Snowed In 1500 kva Dry Type Transformer Delivered Useless
Snowed In 1500 KVA Dry Type Transformer
What happens when you ship a 1500 kva dry type power transformer in the winter, up North, without properly tarping it? It gets 86’d. Send it back. We don’t want it. Besides the snow and ice, there will be dirt, small debris, and very sad faces. Pictures do not do justice to the amount of snow and dirt on the windings. It can be a chore securing a dry type power transformer for shipment, what we call “Bagging it,” but it has to be done. Hidden openings in the tarping on the bottom are usually the culprit. Driving in the rain can be even worse if there is any opening in the tarp. When this happens there’s a lot of discussion about cleaning the transformer and drying it; Procedures; Warranties; Who’s going to pay for the shipping; and, of course, who is going to pay for a new transformer because the customer sure does not want to accept a brand new but wet and dirty 1500 kva, 13,200 volt to 480/277 volt transformer. It’s deficient. That’s all they know. Any suggestion the warranty protects the customer’s interest is met with open anger. A warranty is only for 2 ½ to 5% of the expected life of the transformer. And the cost of taking out an old unit and installing a new transformer can be horribly expensive. A large dry type power transformer is sometimes buried deep within a building’s structure. Sometimes the building has expanded around the transformer substation. We have seen many projects where the cost of the replacement transformer was less than the cost of the installation. Think of the cost of not properly securing the transformer from rain, snow and road dirt as being $1,500.00 per minute of the time it would have taken to do it right. Fortunately this does not happen very often.