How hot is it where you work

I've done some hard work in high Temps in my day, baling hay is one. But yesterday my son sent me this pic. He does cel phone tower work and is working in Florida. This job is inside a clock tower. He told the company it was too hot to work in there and they needed to pay for a portable air conditioner unit. They said he was just being fussy. The pipe is the structure the entenas fasten to. It's all inside a tin roof on the clock tower.




Since the sun isn't shining on that pipe I'm guessing the air temp would have to be 600 deg to get that pipe that hot. There is nothing in the pipe, so it's not heated from inside. He said he couldn't even breath in there.

He left and told them he will come back when they approve the extra for cooling.

Crawling through a 170 degree Fahrenheit running tobacco barn is bad enough, as all of the steel boxes will burn ya. I can't imagine having to work in 400 plus degree temps.

I know closed areas can get hot, but how could it be that hot without stuff around it getting close to ignition point? Seems a bit extreme as I dont think he would be standing there if it was 600 air temp.

(quoted from post at 10:43:38 05/13/23) I know closed areas can get hot, but how could it be that hot without stuff around it getting close to ignition point? Seems a bit extreme as I dont think he would be standing there if it was 600 air temp.

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greed....more to this

Steam pipe? Refinery? Major electrical short?

We always try to cool down grain dryers to work on them. If they are much above 130 you can't get your breath or touch anything to work on. Although its nice to have some heat a lot of times when it's darn cold and wet out.

It's a clock tower and there is nothing in the pipe, it's just a structural pipe to hold the equipment.

I talked to a fireman I know and I guess it's not as bad as I thought. He says you could go in there for a bit and survive as long as it wasn't a long time. He says with fire equipment on they can go to 1,000+ degree Temps as long as they have oxygen. So I guess is not as big a deal as I thought. And he said, and now I realize it too, the air temp was probably the same 423 deg as well. And that makes sense.

I used to work in a steel mill. On shutdowns, I used to get sent to the electric arc furnace to help with brick repairs. Since a normal shutdown was 16 hours, that furnace never really cooled down to a reasonable temp. They would set a big steel plate in there for someplace level to set pallets of brick and something to stand on. If you dropped paper or cardboard below the plate, it would catch fire. I've pulled damaged brick out to see the one below still glowing faintly red. I've also had the rubber straps on a dust mask just melt and break if I got too close to the wall. One day I even had the sole of a brand new pair of boots get hot enough to melt the glue and just slide off.

I really don't miss that place....

Kids die when left inside a parked car.
When parked in the sun, a car's internal temperature increased from 85F to 116F in just an hour.

Not sure how long a human can withstand 400 degrees.

I don't want to find out.

HVAC guys pass out and even die in attic spaces much cooler than that

That fireman is also wearing a full set of PBI/Kevlar bunkers, with insulating liners, a kevlar or nomex hood, a helmet that will begin to melt at 1200 degrees, insulated gloves, and boots, a positive pressure Self Contained Breathing Apparatus, and a minimum of 30 minutes of supplied air.

Not quite the same as going in wearing normal work clothes. 50 years ago, as fire fighters, wearing canvas with wool liners, and no hoods, we couldn't safely go into what todays fire fighters do.

The vary worst job i ever had was when i tried to work in a heavy fab shop as a welder . One big job was welding up huge collector mains . a 12 foot dia tube made of 2 inch thick plate . The outside welds were done with and automated submersible all inside welding of the seams was done by hand six guys inside burning rod setting on roller seats while the job rotated on rollers filling a two inch wide fillet with stick rod in August . Son you don't know the meaning of HOT . They had four 1 inch air lines blowing air thru plus a huge fan at the other end sucking . Ya wore wooden slipplers over your work boots full leather welding jacket and leather chaps over your legs . So tell me about working in a HOT environment or humping the Bush in Nam with a full field load. Since doing both you will Never hear me complain about summer heat.

They make fire entry suits so you can do things like repairs in an *operating* kiln. Just send the crazy guy in the $5k suit in to fix it, no expensive shutdown required.

(quoted from post at 09:46:43 05/13/23) That fireman is also wearing a full set of PBI/Kevlar bunkers, with insulating liners, a kevlar or nomex hood, a helmet that will begin to melt at 1200 degrees, insulated gloves, and boots, a positive pressure Self Contained Breathing Apparatus, and a minimum of 30 minutes of supplied air.

Not quite the same as going in wearing normal work clothes. 50 years ago, as fire fighters, wearing canvas with wool liners, and no hoods, we couldn't safely go into what todays fire fighters do.

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Yes, firefighters are much better protected now than we were fifty years ago. Not only by equipment but also by policies and procedures which prevent firefighters from getting into the high heat that we used to. This is driven, I am sure, by the insurance companies.

Back in the mid 1990's, I was invoved in a paper machine rebuild. There was bunch of steel that had to be replaced while the machine was operating, on the upper mezzanine on the back side of the machine, air temp was around 180 deg F. Crews wore special vests with freezer packs in them. Typical schedule was 45 minutes on and 45 minutes off. The 45 minutes on was about how long the freezer packs would last. We had seveeral chest freezers and multiple packs for each vest, If I remember correctly, the work took about 1 times what it would have taken under normal conditions.

It's his body, his life, his decision. Good for him standing up.

I work in inspection in an oil refinery and when they want to expedite repairs on a product heater during a shutdown they are required by OSHA to do a wet bulb temperature check This allows them to set up entry guidelines to the high temperature area. As an example, be in there for 5 minutes then come out for a rest period of 10 or something like that. I did some quarterly infrared inspections in Oklahoma in the summer in fertilizer plant on Ammonia Reformers that run 1800F inside. I was outside but they often had problems with the refractory (insulation) systems. I was in a kind of a tunnel about 10 ft wide but it did have an open top, but with a grated catwalk. There areas I was inspecting was a 20 foot high and about 70 foot long. Its lowest temp was 250F and the areas that were failing were 400F up to near a 1000F. The hottest areas were small maybe a 1 foot square. Below me the floor area was 200F - 350F and 10ft behind me another sidewall of the furnace at the 200-350F range as well. I would literally walk quickly down focus the camera and record the image and then come out to record the location on my drawing. Many times I came out of there soaked clear through to my underwear with sweat. It maybe does not beat the TV story or JeffNWOH buy it was hot. In the summer I would start early in the morning like 4am to have a cooler area to work in. The one time I was there the overnight temp did not drop below 90F.
My FIL lives in Vegas and for a time worked in HVAC, he said the big lighted signs all have AC in them otherwise the control system would overheat and burn out. I forget the tonnage of the systems he quoted but I remember it was impressive.

Wow! Seems like that would get a person dead in a hurry.

That is almost the temp we bake pizza at.

I've worked under the hood of a paper machine and above it on the catwalk. Definitely warm in there. Probably lucky if we could stay in a few minutes at a time.