Maybe the kind of job you have is wrong for you, not engineering. I was working in a power plant for 18 months learning the ropes of performance engineering, mostly boiler combustion and tuning, before I was asked to take on a big overhaul project (steam turbine overhaul). Althought I didn't...
The 120 mile commutes took place from 2007 to 2010. Like I said, my job transferred as part of a rotating assignmeny program. The plant was far from where my work had her part-time job and her college, so I chose to stay in a city that was 60 miles from the plant to make it easy on my wife...
My wife's philosophy does not dictate our money management. It is just an example of our different approach.
The big trouble happened after we got married. First, my income took a huge medical premium hit when going from Single to Married to Family. Due to a job location change (internal...
Can't get much Lower cost than where I live. I have a 3 bedroom house with three levels of livable space for $70,000. I have been an engineer for 6 years and make between $80,000 and $90,000 per year. Started out much lower. I thought that was a decent salary. Not sure which industry would...
Travel for my wife is out of the question. And I'm sure some locations would be totally off-limits. One field engineer I know was building a power plant in South America. He said his hotel is surrounded by a wall and armed guards and armed guards transport the engineers to and from the job...
The loss of friends wouldn't be an issue. I'm a big-time introvert and have always kind of been a loner. I actually went through 5 years of college without making any strong friendships. I had applied for a field job while in college but my first offer was not in the field, but it was in an...
Thanks for the good information. The one major issue for me is that I am indeed married and have a 4 year old son (I'm 29 years old). My wife always jokes around and says that if I made enough money that would allow her to not work, then I can go in the field for as long as I want. My...
Over the past couple of years I have gotten several calls/emails from recruiters asking about field engineering jobs for steam turbines, combustion turbines, generators. Is there a huge demand right now for field engineers in this field? It seems so. Despite the seemingly high demand, some field...
Over the past couple of years I have gotten several calls/emails from recruiters asking about field engineering jobs for steam turbines, combustion turbines, generators. Is there a huge demand right now for field engineers in this field? It seems so. Despite the seemingly high demand, some...
The only restraints on the outside of the joint were rods that were welded together, but no kind of device that could really keep a closing force on the mechanical joint.
The other thing I wonder about is the inside diameter of the HDPE piping. My facility replaces a lot of old steel piping...
Don't have any sketches or photos handy at the moment but you have 12" HDPE Pipe---12x24---Reducer---24" Valve---24" Ductile Iron Pipe. Mechanical joints are used to connect everything together. The joint between the valve and the iron pipe appeared to be okay. The joint between the valve and...
At my plant we have underground raw water piping. The original piping is ductile iron. At one area the 24” header connects to a valve and then a reducer connects the other side of the valve to a 12” header. Several months ago we replaced the original 12” header with HDPE pipe. The HDPE pipe...
With 5 years in the engineering field I make in the upper $70k. When I first started I made in the low 50k range. I don't expect another increase in salary like that in such a short period of time.
All of the technical managers that I have worked with used to be engineers. Some have spent more years in engineering than others but most of them know what it takes to get a job done. However, even they are being held accountable by corporate executives whose primary job is to make the...
There are plenty of engineers at the plant where I work who have no interest in being in management, and they aren't shy about saying so. Several have been approached before with promotions and have turned them down. Some have taken promotions and have expressed missing the technical work. As...
I work at a facility that has a raw water system that supplies water to the fire protection system, various coolers, etc. Maintenance on the filtration system stopped many years ago and there has been a downward trend in water capacity at hydrants, fire pumps, etc. Does anyone have any...
I am fortunate to be compensated for most of my overtime...at a straight time rate, no 1.5x or 2x rates. We don't always get paid OT. When the economy tanked, OT pay was cut but we still had to work crazy hours to complete projects on time.
I don't really understand the whole "Learned...
I work in a power plant and a normal work week 47.5 to 50 hours per week. I am required to be on site for a daily 630am meeting and I normally leave at 4pm. I could leave at 3pm but over the years the culture has been to leave at 4pm.
During major overhauls I will work 12 hour days, 7 days...
Majored in mechanical engineering and now I work in a power plant. Never had much interest in technical things growing up. Was good at math and science but I never tinkered with anything...never had enough motivation to disassemble a machine to learn how it worked. Going to college for...
I've been with the company for almost 4 years and I've only had a supervisor with a PE for maybe a month. All of my past supervisors and managers did not have a license.
