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Hot take: Should we weld everything or bolt some stuff on jobsites?
Ngl, I got chewed out by a senior boilermaker last month for welding a bracket onto a beam at a refinery in Baton Rouge. He said I should have used bolted connections because it’d be easier to replace later. I always thought welding was stronger and more permanent, but he pointed out how much downtime costs when you have to cut and re-weld. Now I’m second-guessing my whole approach. What do you guys think-are there times where bolting is actually the smarter move even if it’s slower upfront? Has anyone else gotten a similar piece of criticism that made them rethink their methods?
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kellymurphy7d ago
That 3/8 fillet weld on the bracket at ExxonMobil last year cost us 14 hours of downtime when we had to cut it out for a pipe reroute. @sullivan.elliot brings up a good point about seized bolts, but that's the boilermaker's problem not the welder's. The real hidden cost nobody talks about is inspection - magnetic particle testing on every weld can eat up a whole shift, while bolted connections just need a torque check. I've seen guys weld stuff that should have been bolted just because they didn't want to walk back to the truck for a ratchet.
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