ASME Pipe Cleanliness Requirements

[rmillercwi]

Recently a client of ours rejected a new construction pipe spool that was fabricated by one of our suppliers for unacceptable cleanliness. I looked at the pipe run myself (14" od 2.25 cr, 2" nom, approximalty a 20' serpentine with several elbows),and was equally concerned. Approximatly 5' of this pipe looks like it was resting in a mud puddle for a month. Not thinking a whole lot about it, I was confident the issue could be taken care of without too much headache. Wrong. Hydrolazing is the fix but the facility does not allow the cleaning water (just normal water) to be dumped on the ground. This 25,000lb section of pipe needs to be hauled to a facility for cleaning and returned which has now increased the project cost 4 fold. We would like to simply reject the piping run and return to the subvendor. However, I dont know of any cleanliness standard that we cold use to base this rejection on. Any ideas? I had thought perhaps their QA manual would have requirements but unfortunatly we do not have a copy of it. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[metengr]

Hydrolazing is the fix but the facility does not allow the cleaning water (just normal water) to be dumped on the ground.

Your client has every right to reject material provided they have an Engineering Specification or contract document which addresses pipe cleanliness either during or after installation. Most companies or clients should have an Engineering Bid Specification prepared for this type of job. If they do not have some reference document, your client would need to pay for this cost because leaving the foreign material in the pipe could adversely affect service. The Code only provided minimum requirements.