Working at a papermill...

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bgelectric

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Just looking for input from others who have worked in this environment.
 
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Worked in one for a few years .... can't say for sure all are the same.. it's classified as "heavy industry" for a good reason :D
If the job is "electrician" ....Hot, wet, often strenuous work. An environment that eats electrical equipment for lunch.
Pay was good but you earned it.
 
What kind of input are you looking for? I think a lot of it will depend on the company, the grade of paper being made, onsite digesting and pulping, etc. Another factor is how up to date the equipment and controls are.
 
WorkSafe said:
Do those places smell worse inside as they do outside? Papermills have the most repugnant odor I have ever smelt.
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I worked in one for a half a day. Not only do they stink inside and out, they are really chemical plants. There is really nasty stuff in them and the one I was in leaked chemmies all over the place. The only reason I made it a half day was because I couldn't get out until lunch.

We were on time and a half, union scale and I couldn't get out of the place fast enough.

Now, we were there fixing the damage from a HUGE fire so the environment was worse than usual, but I wouldn't work there with or without the fire (the mill is gone now) but I know people that did and seemed to like it and the pay.
 
zog said:
You get used to it after awhile
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If you live there, yes. Years ago I did some work at a gas station in Franklin, VA. They have a papermill there. It took us about 2 weeks to do our work (we came out of Norfolk, so we got away at night). I never got used to it, and the smell some days was so bad that I thought I was going to throw up all day. The people that lived there were used to it, but their houses, vehicles, clothes, all stunk.

I hope I never have to get used to it.
 
I've worked in a lot of paper mills - it's a good market for variable speed drives. Mostly in the UK, some in Europe, and some in the Far East. The smells vary quite a lot.
I think a lot of it depends on housekeeping and that, in turn, probably depends to an extent on regulation of waste and effluent.
For UK at least, it has tightened up a lot and mills here generally have little or no discernible obnoxious odours these days. I can remember times when you knew you were in the vicinity of one from quite come distance away. Clued you right in for the location as reliably as SatNav does these days.........:D
 
Growing up I could see 14 different paper mills from my bedroom window. Only one of them smelled really bad, and it was almost 10 miles away.

A mill that changes wood logs into pulp will be the most 'chemically active' environment.
A mill that takes pulp and digests it will be your next most volatile environment, although most of the issue is basically water (and lots of it).
A mill that simply converts large paper rolls into smaller pieces is not most different than any other environment, in fact it is usually dusty like a woodworking plant.
 
jim dungar said:
Growing up I could see 14 different paper mills from my bedroom window. Only one of them smelled really bad, and it was almost 10 miles away.

A mill that changes wood logs into pulp will be the most 'chemically active' environment.
A mill that takes pulp and digests it will be your next most volatile environment, although most of the issue is basically water (and lots of it).
A mill that simply converts large paper rolls into smaller pieces is not most different than any other environment, in fact it is usually dusty like a woodworking plant.
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Ours did all three.

It was on Muskegon Lake, so they had all the water they needed.

Logs would come in one end of the building, and both cut flat stock and bulk rolled paper would come out the other. They also had a coating department for making glossy paper.

There were chemicals everywhere. The smelly stuff was dimethyl sulfide. Luckily for the OP, the last mill in the US that used the process that makes DS has been shut down.
 
jim dungar said:
A mill that takes pulp and digests it will be your next most volatile environment, although most of the issue is basically water (and lots of it).
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Indeed lots of water. But most of it gets recycled.
I've known papermaking to sometimes be portrayed as a bit of a black art.
But, at fundamental level, it is fairly basic. Mix cellulose fibre and water to make the "stuff". As I recall, it's about 98% water and 2% fibre. The consistency is about like thin porridge.
The process extracts the water by vacuum, pressing, and heating. Thus, the sheet is formed.
The water (and steam) extracted in the process is recovered and re-used.
My involvement has been on the variable speed drives that run the various sections of the process. It's a challenging application.

jim dungar said:
A mill that simply converts large paper rolls into smaller pieces is not most different than any other environment, in fact it is usually dusty like a woodworking plant.
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We'd see that as a converting plant rather than a paper mill.
 
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