At Noon on a hot Monday in July, a transformer at one of Alpha Mechanical’s key customer’s plants blew up. It was up to Alpha’s on-site team to jump into action and ensure the plant continued to have power and operate normally.
The first call went to CE Power, which immediately came to the site and determined that the transformer was shot. So Alpha’s lead on-site supervisor, Paul Baysayer, quickly called Whayne Supply and arranged for a temporary generator to be delivered. The machine was rated for 2,500 amps at 480 volts. But it was located on a rooftop, so setting it up involved 2,500 feet of cable, connecting 17 leads from the generator to the transformer. Jacobi Oil Service supplied fuel.
Working non-stop under the supervision of Alpha’s Electrical Division foreman, Joe Ruttle, power was restored by midnight, less than 12 hours after the transformer blew. Now the task was to find a new transformer. CE Power found one in another state, and it was delivered by Thursday. Despite some rain Friday morning, the 10,000-pound transformer was lifted by crane to the rooftop and put in place by Noon, thanks in part to the work of Alpha’s sheet metal crew and its millwrights. Padgett Inc. sent a crew to lift and place the equipment by crane.
Baysinger and Jerry Casabella, Alpha Mechanical’s on-site electrical crew, got to work disconnecting the temporary power and reconnecting the new, rebuilt transformer. And by 6 p.m. the plant’s power was restored with the new transformer.
Alpha Mechanical worked around the clock to help its customer keep its operations going, minimizing the plant’s downtime with a timely, creative solution. Below are photos of the operation.
