What It Takes

Steamfitters are key jacks-of-all-trades

OPPD’s steamfitter mechanics work on some of the biggest equipment inside power plants in what can often be trying conditions. And they do so  while maintaining their focus on the smallest of details.

Simply put, they work on and repair a variety of equipment, from water tubes to the conveyer belts that move coal. The job is far from simple.

Steamfitter mechanics, also known as “steamfitters” or “fitters,” can be found everywhere, from the roof of a plant removing six inches of ice to beneath the surface of the Missouri River, inspecting river intake screens.

Steamfitters work across all of OPPD’s generation facilities, to ensure that the utility’s power plants and balancing stations continue to reliably generate power for the district population of more than 885,000 people who rely on electricity each day.

Not for everyone

Bud Chapin is a former steamfitter who has been OPPD’s director of Maintenance Services since 2018. He oversees the production plants’ instrumentation and control technicians, machinists, electricians and steamfitters. If the job requires looking after and maintaining the health of the generating facilities, Chapin oversees it.

He takes pride in his steamfitter past, which brought him to OPPD after working for Nebraska Public Power District. He knows the job and the rigors it entails.

And he knows that being a steamfitter isn’t for everyone.

“This is a dirty, thankless job, but it’s a consistent job,” said Chapin.

It is a job where the person must be physically fit, though not necessarily strong.

Steamfitters can work in awkward spots in the plants. At times, they must use a mirror to try to see their welds because they’re working in such tight spaces with hard-to-reach angles. Conditions inside the power plants, especially in summer, can also be challenging – the temperature in the plant can climb to 120 degrees in some areas when steamfitters are using a torch that can reach up to 6,000 degrees.

“We have guys welding in areas where it’s over 100 degrees,” Chapin said.

Welding is the biggest part of the job, Chapin said. But it also involves other tasks like cleaning heat exchangers or disconnecting pipes. Some steamfitters operate cranes and other heavy equipment, some can do concrete work and some construction.

“They are jacks-of-all trades,” Chapin said of OPPD’s 58 steamfitters. Steamfitters are always in demand at OPPD, and that need is growing.

Vital equipment

The steamfitters were busy this past spring and into the summer working on power plant maintenance outages. They worked seven-day weeks at North Omaha Station (NOS) before going to Nebraska City Station (NCS) to finish an outage there.

After the NCS outage, they returned to NOS to finish. Cass County and Sarpy County stations each had planned maintenance outages that also required steamfitter support, Chapin said.

The teams will have a few months of reprieve before maintenance outage work begins again in the fall, Chapin said.

Steamfitters have the most “tasks” to perform compared to any other group during outages, Chapin said. They take apart materials and systems to make need repairs, and they take apart systems so other specialists can make repairs, as well. And with new generation facilities becoming operational in the near future, that workload will continue growing.

OPPD plans to add more steamfitters over the next five years.

Steamfitters must have a degree in welding or mechanical technology from a trade school or four years of experience in a related field. They must also have experience in power station maintenance, Chapin said.

“We look for people who have a high degree of mental aptitude and manual dexterity and can work from drawings, vendor manuals, and procedures,” Chapin said.

Steamfitters at OPPD begin their careers as helpers, then progress to apprentice and then to journeyman. The apprenticeship lasts four years and combines classroom work and testing, hands-on training, and tasks on which they are evaluated.

‘Each day will challenge you’

Curtis Vlasak, a steamfitter at OPPD for 15 years, said the variety of work is his favorite thing about his job. Several other steamfitters agreed.

“You think of the amount of equipment in a power plant and all the things that could go wrong with that equipment,” said Vlasak. “Each day will challenge you; you just don’t know what that challenge will be.”

Chad Kruger, an apprentice steamfitter, said he loves that every day is different.

“This place will never stop surprising you,” said Kruger. “The job is like industrial Legos; they give you a plan, and you put it together. It is cool seeing something that was destroyed put back together.”

Power plants contain an enormous amount of piping, Vlasak said. Pipes carry water, steam and air throughout the plants to keep different systems working. Most people don’t realize how much equipment and how many different systems it takes to turn steam into electricity at a power plant.

For example, when Vlasak was working on an NCS boiler performing “pad welding” – thickening the walls of the furnace with welds – he counted the number of tubes, or pipes associated with the furnace.

“I came up with 436 tubes,” he said. “And that’s just the wall tubes alone, that makes for 32 miles of tubing and that’s just in the furnace. If you spring a leak at any point in those 32 miles of pipe, you’re shutting the whole unit down.”

It’s amazing how all the different systems combine to create electricity, he said.

‘Our scope of work is huge’

Outage work can be hectic, stressful and seem never-ending at times. Steamfitters work closely with plant machinists on projects, often side by side.

“Outage work is a combined effort across the whole plant with all the crafts,” said Tom Brammier, a steamfitter for 18 years. “We, as a fitter group, have such a wide variety of stuff we do. Our scope of work is huge.”

But daily work has a different feel and pace, and periodic maintenance is the most common work.

Periodic maintenance involves changing filters and cleaning strainers, cleaning heat exchangers, or disconnecting various pipes so machinists can work on them, Brammier said. Steamfitters get to the plants before anyone else to push the snow out with snowplows when it snows.

But most of their work involves welding or working with other tools.

“I knew with welding I’d always find a job somewhere, and I’d never go hungry,” Vlasak said. “There are so many paths to welding, from manufacturing to pipe fitting to our work.”

He said that staying focused and engaged is the key to success at this job.

“It’s a good job for someone who likes using their hands and turning wrenches and doesn’t mind getting dirty,” Kruger said. “But it is a demanding job. Like I said, every day is going to be different.”