The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
stay on up nation happy
industrial water week of course we are
celebrating
boilers today on this tuesday my name is
trace blackmore i am the host of the
scaling up h2o podcast
and all this week we have a brand new
episode
for you celebrating each and
every day of industrial water week
yesterday we talked about pre-treatment
as i mentioned today we’re talking about
boilers tomorrow is cooling
thursday is waste water and then we wrap
it all up with careers
on friday so i hope you caught
yesterday’s show where we had our
opening ceremonies performed by
founder of industrial water week james
mcdonald
and we talked about some of the things
that we’re going to do that are a little
bit different
this year some things that we’re going
to try to do so we
are including everybody so we can see
that we the scaling up nation that we
the industrial water treater
are not alone we are many strong
and we’re going to celebrate that so
each and everything that you post to
have to do
with industrial water week i want you to
hashtag
iw20 now yesterday i told you
about the water cake i told you the
little story about the water cake how
it’s got a great history
well folks you can make that cake at any
time but you got to make it
at least on friday and if you make
another cake that’s cool too
but i just thought it would be cool to
celebrate a cake where the main
ingredient
is water and it has a such a deep
history folks it translates all the way
back
since before the revolutionary war it
was used as people were going across the
country and they could not take
perishables with them and it even has
roots in italy where they would use it
for the same reason there
that they could take ingredients that
were not perishable
folks every time i try to search water
cake i find
something new about it so i want you
to enjoy this delectable
water cake that is going to be the
symbol
of industrial water week or at least the
cake anyway that we’re going to use
this year for industrial water week and
hashtag
how yurts turns out and maybe sharing it
with some of your co-workers
or your customers in fact when you’re in
front of a boiler today i want you to
hashtag
iw20 i want you to put things out there
in social media
so we can all share in this celebration
so it’s my hope that each and every day
we
are learning something new about the
topic that we are on
so today is all about boilers
and with boilers of course we know that
we are putting heat
into the system to use for something
further down the process
it might be for making widgets it might
be
for heating a facility you know
your account you know what that steam is
used for and if you don’t it doesn’t
matter how good your program is running
if you don’t understand the equipment
that your program is running
in you do not understand
your program well folks last week i
introduced you to water treatment
jeopardy so once again we’re going to
have an installment
of industrial water treatment jeopardy
on boilers
the gaseous phase of water is called
this
what is steam this is the vessel where
condensed steamed and make up water meet
what is the feed water tank where
solids accumulate in a water tube boiler
what is the mud drum pv
equals nrt is the equation for this law
what is the ideal gas law the name
giving to the process of releasing
sludge from the bottom of a boiler
what is blowdown well folks i
hope you scored high on industrial
water treatment jeopardy i hope that
that
encourages you to go out and learn more
about the equipment that you are working
on
and there’s so many different things to
learn about
with boilers i was working with a
company not too terribly long ago
and they were taking me to a survey to a
new customer
well there’s no doubt about it engineers
are going to hook
boilers up however it suits their needs
so you could have what is a steam boiler
the exact same design on a steam system
in one location
and you might have the exact same steam
boiler
hooked up on a hot water system
it’s not producing steam it’s just
heating
water now in this case when i was
watching this company do the survey
they saw this as a steam boiler and they
wrote it down as a steam boiler
well of course they hired me to help
them with their processes
and i asked them is it really a steam
boiler and they said yeah look at it of
course it’s a steam boiler
and i said look at it more closely
what we found on that boiler was a
circulation pump
folks if you ever see a circulation pump
on what you think is a steam boiler it
is not a steam boiler steam
does not need any pump for it to go
where it is needed steam will do that
all by itself
water however does need a pump so that’s
your lesson for today
if you ever see a circulation pump
on a boiler it’s not a steam boiler
it is a hot loop boiler
there’s no doubt about it we as water
treaters have our
own special language that language is
demonstrated
in our new very own line
of water treatment specific t-shirts and
accessories
go to scalinguph2o.com forward slash
shop
to get yours today
nation yesterday many of you were
introduced to our favorite crime
fighting hero
detective h2o so without any further ado
here’s today’s installment of detective
h2o
welcome to detective h2o the case
of standing
the rain ran serpentine paths down the
windows of the rusty blue forward
as herbert henry oxidane p-i-c-w-t
set waiting on johnny keeland to open
the side powerhouse door of pork bellies
processing
when the lanky man’s shaggy head popped
out the water detective made a run for
it
dodging raindrops best he could shaking
buckets of water from his coat
detective h2o said i’m here
so what’s going on johnny i got here as
fast as my ball of tires would slide me
glad you made it detective h2o these
boilers aren’t doing good right now
the connectivity is through the roof
higher than my grandma that time she ate
those special brownies
how high well she danced on the tables
at the nursing home
not your grandma the boiler con there
are over
10 000 microsiemens the connectivity
meter is pegged out
detective h2o whistled
that is high what’s happening any idea
none but the auro permeate storage tank
is at 1 500 micro siemens too
how’s that possible city water is only a
few hundred micro siemens
and the ro drops it down to less than 10
typically
it’s a real head scratcher this one is
and you don’t feed any alkalinity
booster or anything to the auro permeate
storage tank do you
no nothing like that how about your
dechlorination feed
upstream of the ro is it malfunctioning
and grossly overfeeding
no i thought of that already it has the
same setting as always
i even watched and listened to the pump
seemed the same as always as it pumped
away
checking the ro feed water connectivity
after the pre-filters was the same as
always too
it’s a mystery don’t you return
condensate to this auro permeate storage
tank too
i’ve always said you should rename this
tank the arlo permeate and condensate
storage tank
yes we do said johnny as the thought
slowly dawned upon him
follow me johnny said the water
detective as he led the way through the
maze of pipes and equipment
five minutes later he stood in front of
the condensate polishers
picking up the water treatment log
sheets detective h2o saw that unit
number two had come online just a few
hours ago
what is it detective can we put this
unit into manual regeneration right now
uh yes but it just came online this
morning
it shouldn’t be anywhere near time for
regeneration i realized that
just humor me a little okay here goes
unit number one coming back online
unit number two going offline and
starting the backwash sequence
the water detective stood there beside
johnny watching the regeneration water
flow to the drain
the backwash stopped and the brine draw
started
the brine level dropped as expected then
the slow rinse step started
aha exclaimed detective h2o
uncharacteristically
quick go get that connectivity meter you
use
johnny ran off quick as a whip and
returned shortly after with a black
analog connectivity meter
what are we going to measure there’s no
water coming out
i know that’s just as i suspected
just wait several minutes later water
flow to the drain started again
as the faster in step started detective
h2o
took the conductivity meter and measured
the fast rinse each minute for the 15
minutes of the rinse
that’s it fix that valve right there
that’ll fix your boiler conductivities
wait what why that valve how will that
fix the boilers
as you saw no water is flowing during
the slow rinse step
the valve must not be functioning
properly since the condensate polisher
did not go through a slow rinse
all the salt and any exchanged ions did
not get rinsed out of the polishing
vessel
even though it went through a fast rinse
step the connectivity only got down to
three thousand micro siemens at the end
of this regeneration
when unit number two comes back online
it will be feeding this high
connectivity water straight to the ro
permeate storage tank
with the next stop being the boiler
system we found
our culprit wow detective h2o let me
check out that slow wrench valve
sure enough the valve was not
functioning properly and was rebuilt
with increased blow down and a little
time the boiler conductivities and ro
permeate storage tank connectivity
returned to normal
a week later as detective h2o was
sitting at his oak desk
listening to the rain and thunder his
phone rang once
twice three times before he answered
detective h2o here the best water
treater this side of the ohio
solving water problems drop by drop what
you got
detective this is marty cochran down at
pork bellies processing
i’ve got a bone to pick with you this
bill you sent is outrageous
johnny tells me you were here for only
an hour still looking at one piece of
equipment
took a few readings and left why would
you charge such an outrageous fee
for only that well ten dollars of the
bill was for the gas to get to your
plant
see my ford is a little gas hungry the
rest isn’t just for standing there
as he said the rest is for knowing where
to stand
you’re welcome
[Music]
in the underbelly and penthouses of the
metropolis of waterville
where the boilers percolate and cooling
towers fog
there is one man who works tirelessly to
end corrosion
stop scale fight low-life microbes and
conserve water
that man is detective h2o best water
treater the side of the ohio
solving water problems drop by drop
james these stories are great thank you
so much for sharing
them with us and i’m kind of curious do
you
have a funny boiler water
story i don’t know if the story that i’m
thinking of
is funny but it is true when i first
started working with
my dad there was a hybrid
a water tube fire tube boiler
at a lumber yard that we used to take
care of
and there was actually a gentleman that
used to work for
my father that no longer worked for my
father because of his inability to run
his test
properly now this was early 90s that i’m
talking about
so and i don’t know if those boilers are
even in existence anymore
uh but there was this huge tax credit
around the 90s
where if you bought this hybrid water
tube fire tube boiler
it almost paid for itself in tax credits
but the problem was
do you treat the water tube side one way
do you treat the fire tube side another
way
well you couldn’t do that because they
were all common water so it created
a lot of hot spots and a lot of issues
well the gentleman that was working with
my dad that
at that time no longer worked with him
he just refused to run the celica test
he thought the silica test took
too long it wasn’t worth his time
and all of his other tests were
resulting in
within ranges of what the company said
that they should be within
so he wasn’t going to waste his time
with the silica test
well folks they were on well water and
wouldn’t you know it the limiting factor
on that boiler
was silica now i don’t know if you have
ever seen
silicate scale but folks it is glass
and it will hardly come out of boiler
tubes unless you use hydrofluoric acid
and my boiler memory i was pretty young
i was working with my dad and we were
putting on these
hazmat suits and we were using
hydrofluoric acid folks this stuff is
nasty it will change the chemistry of
your blood so your heart doesn’t want to
pump it anymore this is nasty stuff
and this was one of my first
introductions
into the water treatment industry
full out working with my dad so
uh you better believe i was paying
attention he commanded my respect
through the entire process
because his words is if you don’t do
what i tell you to do
this stuff will kill you now in georgia
where i live now
he probably would have added it will
kill you dead right there i don’t know
why but that’s what they say down here
with that being said that was my boiler
story i
learned how to use hydrofluoric acid to
take out silica scale it was one of the
most difficult things
to date that i have ever done in my
water treatment career
and with that you better believe i don’t
care if silica takes three hours to run
i want to know how much silica is going
in my boiler
because i never want that experience
again folks what are you going to learn
new about boilers today
what picture you’re going to hashtag to
iw20
i hope you’re thinking about these
things i hope at the end of this week
you have just amassed so much new
information because
you went out to look for it so i can’t
wait to bring you another episode
tomorrow for industrial water week of
course tomorrow we’re talking about
cooling
but before i leave i’m going to leave
you with a quote
a drop of water if it could write out
its own history
would explain the universe to us by lucy
larkham have a great week folks and i’ll
see you tomorrow for cooling wednesday
[Music]
you