The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
[Music]
scaling up nation when was the last time
you thought about your insurance
coverage
for me it is not very often but
i know for a fact that you sleep
soundly at night knowing that you have
it
that means it’s important and that means
you need to understand what it is that
you have
it means you need to understand where
your liability is
and you need someone that you can trust
to have that conversation with several
years ago i met
mike him at an awt convention of mcgowan
insurance group and at the time i
had our insurance through a local broker
who
is an extremely nice guy and we had had
our auto
policies with him for years and when i
started my company
i naturally called him and he got us
coverage the thing is he did not
understand the water treatment industry
so he was giving us the best coverage he
knew to get us without understanding the
industry
i had a conversation with mike at that
convention
and he asked some very good questions
questions that i didn’t have the answers
to
and i’m sure glad he asked those
questions because folks i did not
know to ask them but as soon as he asked
them
i knew that i did not have all the
coverages that i
need think of all the coverages out
there
property general liability professional
liability workers compensation
employee practices liability folks
there’s even
insurance for cyber liability and i have
to tell you i did not know to ask about
that one
but mike did because this is what he
does he
serves the water treatment industry and
he knows that there is a potential
liability because of the remote access
that we do
with our controllers not only did he get
me
the right coverage with the right
company
he was able to give me advice on making
sure that we had
proper policies in effect to make sure
that we were protecting ourselves
and our customers a lot of insurers can
only write through one insurance carrier
mcgowan insurance group represents
dozens of carriers
like donegal insurance and when we go
to renew i can’t tell you how awesome it
is
that they are able to look at multiple
suppliers to make sure
that we’re getting the best coverage but
we’re also
getting the best value i know
without a doubt because mcgowan
insurance group
understands the water treatment industry
that we are
getting that each and every time we
renew
with them they do liability benefits
bonds
they are a full service agency
give the fine folks at mcgowan insurance
group a call today and tell them
that trace sent you or visit them on the
web
at mcgowan
[Music]
insgrp.com
welcome to scaling up h2o the podcast
where we scale up on knowledge so we
don’t scale up our systems
my name is trace blackmore i am the host
of scaling up h2o
and folks i am so happy today this
is my absolute favorite type
of show i love all the shows that we do
but i have to tell you i truly love the
ones where you
write into me or you leave me a
voicemail
and you say how do i do this what’s
going on with this
issue how do i get better as
a water treater and folks i don’t always
have the answers
sometimes i have to seek out
other people in the water treatment
industry when i have
questions so the fact that you are doing
that
that tells me that you get it there’s so
many water treaters
out there that think that they are
supposed to know
everything and i think that is the
biggest downfall
of this industry folks there is so much
going on
there is no way that you can know
everything
out there and if you understand that
that’s just a big weight that you get to
take
off of your shoulders and i know you’ve
heard me say
dozens of times when you align yourself
with
other water treaters that you’re able to
bounce
ideas off of get help with issues that
you don’t understand
and vice versa that’s where we make the
industry better
that’s where you make your programs
better
that’s where you make yourself better
and i think shows like this is exactly
the demonstration of all of that that i
just said now if you haven’t caught on
yet this is where we do
questions from the audience so i call
these pinks and blues this is where you
write in or leave me a voicemail about
questions
that you have and i try to help you out
here
on the podcast so we’re going to go
straight into it my first question
somebody writes in and they want to know
about wet
analysis so what this is this is
in the field they saw somebody
pick up a scale sample from a system
put it in a flask put something in it
and then make a determination based on
what happened within that flask they
thought that was pretty cool
they didn’t know how to do it and they
wrote in and they said hey
what is this wet analysis stuff can you
tell me about it
and absolutely i can before i do i do
want to get into
a few things one whenever you are in
your test kit remember you’re working
with some potentially
nasty stuff so always protect yourself
wear your ppe your personal protective
equipment you’ve got gloves you got
glasses anything else that you feel
you need so you can keep yourself safe
you want to create a barrier
between the stuff you’re using and your
body
so with that being said that’s my public
service announcement
i want to talk about the wet analysis
and i want to talk about quantitative
and qualitative because i think
sometimes
we think every test is just a test
every analysis is just an analysis
and it’s not and i know you’ve heard
these terms out there before
quantitative and qualitative well
quantitative
can be counted it can be measured
so these are things that are absolutely
repeatable
and these are the lab results that we
send off to know exactly what
is in that scale sample
now qualitative is exactly what we’re
going to do here
this is descriptive conceptual
these are things that are probably going
to be a little bit different each and
every time that we do them
but they give us some real quick data
that allows us to make decisions in the
field
without having to send something off
a wet analysis is qualitative
so using this method we can get
quick in the field results so
now we can make a decision
to get us by until we get the real
lab results back of exactly what is
in that scale sample so in this
particular situation
somebody pulled out a piece of scale in
a boiler
they saw somebody do this what analysis
the
person most likely that was their boss
that was their manager
and they made some sort of decision
based on that
and then they sent off to get a
laboratory
result and found out that what the
gentleman did
in the field told them roughly what was
in it but the lab result confirmed what
was in it but told them the exact amount
that was
bound up in that scale this person
thought that was pretty cool and they
want to know
how to do it so here is
what you would do so go ahead and grab
yourself
a small piece of that scale and you’re
then going to place that
into a flask i like to use an erlenmeyer
flask which is built for titrations they
swirl really easily
whatever flask you want to put it in
that is your choice
then what you’re going to do is you’re
going to add enough hydrochloric acid to
cover
the sample now the titrant in your total
alkalinity test kit
should work fine give that a little bit
to dissolve but don’t walk away from it
you want to
watch it so you can see exactly what is
going on
because that is where you’re going to
get your information
so first off let’s look at the color if
a yellow or a yellowish
red color develops typically that will
tell you that there’s
iron that’s bound up in the sample
if a green color develops well that’s
telling you that there’s
copper that’s bound up in the sample
now when you put that acid on it if you
notice that it starts to
foam then typically that’s telling you
that
carbonates are present and that’s
normally bound with either calcium
with phosphate with something we don’t
know what that something
is but we’re starting to get to know
that
carbonates are bound to it and that
allows us to figure out okay what’s
what’s going on with this system
was the softener down for a while what
do i know
that i can now place together with this
wet analysis to help me figure out
what’s going on right now with the
system
oh one that i think i’d almost forgot is
smell it now now folks don’t smell it by
putting
your nose directly over it you know that
you always
waft an odor towards you remember
protect yourself first
but if you smell rotten eggs
that’s normally an indicator that
sulfides
are present so how cool is that all of
that
just simply by putting a little piece
of scale into a flask and then
putting your hydrochloric acid over it
so
that is a wet analysis that’s probably
what
the person did that you witnessed and
you’re able to make some quick decisions
so you can change something with a
program
or you’re able to figure out why
something
is potentially failing i alluded to a
water softener when we found carbonates
in the sample well maybe we didn’t know
to look at the water softener
so now that we found all that foaming
going on in that scale we’re going to
start looking at the softener logs
and see what’s going on maybe
somebody news there and they don’t know
how to run
the hardness test and we’ve had a hard
water softener for quite some time and
this was the final indication
that there was an issue now my hope is
if that was the case
you would then set up some safeguards so
we don’t have to scale up the system to
find out that a test wasn’t run
properly but we’ve got some intermediate
indicators to make sure that we hit
so we don’t have to scale up a system so
i’m trying to think of some other wet
analysis
that you can do so let’s say you suspect
phosphate scale
so same thing you’re going to take a
small amount
of the scale you’re going to put that in
your favorite titration flask
and now you’re going to use nitric acid
to cover the sample dissolve the sample
and again you’re going to watch the
sample as
you do this to try to get as much
information as you can
so we can use the same indicators that
we used before when we were using
hydrochloric
acid but this time once the sample is
dissolved
we can now get our phosphate test out
and there’s two that i think most people
use either the
phosphor 3 which the titrant turns blue
and then we can measure for that or the
molybdenum date which turns
yellow well folks i don’t know if you’re
really going to measure this
but if you put either your phosphor 3 or
your melibda vanadate
in that sample and it does turn either
blue or
yellow depending on what reagent you’re
using
you’ve now just verified that you have
phosphate bound
up within that scale sample
now how cool is that there are things
that we can use that are already in our
test kit
that gives us more information right
there on site
that we can use to make decisions now
keep in mind this does
not negate that we should still send
that sample
in for a proper lab analysis
it just gives us a head start so we can
start to fix the problem
while we’re waiting on that analysis
so i hope that helps i hope that now
instead of just
watching somebody do a wet analysis
you’re able to do that on your own and
you’re able to
take some of that information to make
decisions now
while you’re waiting on your lab results
another member of the scaling up nation
writes in that they have seen
someone log stack temperatures on a
boiler
and they want to know is this something
that they should start doing
they also go on to say why do i need to
worry about the fire side
since i’m treating the water side
i don’t know why i want to say that this
question has come up before
but obviously it’s still a question if
somebody’s recently
asking it and i think that’s
that’s a great statement that they made
and i’m so glad they made that statement
instead of just
asking the question why does a water
treater need to worry about the fire
side
when our job is clearly treating
the water on the water side so let’s
face it
you as the water treater are the biggest
advocate for the boiler that the boiler
is ever going to see
now i know somebody owns it and i know
somebody else
is the maintenance contractor for it
but you as the water treater really are
the voice
of that boiler the boiler cannot speak
the boiler cannot tell people what it
needs
but you as the water treater understand
the boiler well enough where you’re able
to give it a voice
and then use that voice to tell either
the owner
or the people that are contracted with
tuning the boiler up
what that boiler needs because again you
understand it better than anybody else
so
what are you looking at first off
let’s talk about efficiency
so and that’s what this is all about why
do we record stock temperature
and the answer to your question is yes
you need to start recording
stack temperature for several reasons
probably the biggest reason is this is
the easiest way that
you can prove that your program
is working you might be thinking well
how is recording a stack temperature
going to help me prove to the customer
that what i’m doing on the water side
is working and i’m glad you asked that
question because that’s exactly what we
are going to answer so our job is a heat
transfer efficiency manager if you’ve
listened to this show for any amount of
time
you know that that is our job you’ve
heard me say that before so
where’s the energy we’re creating the
energy
within the boiler so we’ve got fire
within the tubes and i don’t know why
but i’ve just chosen a
fire tube boiler so we’ll run with that
well the whole point
is we need to get the heat energy
out of the tubes into the water
so we can create steam so anything
that creates insulation on either the
outside or the
inside of those pipes
is going to not allow the most efficient
transfer of that heat to happen
from the fire into the water
through the tube so if it is a
scaling issue and we are now keeping
the pipes as clean as possible we can
show that the stack temperature went
from a hotter temperature
to a lesser hot temperature still hot
let’s face it
showing that we’re cleaning the tubes up
so this is
if we had a scaled system maybe we took
a system over
well that scale is acting as insulation
as that insulation comes off the pipes
we are able to show that less heat is
going up into the atmosphere that means
more heat is going into the water to
create steam which is exactly where we
want it
folks if you keep a log of this you can
show
that they are using more of the energy
that they
are paying for to go to the actual thing
that they’re paying for it to go to
so the warmer the temperature gets
that’s showing
that we’re insulating that heat inside
the tube for whatever reason normally
it’s
either on the inside of the tube or the
outside of the tube
but if we log it and we start seeing
that going down
that means that more of that energy is
going into the water to create steam
so we just spoke about scale being on
the outside and as a water treater we
all think about
scale but here’s the other thing that i
want you to think about
with this question take a look into
the sight glass where the flame is so
you’re looking into it
if you see that flame and it’s a yellow
orangey color folks that is not a
well-tuned
flame and what that means is the flame
is putting off a lot of soot that’s
collecting on the
inside of the pipes and i don’t know if
you knew this or not but
soot is so much more insulative
than scale is it’s like a magnitude of
10.
so if we keep the interior pipes clean
we now have cleaner inside pipes to go
to the water through that tube and all
you have to do
is simply look at the flame
and see what the color is now if it’s
not supposed to be yellow what color is
it supposed to be what should be a
bluish
color if you notice that it doesn’t look
this way
make a note of it on your service report
and then tell the owner tell the
operator
tell the maintenance provider that that
flame needs to be tuned up
what will happen is all that soot will
need to be
brushed out in order to get that tube
clean again so i know we’re not charged
with
treating the fire side but folks we
advocate better for that boiler than
anybody else
a lot of people don’t understand what i
just explained
i know you understand it and that’s why
we need to take an
active role with that so thank you for
asking that question
i think a lot of people probably
wondered that before so
always pay attention to what your flame
looks like and
always document what your stack
temperature is so that way you know what
it means
when it starts to change so here’s my
next question
i treat a boiler that has a feed water
tank not a deaerator
we are constantly replacing the
impellers due to
oxygen corrosion i do not understand why
there’s so much oxygen in the system
since we run the feed water temperatures
to 210 degrees fahrenheit
we also feed sulfite directly into the
feed water tank
we keep increasing the sulphite feed
but every inspection we find oxygen
eating up the impellers
should we change our oxygen scavenger
please
help well thank you for that question
and a whole bunch of things just
rushed into my mind as i was reading
that question and i don’t know if that
was an operator
or a water treater i don’t think it
matters i’m going to answer it the exact
same way
but with that i’m going to assume
that only sulfite is being fed into
the feed water tank now as a bit of an
aside
sulfite is really the only product that
we should be feeding
into the feed water tank the condensate
treatment should go
into the steam header and then all the
other
boiler products should be fed directly
into
the boiler now i know those are the
ideal
locations and sometimes our job and the
circumstances we have are not
ideal but that’s where everything
should be fed and for this
issue for this question i’m assuming
that nothing else is being fed
into the feed water tank except for the
sulfite
and the reason i’m assuming that is
because sometimes those
more caustic products we’re feeding them
in a concentrated form
into the feed water tank and all that
caustic that extremely high ph will go
through
that yellow metal impeller and that
itself can cause an issue
but i’m going to assume that that’s not
taking place here
the other thing i’m going to share with
you and i think this is important
whenever we’re doing
any sort of troubleshooting is we
use occam’s razor for those of you that
aren’t familiar
with that that simply states that
entities should not be
multiplied without necessity okay what
the heck does that mean
that means that all things being equal
the simplest thing
should apply another way i’ve heard that
explain that if we hear
hooves in the distance we think horses
not zebras so let’s think simplicity
here
and with that the most simplistic thing
i think is going on right now is i think
your feed water temperature is too
high and i would be curious that
if this is a problem that you’ve just
started seeing
since you’ve raised your feed water
temperature or if this is a problem
that’s
always been there so how long has your
feed water temperature been that high
and was it an issue when it was lower
so let’s stick with that train of
thought
and i’m going to say let’s look at the
pump
is cavitating now let me explain
what i think is happening and why i say
the word cavitation
i think what you’ve done in an effort to
drive off
oxygen you’ve increased the feed water
temperature to 210 degrees
and folks that is our number one way
of getting oxygen out of the feed water
we want to increase the water
temperature
i’m going to come back to that in a
second but you’re at
210 degrees and we know that water at
sea level
boils at 212 degrees
so i’m assuming you’re at sea level now
i’m in atlanta
we’re at a thousand feet above sea level
that means that we’re going to boil
a little bit less than 212
degrees so i think you see where i’m
going with that
so let’s say for this example that we
are at sea level and we’ll talk about
what happens when the water goes
into the pump so we’ve got 210 degree
water
getting sucked into a pump and as that
impeller spins
around it creates a an area
of low pressure so sticking with this
example
let’s say that you are at sea level
and you’re going to boil at 212 degrees
and you’re thinking okay well i’m at 210
degrees
so i’ve got 2 degrees that’s not an
issue well it might be
because here’s what’s happening once
that water is
forced through the pump and that
impeller is spinning around and around
well as the water goes around with that
impeller
there’s a low pressure differential
within that impeller than it is outside
of that impeller
and i’m guessing that what is happening
is that is enough lower pressure that
you are
boiling that water around the impeller
and you’re creating bubbles around the
impeller
now once that higher pressure is
reintroduced on the other side of the
impeller
those bubbles that were quickly formed
are now
quickly destroyed and they’re exploding
on the impeller well they’re imparting
all this
energy onto the impeller and what it’s
doing is it’s just
exploding metal off of the impeller
and i think that is what you’re seeing i
think exactly what you described
is a great recipe for cavitation
and here’s something that i want to
point out so hopefully
if you are a water treater that sent me
in this question you’ve got another
system
that is a de-aerator and i want you to
pay attention to the deaerator
and you’ll notice that that is elevated
above
the pumps the reason that the d a tank
is
always elevated higher than a feed water
tank above the pumps
is to create more pressure so what i
just
described doesn’t happen
and it’s not uncommon for people to look
at impellers and say that it looks like
oxygen pitting the way i’ve always heard
oxygen pitting described is it looks
like
somebody shot it with this shotgun well
that’s pretty much what cavitation looks
like
so it’s very easy to get that confused
but here’s what i want you to do if this
is
the reason that you are seeing issues
with the impeller
really easy to fix again using occam’s
razor
let’s start with simplicity first and
then we can work our way
to more complex so simply turn your feed
water down get it down to about 190
and see if that is still an issue
now still monitor your sulfite levels
uh it sounds like you might be even over
feeding your sulfite trying to
compensate thinking that this is an
oxygen problem and it’s really
a cavitation problem so monitor your
sulfite levels don’t over feed it feed
exactly
what you need and see if that
is still an issue if it is still an
issue then maybe you do want to look at
changing out
some of your oxygen scavengers but
really
hearing that question not knowing all
the facts but just the ones that i do
i am really confident that that is going
to
solve your issue folks again
it’s important to make sure that the
number one way that we control
oxygen in a boiler is by increasing the
temperature in either the feed water
tank
or that’s why we have a d a tank and the
d a tank
is under pressure so we can actually get
that
temperature above boiling so we get a
bunch of oxygen
out of the system i think where we have
less
than seven parts per billion in the
system feed water or the da tank water
of course with a feed water tank we
cannot go that high
because we don’t have pressure on it so
when you
understand that water treatment is a
balance between
understanding the mechanical what we can
do raising the temperature
and then we polish that with our
products to get better results
and then when you understand the systems
that you are treating
you will be an unstoppable force so
whoever wrote this question if you could
please uh
write back in and let me know if this
did solve the issue
i am extremely curious folks
i love questions like this so thank you
so much for
writing these questions in whenever you
have a question that we can share
on the air i know for a fact other
people
have questions like that i know we can
all learn from those questions
so you might be wondering how did these
people get their questions
to me well every single one of these
people they went on
our website scalinguph2o.com
and they looked for our show ideas tab
on the
menu page they clicked on it they filled
out the form
and presto it went right to me and i
read it on the air however there’s also
another
way you can take advantage of maybe you
want to hear your voice on the air
so as soon as you go to scaling up
h2o.com
on the right hand side you’ll see a
tab and if you click on that you will be
able to use your computer microphone
your phone microphone and you can record
your questions straight to me i know
you’ve heard me do that on the show
thanks again for those questions please
keep them coming
because again this is my favorite type
of show
because i think it connects us all with
we are in the same community
and when we understand what we do better
not only do we get better
as individuals we get better as
an industry something that we are doing
to
help the industry get better is we
are hosting another hang just like the
one
we did at the association of water
technologies
virtual conference this year well this
one is going to be
december 10th at 6 00 pm eastern time
now you might be saying what the heck is
a hang and that’s a great question
the hang is where we all get together
using zoom i know everybody loves zoom
i know we’re all probably done with zoom
but that is how we’re getting by
in this particular time and folks i
promise i’m not going to make it like a
boring
zoom call that you are used to we’re all
going to come into a main
room where we can see everybody i’m
going to try to
have a couple of questions for you try
to entertain you as best i could and
then quickly i’m going to get you into
your own
separate breakout session with five
other people
five other people that’s very manageable
i want you to introduce yourself
and you never know who you might meet
you might meet somebody that can answer
that question that you have with that
particular system or maybe you’re
looking for a particular product and you
don’t know
where to go to get that source well
folks this will
increase your network this will increase
the people that you call
friends in the water treatment community
all you
have to do to be a part of this is right
now or as soon
as you’re able to pull over nobody do
this while they’re driving
go to scaling up h2o.com forward slash
hang and register for the event
and then at 6 00 pm eastern time
december 10th log on you will see me
and hopefully a lot of your friends
and friends you have not met yet and
we’ll go ahead and have a great time and
we’re planning on doing this
throughout 2021 so folks if you will
mark your calendars for december 10th at
6 00 pm
folks again i love shows like this so
thank you for all of those people that
wrote in your questions
thank you for listening to scaling up
thank you for helping me
promote the scaling up h2o podcast
and folks i will bring you another brand
new episode
next friday have a great week folks
[Music]
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ass 12080 is a new professional
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now that you’ve heard about it what are
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there are
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if you are certified get it done
now trust me once your customers find
out about this standard they are going
to demand the people
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info already offers the most economical
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you can take an additional
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