UT Certification Schools

A Potential Opportunity For Your UT Students

This introduction may provide an opportunity for some of your students to establish their own independent UT pipe testing business, expand and improve their existing business, and provide to their clients a far superior final report providing greater information and benefit than any competitor.

Background

Since 1994, CorrView has been providing ultrasonic pipe testing services to the commercial high-rise office building industry, and have established ourselves as offering the highest level of investigation and reporting anywhere. We established our business serving some of the largest high-rise commercial properties and largest names in real estate in the world’s most competitive market – New York City. In fact, we were involved in the field of ultrasonic pipe testing years prior to the development of the digital camera, which we later incorporated into our reports.

Back in 1994, the greatest challenge in establishing CorrView International, LLC was in producing a final report custom tailored to our HVAC related clientele. Virtually all potential competitors provided a simple X by Y spreadsheet of thickness values and and often less (as they still do), which we considered unacceptable recognizing what our property management clients having little familiarity with UT technology required.

No, this is not a cartoon at left, it is the final report from a Level 3 UT technician providing guidance to a critical data center facility manager relating to their troublesome condenser water system. Yet surprisingly, many professional engineers and property managers have accepted handwritten reports, simple spreadsheets, reports citing wall thickness values beyond the realm of possibility, reports consisting of just a photograph of a section of pipe with a thickness value written in white-out, and even less. Unquestionably, excellence lacks.

Costly software options either through the UT instrument manufacturer or from secondary sources offered some benefit at the time over a simple XY spreadsheet, but still could not produce a customized test report that property owners and their operating engineers could easily understand and therefore benefit from.

Even professional mechanical engineers had difficulty in translating a basic XY spreadsheet into a definitive answer to their client’s piping conditions, threats, and failures.

For that reason, we created our own customized report format which has now been refined over the past 28 years to provide the greatest level of understanding by our real estate clientele. Our reports are exceptionally detailed and informative, and have been referred to as “autopsy” of any piping system addressed. Each report is presented in a 3 rind binder containing 10 separate sections of background, test results, graphs, a narrative explanation, and all the supportive information necessary to provide the client a knowledge of their piping system equal to our own.

A sample report along with much more information is available on this internet site – www.corrview.com/full-report-sample

Purpose and Proposition

The purpose of our contact with your NDT UT instructional and certification company is to offer an opportunity to a very limited number of successful students (candidates or affiliates) of a possible independent working relationship with CorrView. If you offer any form of placement or career guidance to your students, you may have an interest in also considering the opportunities we offer for those students expressing the interest to develop their own UT business. Adding UT pipe testing would quickly integrate with other well established commercial building related NDT services such as Infrared Electrical Bus Scanning, Steam Trap Testing, Vibrational Analysis, and Electrical Testing.

This Is Not A Job Offer

Instead, it is an opportunity for those students with the interest, technical ability, background, work experience, and drive or ambition to start or expand their own business and develop their own UT testing service in their own geographic area – whether that be a large American city like Los Angeles or Chicago, or individual country like Scotland or Australia. They would perform the field work, and then send CorrView their raw UT wall thickness data for us to generate their final report in their name. We have established a few professional relationships like this already – which have worked our exceptionally well for both parties.

Candidate Qualifications

1. Almost more important than UT knowledge itself is an understanding and some prior experience with HVAC piping systems such as condenser water, process water, chilled water, hot water heating – in essence, those piping systems common to all high rise commercial office buildings. Obviously smaller buildings, high-rise residential properties, and all government buildings contain the same type of piping systems.

2. HVAC technicians, air conditioning techs, and building operating engineers having knowledge of those piping systems and the problems experienced are ideal candidates, and would enjoy an immediate benefit in applying UT thickness measurement technology to that which they already understand. All such HVAC piping systems have similar problems and vulnerabilities caused by corrosion over time.

Another large area of interest is with fire sprinkler systems, with NFPA now requiring an inspection of all such systems every 5 years. In such cases, individuals currently working in the fire protection industry as installers or service techs would be especially well suited. Of all forms of piping systems, fire sprinkler systems exhibit some of the greatest corrosion related problems having the worst consequences in the event of a failure. As has occurred, fire protection systems have accumulated sufficient corrosion product to totally block the movement of water resulting in deaths.

3. An interest to work with the real estate industry, HVAC mechanical engineering firms, air conditioning firms, and fire protection contractors and engineers. While we can process any raw wall thickness data into a formal pipe testing report, our field of expertise since 1981 has been with the commercial and residential high-rise real estate market – or basically every tall building standing out in every city’s skyline. As we have found, the first investigation for a professional engineer impressing them with the report quality, and especially where additional pipe replacement work now falls upon the engineer to address, results in a long term relationship.

4. An interest to build their own localized UT pipe testing business or expand their existing business further by providing a report second to none. Operating an independent business is profitable and rewarding in many ways – although it requires a full commitment, time, hard work, and patience.

5. The candidate must own their own equipment including:

a. Quality UT instrument equal to Olympus 38DL and including waveform display, large database, echo-to echo, etc. and a thorough knowledge thereof.

b. Laptop or notepad keypad based Windows computer.

c. Microsoft Excel

d. 20 megapixel digital camera or better. No camera phones.

e. Good understanding of computers, data safeguards, internet, etc.

6. The willingness to work together and to learn.

7. Fluency in English and English speaking clients

8. A strong commitment to excellence.

9. A no nonsense commitment toward developing or expanding their own business.

10. UT Level II

How the Partnership Works

1. CorrView would provide a detailed field testing procedure not likely much different than would be normally fulfilled in the field.

2. The candidate would augment their UT knowledge following this procedure.

3. Utilizing all their own equipment, they would complete the field investigation to whatever degree they choose.

4. The raw thickness data, photos, and all other required information is collected and then zipped into one file for uploading to our CorrView server.

5. In approximately 1-2 weeks, CorrView will provide either a full binder report, or a limited version of that report depending upon the interests of the candidate. Various conversations will likely occur during the processing of the report.

6. If we are provided the printer setup files for the specific printer used by the candidate, we can alternately send individual printer capture files which can then be easily printed by the candidate at their own office. We will also provide the full report in PDF format. This is an excellent option for affiliates in other countries.

7. The candidate acquires their own clients, with our assistance, and negotiates their fee for their testing service. CorrView charges a fixed flat fee per individual example of pipe tested, which the candidate can then incorporate into their fee.

Opportunities in the Commercial Building Field

1. The commercial building industry is generally unfamiliar with UT testing and has not benefited from its services. Even professional engineering firms have not had much experience with the benefits UT provides.

2. A building having leaks or failures typically contacts a professional engineering firm which similarly does not know how to identify and define pipe conditions.

3. All older buildings are experiencing massive piping problems simply due to aging, and the fact that systems designed for 50 or 75 years of service have reached that point. Where high corrosion activity is an issue, piping system failure accelerates. Almost all galvanized steel pipe in service for 60 years or more has reached the end of its life. Copper pipe at 75 years is failing. Condenser water pipe starts failing after 35 years and much earlier for newer buildings.

4. Pipe replacement is almost always in the millions of dollars – making it critically important to have a well documented and reliable fitness for service assessment.

5. Pipe quality and its resistance to corrosion has deteriorated significantly from that available 35 or more years ago, as we well document on our Internet site. Almost all new pipe today is manufactured at minimum permissible limits as set by ASTM, and not its specified wall thickness. This means that newer building properties are experiencing problem never before seen nor anticipated by the real estate market. The real estate market is generally unaware of the piping changes which are impacting them.

6. Engineering design is moving toward thinner pipe materials, lighter pipe schedules, more complicated designs, and cheaper construction methods which in turn accelerates the piping failures at such systems.

7. Where chemical corrosion inhibitors are applicable, such as would exist for condenser water and chill water systems, newer chemicals are less effective, applied to lower concentrations as cost saving measures, and are especially less effective at protecting newer steel pipe of lower quality and higher corrosion suseptability. The net result again is more accelerated failures.

8. There is limited competition in this field, and that which exists generally provides unreliable results, inaccurate thickness readings, and poor quality to worthless reports.

9. Significant profit. Our typical investigation of one piping system conducted by 1 UT technician over 1 one day period will capture approximately 50 or more examples of pipe. Our typical fee for local testing within 1-1/2 hr. of drive time is $4,800 for this service, and includes the processing the report. Travel and all expenses are added to this base rate. Our fees are rarely questioned, and in fact have been suggested as lower than expected given the level of reporting we provide.

CorrView would establish a fixed fee per example of pipe tested dependent upon the level of reporting desired by the candidate.

Expertise CorrView Offers

1. We will create a listing for our new affiliate on our Internet site with all direct contact information. We will also direct to their attention inquiries made to CorrView in their geographic area. We will also produce a separate web page on our site for the affiliate, and promote that page to the search engines.

2. CorrView will work alongside the affiliate in recommending levels of testing, to raise any difficulties with the investigation we can anticipate, likely problem areas, and specific areas to address. Our expertise with UT testing, building piping systems, as well as the various types of clients we service will be made available to any affiliate.

3. The affiliate will have access to all technical information and other handouts on the CorrView site. CorrView will republish requested handouts with the affiliates contact information for distribution.

4. CorrView will review any piping layout or riser diagrams and advise or mark-up the best locations to perform ultrasonic testing, the number of test locations, and number of days likely on-site, etc. Our extensive knowledge of piping systems and the specific problems that they experience will be shared in order to produce the most successful UT investigation.

5. All information will be held strictly confidential, and CorrView will never contact our affiliate’s client for any reason, nor by any means.

6. The thoroughness and quality of our final report for an affiliate will be equal to what CorrView provides to its own clients.

7. CorrView will assist in the marketing of our new affiliate’s services to their expected area of coverage.

8. Projects developed by CorrView within the area of interest by the affiliate will be either sent to the affiliate to finalize with the client, or the affiliate will be paid to perform the work as a representative of CorrView.

9. Once established, that area serviced by an affiliate will be protected and unavailable to any others looking to work with CorrView in the same capacity.

Stated earlier, we have provided the same service for other UT companies, as well as those looking to add nondestructive pipe testing to their other NDT services such as infrared inspection, vibration analysis, and steam trap testing, etc.

Previous CorrView Clients

Below is a small excerpt of the 1100 building properties CorrView has performed this service:

Former World Trade Center, Empire State Building, General Motors Building, NYU, Columbia University. Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Air and Space Museum, United States Capital Building, US Senate and House Office Buildings, US. Mint, Federal Aviation Administration, Houston Minute Maid Park, Federal Reserve Bank, FDIC, Department of the Interior, JFK / Newark and LAX airports, NYS Capitol Complex.

FDIC, Pentagon, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Fidelity, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Citibank, Cushman & Wakefield, Insignia, Equity Office, Mendik Realty, Silverstein, Durst, Jones Lang Lasalle, Home Box Office, Harvard, U.S. Coast Guard, Army, U.S. Navy, Columbia University Medical Center, Cornell Medical Center, Walter Reed Medical Center, and more

For additional information please see our Business Services Resume www.corrview.com/business-resume

Further information regarding affiliates can be found using this link www.corrview.com/ut-affiliates

The Next Step

Instructors and those associated with the UT certification company are very welcome to contact CorrView at any time with their questions or concerns. Quite clearly, there is more to this business arrangement than what has been presented here. Above all, we ask that this offer be presented only to those students or candidates having the above background and interest.

Should you have an interest in discussing this further, please do not hesitate to email us at info@corrview.com with any questions, comments, or concerns.

For students or applicants, we would recommend they first email CorrView providing their background information both with UT and prior work, their objective of such an affiliation, and their geographic area of interest.

We will respond from there and hopefully work together to our mutual benefit.

Many thanks for your time,

Bill Duncan,

President

CorrView International, LLC

973-770-7764