Delivery Company Y makes a delivery to my shop. Two weeks later I call them and say I just got to this box, it is damaged and I want to place a claim. Unable to stand the sound of their laughter I hang up. Much is the same when a gas supplier tries to call their client two weeks after picking up liquid cylinders to say that some of them are damaged and they are going to bill the customer. The difference is that the reaction from the client can be a little rougher than laughter.
Having alert drivers who pay attention to what they are loading at pickups, note damage found and get customer signatures is priceless. Take for instance a cryogenic liquid cylinder that has a bent handling ring, piping and a dent on the head. Looking a bit further the driver finds that the vacuum rupture disk is blown out. This is pretty simple. The liquid cylinder has been dropped and there is now an inner leak at the neck or some other point. The contents (oxygen, nitrogen, argon or CO2) has escaped into the annulus, built pressure and blown the rupture disk.
Now the cryogenic liquid distributor is confronted with either a costly repair $750 to $1000 or more or replacement of the liquid cylinder $2000 to $3000 or more. In the case of a larger “micro-bulk” vessel that is set down too hard and snapped a neck connection the replacement cost can be well over $10,000 to $20,000. And- it is really hard to tell if that happened at the customer’s site or the fill plant without documentation at pick up.
Note that all inner leaks are not the result of abuse. Some do occur due to manufacturing or design issues, but the chance of recovering or even sharing costs with users are greatly diminished without documentation…… and reasonably so.
Having alert drivers who pay attention to what they are loading at pickups, note damage found and get customer signatures is priceless. Take for instance a cryogenic liquid cylinder that has a bent handling ring, piping and a dent on the head. Looking a bit further the driver finds that the vacuum rupture disk is blown out. This is pretty simple. The liquid cylinder has been dropped and there is now an inner leak at the neck or some other point. The contents (oxygen, nitrogen, argon or CO2) has escaped into the annulus, built pressure and blown the rupture disk.
Now the cryogenic liquid distributor is confronted with either a costly repair $750 to $1000 or more or replacement of the liquid cylinder $2000 to $3000 or more. In the case of a larger “micro-bulk” vessel that is set down too hard and snapped a neck connection the replacement cost can be well over $10,000 to $20,000. And- it is really hard to tell if that happened at the customer’s site or the fill plant without documentation at pick up.
Note that all inner leaks are not the result of abuse. Some do occur due to manufacturing or design issues, but the chance of recovering or even sharing costs with users are greatly diminished without documentation…… and reasonably so.
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