So MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration) does a surpise inspection on my operation. They find no apparent violations. And then the inspector says " may I see your certification of inspection on that air compressor tank in your service truck"? I say I didn't know I need one ( I've been inspected annually for 30+ years). He gets out his little fine book, whalla, I get his autograph. So now I find a certified inspector to come and inspect the tanks (as I have one in the main shop also). I get a nice little bill of $25. Now I'm thinking that's not to bad a price to inspect two pressure vessels. After all the inspection is good for two years and I sure wouldn't want a pressure vessel to blow up! So today in the mail, I get a bill from the State of Minnesota requiring another $20 for my annual registration for two pressure vessel's. My question's are, is this the same for each state and who dream's up this ****?
Never heard of that around here, far as I know South Carolina doesn't require that, and, Thank Goodness, I'm not covered by MSHA. I wish you hadn't posted this, it might give them the idea. On another note, it's amazing anybody would travel to your shop and do ANYTHING for $25.
I don't know about MSHA, but here in California what you have discovered is pretty standard. The difference being that the pressure vessel inspector is a state employee here and does it himself, and takes it upon himself to drive around commercial occupancies and find propane tanks, air tanks, and such, and stamps them and issues a permit to the owner/occupant, along with a bill, of course. It is a little bit higher here, but the guy is nice, and reasonable, and his work keeps us out of trouble with OSHA and our insurance companies.
This stuff drives me nuts. I started in business in 2008 (my crystal ball was a bit foggy) and now have good numbers for overhead, which in my mind is any expense that that isn't directly attributable to a specific job. My overhead for last year was 20.4%. With stuff like this going on overhead will at some point be greater than job expense.
Grandpa, who dreams up this stuff? A few air tanks probably failed and that's enough for the government to hire more inspectors to go out and inspect ANY pressure vessel they can find. But when's the last time you have heard about an air compressor tank failing and causing any damage? I had a tank that was cracked and leaking, it was welded and re-cracked and continued to leak until the compressor failed. I believe it is no longer legal to weld air tanks either. Some would probably disagree but as long as there is a properly adjusted relief on the tank there should be little chance of a failure. Safety is necessary but safety without common sense is slowly killing our country. A number of years ago I had a customer call me out to a local oil refinery to put a safety chain on a large disk used around the tank farms. The only way to do it was to weld it to the tongue. So the Safety Dept. was called for a hot work permit. The tongue was a piece of 4x6 rectangular tube and the ends were capped. I was told I could not weld on it because it was a "vessel" and he did not know what was inside! I drilled a 1/4" hole in it, he sniffed it and OKed the welding. No common sense!
For many years the Boiler Inspector would come by my auto shop (in Tenn.) and inspect my compressor tank, actually more like the relief valve. I had to post the $20 permit UNDER GLASS within 5 feet of the compressor. He got upset once because it was in a plastic pouch taped to the wall. About 15 years ago, we moved the business up the road, haven't seem him since..... I believe he was with the state department of labor. He was a bonafide state employee.
It's all for revenue
Gramps, you're as old as the rocks that you pluck out of that pit, by now you know darn good and well that our benevolent gubment has nothing better to do than pull a new trick on us to bend over and grab the ankles. :yup
Lmao.... ya Willie, but you'd think they'd let a man straightn up abit b4n they bend ya over agin.
Well, dummy, that's just another gubment program, forced calisthenics...to keep your fat arse in shape.
They need to bend me the other way for a while then, as I have no arse,,,, just a belly :tong
No worries...they'll figure out a way to tax that. :falldownlaugh
I must say that in this case it is not necessarily a new program...here I have observed pressure vessel state inspection stamps that go all the way back to the 1940s. The paper behind glass and all that seems to have remained relatively unchanged since then. I think it is really an archaic program, that, as some of you have observed, because who has ever heard of an air tank or propane tank (what most of the inspections are on) failing in an explosive manner? Not very many that I have ever heard about.
Just so you know Birken Vogt, I don't take this matter flippantly. On the contrary, a pressure vessel of any sort is a serious matter, no question about it. As it concerns this thread, I'm just trying to bust Gramps chops. Not in any way related to subject matter.
I've had insurance inspectors check all pressure vessels for test stamp in some large plants I worked in and of course they are always in the darkest and dirtiest area of the plant.
That would be call a Wide Load Permit CD
Birken has it right; grandpa doesn't remember the riveted construction air tanks of long ago, like the old riveted boilers. Some of the States' mining safety agencies started inspecting that stuff around the turn of the century.
Turn of what century? Funny how a saying that has been used for years can loose it's meaning! FYI it is now the 21st century, need to up date your calendar.