Cooling Wednesday is about performance, protection, and proof. Trace Blackmore invites the Nation to get hands-on with cooling equipment and share field photos while offering a practical reminder: learn to navigate the chiller’s user interface—because it’s your fastest route to actionable diagnostics, documentation, and energy impact.
Reading the Chiller UI—From Intimidation to InsightModern microprocessor interfaces reveal real-time and historical data that matter to heat transfer: temperatures, loading, and power trends. If you’ve avoided the panel out of fear of “shutting something down,” ask a chiller tech to walk you through the specific unit on site. Once comfortable, log key parameters on every visit and use the trend history to spot changes before they become outages.
Proving Value with Clean Heat Transfer and Measured Energy
For new or troubled accounts, record energy use during dirty conditions, then maintain the same measurements as the system is cleaned and stabilized. Month-over-month comparisons at similar loads become hard proof that treatment quality translates to lower operating costs—and that contract value aligns with measurable savings.
Cooling Wisdom from the Field
Guest greetings highlight real-world lessons: avoid shipping sample bottles in flimsy packaging (they’re heavier full than empty), respect the complexity of cooling treatment by breaking it into critical actions, and remember that underfeeding biocides invites biofilm—and problems like foaming—while proper dosing and verification (e.g., dip slides) restores stability.
Celebrate—and Document
Share your favorite cooling tower or chiller photo with #IWW25 and #ScalingUPH2O. Then, turn celebration into discipline: capture UI data, maintain trend logs, and use the numbers to defend decisions, budgets, and results.
Listen to the full conversation above. Explore related episodes below. Stay engaged, keep learning, and continue scaling up your knowledge!
Timestamps
02:01 — Kicking off Cooling Wednesday and the #IWW25 photo invite (show your cooling towers/chillers). Why it matters: community learning and pride in craft.
03:22 — Why cooling matters: performance, protection, livability. Why it matters: framing the operational stakes of heat transfer.
03:46 — Willis Carrier’s 1902 humidity control origin story. Why it matters: cooling began as a manufacturing quality solution.
09:54 — Guest greeting: Juan Menezes (Nalco Water, an Ecolab company) on a low-pH excursion and recovery. Why it matters: pH control and response discipline.
11:13 — Guest greeting: Michael Lowenstein (QLabs) PSA on shipping Legionella samples securely. Why it matters: sample integrity = valid data.
12:22 — Guest greeting: Mike Standish (Radical Polymers/MFG) on complexity, simplifying actions, and predictive AI. Why it matters: clarity first; analytics next.
17: 11 – Detective H2O: The Case of Unwanted Foam Party
29:20 — Wrap: keep celebrating; post your cooling equipment; Wastewater Thursday is next. Why it matters: momentum through the week.
Connect with Juan Meneses
Phone: 337.309.9619
Email: jmeneses@ecolab.com
Website: Reinventing the Way Water is Managed | Nalco Water
LinkedIn: Juan A. Meneses | LinkedIn
Connect with Michael Loewenstein
Phone: +1 513 207 4943
Email: MLoewenstein@qlaboratories.com
Website: Scientific Consulting for Q Labs LLC
LinkedIn: Michael Loewenstein | LinkedIn
Connect with Mike Standish
Phone: 423.316.9877
Email: mike.standish@radicalpolymers.com
Website: www.radicalpolymers.com
LinkedIn: in/mike-standish-7890627
Links Mentioned
AWT (Association of Water Technologies)
Scaling UP! H2O Academy video courses
014 The One with Mike Standish
176 The One About Tagged Polymer Technologies
350 Polymer Perspectives: Understanding Copolymer Innovations in Water Treatment
377 Future of Legionella Monitoring: Strategies for Employing qPCR in a WMP
405 Cooling Water Innovation: Harnessing Wastewater for Sustainability
418 Maleic Acid-Based Corrosion Inhibitors: Expanding the Water Treatment Toolbox with Mike Standish
That Terry Hogan guy can’t be trusted anyone that would fire Dectective H20 has less brains than the host of this podcast.