’ve seen good success of cleaning the area thoroughly and applying a fast setting epoxy (typically Belzona or similar). The longevity of these repairs depends on operational flexing, weather exposure, immersion, and other factors. But it should hold for several months at least to give flexibility on planning and removal of the tank for a permanent repair. In IFR applications, I’ve seen epoxy repairs last years and can sometimes get you to the next scheduled OOS inspection. Temporary patches should be regularly inspected for failure or reemergence of a leak.
For more severe leaks, there are various methods of hammering lead or using wood or self tapping screws (for isolated holes) to seal up the leak to the point where an epoxy repair can be made. Those come with more risk though and you need to be sure the adjoining area is solid before attempting any of those.
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Thanks Daniel. I am looking for more specific solutions, while acknowledging that no one here is promoting any particular product or service or advising, but rather to know what others have used and proven to be successful for them.
For example, we’ve used both Belzona products and Thiokol products for temporary repairs on floating roofs. From our experience both of them have their pros and cons. We’ve noticed that Belzona products tend to perform best with a higher level of surface preparation, while Thiokol requires less preparation. Our metric for performance is basically how long the repair lasts before it starts leaking by. Other factors to consider are the size of the leaks.
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