An Unqualified Patch and an Unlicensed Night Watchman

This boiler cannot be fired today. The repair is not a repair; it is an unreviewed, uninspected field weld on a pressure part.

What is required:

1. Repairs and alterations to boiler pressure parts must be made by a contractor holding the appropriate ASME certificate of authorization (an 'R' stamp for repairs), using qualified welders working to a qualified welding procedure, with the material, joint design, and any post-weld heat treatment reviewed by an engineer.
2. The work must be inspected by the state's authorized inspector, and the Authority Having Jurisdiction - Maine's Boiler and Pressure Vessel Safety Program within the Office of the State Fire Marshal - must be notified before the boiler goes back into service.
3. A hydrostatic test will typically be required after the repair, and the boiler must be reinspected and a new certificate of inspection issued before it is returned to service.
4. The existing certificate on the wall is irrelevant. A certificate reflects the condition of the boiler as inspected. It does not cover unreviewed welding done after the inspection. The manager's logic is exactly backwards: the August inspection date is not a license to do whatever you like until August.

Beyond the legal side, the technical risk is real: an unqualified weld on a tube sheet crack, with no procedure qualification, no preheat control, no examination, and likely no understanding of the stress at the knuckle, is a brittle, crack-prone joint in the most highly stressed region of the boiler. The crack in the tube sheet is also a symptom - something caused it (thermal cycling, poor water treatment, ligament cracking) and nobody has investigated the cause.

Your immediate action: keep the boiler off line, tag it out, notify the AHJ, and put the refusal in writing.

The operator's license is personal, and firing that boiler would put it on the line.

• License exposure. A licensed operator who knowingly starts up and operates a boiler with an unreviewed, uninspected weld repair on a pressure part is subject to discipline against the license - suspension or revocation - quite apart from whatever happens to the plant. The license is the operator's livelihood and it is not transferable, delegable, or excusable on the grounds that 'the manager told me to.'
• Civil and criminal exposure. If a pressure part fails and someone is hurt or killed, the operator who lit the boiler is a defendant along with the company. 'I was following instructions' has never been a good defense for a licensed operator who knew better.
• Professional duty. The operator has both the authority and the obligation to refuse to operate unsafe or non-compliant equipment, and to report it. That is not insubordination; it is the job. Keeping a boiler legally and safely on line is the operator's responsibility, and the rules exist precisely so that a production deadline cannot override that responsibility.
• Document it. Put the refusal in the boiler log and in writing to management, state the specific reasons (unqualified welder, no R stamp, no authorization from the AHJ, no inspection, no hydro test), and retain a copy. Contemporaneous written records protect the operator.
• Do not be talked into a 'test fire' or a 'short run to see if it holds.' Firing it for five minutes is firing it.

Practical path: escalate to plant management and the insurer, and contact the AHJ yourself. The insulation contractor and the insurer both have a strong interest in a boiler that is correct rather than covered up.

No - not unless the rules specifically allow attended or unattended operation for that boiler under those conditions, and a watchman is not an operator.

• Maine requires boiler operation by a licensed operator, with the requirement tied to the boiler's type, size, pressure, and use. Attendance requirements are set by statute and by the Fire Marshal's rules, not by what the plant finds convenient. A 200 hp, 150 psig boiler is a substantial high-pressure unit.
• Unattended operation is a narrow, conditional exception, not a default. Where it is permitted at all, it requires a specific combination of automatic controls - low water fuel cutoff, flame safeguard with proper timing, high and low pressure limits, a feedwater system capable of keeping up, alarms, and often remote monitoring - and it must be authorized for that installation. It is never satisfied by 'somebody is in the building.'
• 'He watches the gauge' is not attendance. Attendance means a person who is licensed, trained, and present with the ability to act, not a person who happens to walk past the boiler room on rounds.
• The exposure runs both ways. The company is operating a boiler without the required licensed attendance; the watchman is performing licensed work without a license; and the chief operator, who knows about it, is on notice.

Practical steps: get a licensed operator on the shift, or document the coverage arrangement and submit it, and confirm in writing with the AHJ what attendance requirement actually applies to this boiler at this size and pressure.

Note for exam preparation: the exact statutory citation, the specific attendance thresholds, and the exact repair/inspection procedure are set out in Maine's boiler and pressure vessel statute and the Fire Marshal's rules, which are amended from time to time. Know the principles above cold, and verify the citations and thresholds against the current statute and rules in effect at the time of your exam.