Ice Buildup: The worst case scenario

Got some ice buildup on piping, air units or the structure itself? OSHA has been cracking down on this lately. This news story from Australia is a good illustration as to why…

A 30-year-old Taiwanese national died when part of a ceiling collapsed at a smallgoods factory in the NSW Hunter region.

Emergency crews using a power saw recovered the man’s body at the Primo abattoir at Scone at 1.45pm (AEST) on Wednesday.

About 300 people were evacuated from the site at about 7.15am after reports of an ammonia gas leak.

Fire and Rescue NSW said it was thought a build-up of ice from the cooling system had caused the ceiling to fall.

Police will inform the dead man’s family before releasing his identity.

If that doesn’t motivate you to remove ice buildup, then nothing will.

About Brian Chapin

PSM / RMP Compliance Consultant
This entry was posted in Compliance, Good Engineering Practices, Incidents, Mechanical Integrity, Oddities and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to Ice Buildup: The worst case scenario

  1. Peter Thomas says:

    Brian – Thanks for sharing. It has always amazed me how heavy a completely iced coil can become. In a project that we constructed last year the operating weight of the coils was 2,000 lb, but the iced weight was 4,700 lb! It is very important that everyone understand that a building must be designed for the iced weight and not just the operating weight. Thanks again for sharing.

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