Refractory and Furnace Lining Insurance

Refractory has a severity mismatch as stark as any trade on this site: a modest contract protects an asset and a process worth enormously more.

A lining failure in service means heat reaching a shell that was never designed for it. The outcomes are a hot spot, a burn through, a distortion of the structure, molten material escaping in a metals application, a fire, and in all cases an unplanned shutdown of a furnace or kiln that may represent the entire output of a site. Restarting is not quick: the vessel has to cool, be inspected, be relined and be dried out and heated up on a schedule measured in days. The client's loss is production for that period.

So two things need establishing. Whether the policy reaches damage to the vessel and plant, which is the thing you were working on and is therefore where exclusions sit, and whether it reaches consequential loss, because the production figure dwarfs the physical damage. Then the limit, which has to be set against the plant you line rather than your turnover: a contractor relining furnaces at a steelworks or a cement kiln carries an exposure that bears no relation to the value of the contract.

A refractory lining is not finished when the last castable is placed, and the step afterwards is where a lot of failures are created.

Monolithic refractory contains water, and that water has to be driven off on a controlled schedule before the lining goes to service temperature. Heat it too quickly and steam cannot escape, which spalls the lining from the inside. The dry out schedule is specified by the material and it takes time, which is time inside a shutdown that everybody wants shortened. The failure then appears days or weeks into operation, by which point the contractor has left and the client has a lining that is breaking up.

So the schedule and who controlled it are the record that matters. The specified dry out and heat up curve issued in writing, the party responsible for executing it identified explicitly because it is frequently the client's operators rather than the contractor, temperature and time logged during the dry out, and a written warning where a shortened schedule is being proposed. Where a client compresses the dry out to recover a shutdown, that decision in writing is the defence, because it is the single most common cause of an early lining failure.

The employers' liability exposure here combines several of the worst environments in industrial work in one place.

A furnace or kiln interior during a shutdown is a confined space with restricted access, frequently at height internally, containing debris, with residual heat in the lining and in the brickwork that persists long after the shell is touchable. Add dust from breaking out old refractory, refractory ceramic fibre from older linings, respirable crystalline silica, awkward manual handling of bricks and castable, and a programme that runs continuously because the outage is fixed. Heat stress is a real and underestimated factor because people are working hard in protective equipment in a warm enclosed space.

So the controls are confined space plus heat plus respiratory, and an insurer will want all three. Permit to work with atmospheric testing and temperature measurement before entry rather than a judgement that it feels cool, forced ventilation and cooling, work and rest cycles with hydration in hot conditions, respiratory protection with face fit testing appropriate to fibre and silica, a top man and a rescue arrangement that does not rely on the emergency services, and health surveillance for anybody regularly breaking out old linings.

Refractory work is shutdown work, which makes it a programme risk as much as a technical one.

A reline happens during a planned outage with a fixed end date, because the plant has to restart. Materials, labour and equipment are mobilised for that window, the work runs continuously, and the end is not negotiable because every day the furnace is down costs the client production. Overrunning attracts penalties and loses the next contract. That pressure is exactly what produces the shortcuts that cause failures: a dry out compressed, a brick course rushed, an anchor pattern reduced, a strip out that did not go back far enough.

So the planning is the protection and the contractual position needs settling before mobilising. Realistic durations with contingency rather than the client's preferred date, a clear scope on what strip out depth is included so finding worse condition is a variation rather than an absorbed cost, a defined position on who controls the dry out, and resources and materials on site before starting rather than arriving during the outage. A contractor who is honest about the duration at tender stage is in a far better position than one who wins on a programme nobody can achieve.

The plant is worth far more than the lining. We are an FCA regulated broker and will not tell you we are the best choice. These are the questions that decide it.