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skyline nation i get people asking me
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[Music]
welcome to scaling up the podcast where
we scale up on knowledge so we don’t
scale up our systems i’m trace blackmore
the host of the scaling up h2o podcast
nation
new year
new month now we’re already in
february so so much to do in
2022 i hope you mapped out what you
wanted to get done this year you’ve got
1 12 down so i hope you are heading into
our second month strong if you’re not
you still have plenty of time to do that
but don’t wait until the end to get some
action done go ahead and think about
some of the things that you want to
get done this year think of some of the
things that you want to do this year
maybe there are some conferences you
want to attend maybe there’s somebody
that you want to meet i promise you
there is somebody that you know
that knows that somebody that you want
to meet but if you’re not thinking about
it if you don’t have it written down if
you’re not actively working on it it is
never going to happen so my ask take a
second and just ask yourself what are
the things that i want to accomplish
write those things down
and just by looking at them writing them
down and acting on them you are going to
have such a higher chance of getting
those to complete
nation this is episode 237
if you could believe that i’m sitting
here at the same desk that i’ve always
been at since we started this podcast
well i’m trying to think no i think i
actually have a different desk it looks
exactly the same but it is now a
standing desk so i did some
modifications to it by the way if you do
not have a standing desk you have no
clue what you are missing
my friend charlie cicchetti he came on
one of our earlier episodes he was the
one that told me i needed to do the
podcast charlie’s been on throughout the
years with the podcast he has his own
podcast that he does within the green
building space charlie’s just been a
great friend and great advisor he told
me i needed to get a standing desk
charlie’s giving me such good advice i
didn’t even question it i went out i
found a standing desk actually that’s
not true i always question charlie i
will always come back with some sort of
an objection
to charlie and he’s always got an answer
for me i told charlie i did not want a
standing desk because i knew that there
would be times that i would want to sit
at a desk and i didn’t want to always
stand he said great because they
actually go both positions you can
program the desk to be in a standing
position
or be down in the regular sitting
position so he had an answer for that i
had no more excuses and i’m sure glad
that i did i just think better when i
stand i’m able to come up with ideas
and i’m able to bounce back and forth if
i
have somebody come into my office and
they ask me a question and then i need
to get back to whatever i was working on
i just seemed to be able to do that
better now when i started this show i
had no idea i was going to be telling
you about a standing desk but that is
one of the things that has really
changed how well i’ve been able to work
and if anybody has an iwatch you know
that thing is always telling you to
stand because we know the health
benefits when we stand
more than we sit well if your desk
allows you to do that your watch is
going to bug you a lot less
nation here are some things that are
coming up that you probably want to mark
your calendars with and the first thing
is the national groundwater association
is having their hydrology webinar series
now this is a virtual event taking place
on february 9th and if this is something
that you are interested in by all means
come to our show notes page scaling up
h2o.com
and we will have that information for
you
it was actually a hydrologist that
really got me interested in water
treatment i know you’re thinking trace
your dad got you interested in water
treatment and yes you’re right but he
was my father
so my father couldn’t do anything cool
but i remember i think it was third
grade there was a hydrologist that came
in
and they showed us slides at the time
and they had all these different slides
of where they would work and how they
were out in the environment and they
were testing water they could tell what
was in the water
they could do things with those tests
they could remediate they could do all
these things and i just thought that was
cool and i’m pretty sure i went home and
i told my dad about this awesome guy
that came and talked about a career in
water
and something probably like i had never
considered that or even knew that that
was a thing and my dad probably smacked
me in the head and said that’s what i do
that’s what you’ve seen me do you just
don’t see what your parents do and for
those parents out there you know exactly
what i’m talking about so that’s one
event another event is the american
water works association together with
the water environment federation is
having their young professional summit
on february 21st in orlando florida this
summit is a workshop for young
professionals
exploring the role in the water
treatment industry and discussing how
they can best serve the water sector
as a whole more information on this on
our show notes page also the
international water association is
having their conference on water and
wastewater technologies
march 27 through april 2nd in reno
nevada more information on that on our
show notes page and the other thing i
want to mention is one of my absolute
favorite things and something that i
just look forward to every single year
is the association of water technologies
technical training seminars we do two
every year well that actually is not
true we didn’t do two last year because
of coven we didn’t do two the year
before that because of covid
but this year we are doing two so we are
going to be in seattle washington
february 23rd through 26 and then we’re
going to be in cleveland ohio
march 3rd through april 2nd folks i love
seeing you there because i get the
privilege of being one of the trainers i
do the sales training i do some of the
fundamentals and applications training
and i also do math over in the technical
training i always get so many great
comments about the show and also so many
good ideas about what i’m going to talk
about on this scaling up h2o podcast
from these events but more than anything
i just love meeting you i love hearing
that you’re listening to this show it’s
doing something for you you like the
direction that it’s going or you have
some ideas for the direction so by all
means if you’re in the same sector of
water treatment than i am
go to awt.org
or you can go to our show notes page and
we’ll send you over there to the
technical training page
you need to come to these seminars they
always sell out so you want to make sure
that if you want to go go ahead and sign
up today and make sure you tell me hello
when you get there
scout up nation some of my favorite
shows to do are when you ask questions
to the scaling up h2o mailbag on how to
do something i love it because i know
we’re talking about the right stuff now
how do you get something into the
scaling up h2o mailbag well that could
not be simpler simply go to
scalinguph2o.com and you have two ways
to do that the easiest way is on the
right hand side of the screen you can
click on leave voicemail and that will
allow you to easily record your voice
and we can air that on this fine podcast
or
you can go to our show ideas page by
navigating up in the header and you can
type out exactly what your idea is so
that’s exactly what this person did they
want to know all things about cleaning a
cooling tower what are the do’s and the
don’ts when should it be scheduled all
of that stuff
we’re all treating cooling towers most
of us are treating cooling towers we all
know that they need to be cleaned so
what else do we need to know around that
nation getting to the core of this
question is around scheduling how often
a cooling tower needs to get cleaned but
here’s the thing
scheduling
deals with
a bunch of unknowns we just don’t know
how dirty that tower’s going to get
within a particular amount of time
also
we normally find that towers are cleaned
as a reactive approach that something’s
not working right instead of
a proactive approach
now i have a customer that told me one
time that they actually they were a
prospective customer at the time they
have a little better way of thinking
about things after working with us but
they told us that they cleaned their
cooling tower every four years
whether it needed it or not folks that
is not being proactive by any stretch of
the imagination
so that begs the question how often
do we need to clean
our cooling tower
and to answer that we need to look at
two things how a cooling tower works
and how
water treatment is able to perform what
it needs to do once it gets in the water
so let’s look at a definition of what a
cooling tower is a cooling tower is a
heat exchanger
that is the baseline
very bottom definition a cooling tower
is a heat exchanger how does it exchange
that heat it exchanges that heat by air
and water being brought into direct
contact with each other and then that
air takes the heat thereby reducing the
heat within the water and then that
cooled water goes into the system grabs
more heat and it just does the process
all over again so knowing what a cooling
tower does we know we need as much air
to touch as much water as possible and
we call this surface area
just imagine if the cooling tower supply
line the big pipe that goes on the top
of the cooling tower
was not broken up in any way and it was
just allowed to drop completely through
the center of the cooling tower
the only surface area would be the
outside of that eight plus inch water
column maybe it’s a 20 inch water column
not a lot of surface area so the only
place that the air could come in contact
with that warm water is on the very
edges and the bulk of all that water is
now protected within the water not
seeing any of that air we’re not getting
any heat transfer
that’s why a cooling tower its job is to
break up that water into tiny water
droplets and those are the tiny water
droplets that you see falling through
the cooling tower and that is how a
cooling tower can efficiently
cool the water
now the pieces that specifically are in
the cooling tower that help us get those
water droplets are either a hot deck or
distribution nozzles so once all the
water is piped back to the cooling tower
it then goes into a distribution deck
and a distribution deck is just
basically a big platform that has a
bunch of holes in it and then underneath
those holes are distribution nozzles to
kind of swirl all the water around and
get it evenly
over the top of the tower fill now the
tower fill
is made to keep all those water droplets
as separated as possible and allow an
interchange where we have as much
surface area as possible for the air to
interface with that water
thereby
taking the heat from the water into the
air releasing it up into the atmosphere
so we have cooler water able to go back
and get more heat just to do the process
over it again now you might have a
cooling tower that does not have a hot
deck and what it does it just has
distribution nozzles and the point of
that is is it’s just simply swirling
around all the water making it
just like the other one making it go
through the tower fill
and of course
the cleaner that all of these things are
the more they’re going to perform
efficiently and when i say efficiently
i mean they’re able to keep those
droplets as small as possible they’re
able to give as much
surface area
to the water and the air as much as
possible
remember a cooling tower is all about
exchanging heat now by default the
cooling tower also cleans the air that
gets sucked into it yes the same air
that we’re relying on
to exchange the heat from the water has
stuff in it if somebody’s cutting the
grass right by the cooling tower the
cooling tower will suck in all those
grass clippings if there are a bunch of
trees around there if they’re doing
construction whatever is in the air is
now in your water system because the
cooling tower sucked it in with it
anything that comes in with the air gets
washed out as the cooling tower water
comes in contact with it and ultimately
that means you now as the water treater
have to deal with it because now you
have all this dirt and debris in the
tower it also means that wherever the
debris decides to settle will reduce the
design ability of not only the cooling
tower but also
every heat transfer surface that it
comes in contact with now let’s look at
the cooling tower first less surface
area for the water to come in contact
with the air
that means that the cooling tower is
less efficient as a heat exchanger
now maybe at first you won’t see the
loss of the ability to cool the water
but you will see it in the amount of
energy that is needed in order to
efficiently cool that water
more energy means more cost to run the
cooling tower and a lot of times people
look at cost as water treatment they
look at cost as
i want to buy this new piece of
equipment those are all cost but a lot
of times they don’t look back and say
how is this going to become an
investment that the normal operation
that i have to pay for is actually
reduced
thereby
once i pay back whatever that amount for
that equipment is
i can now start enjoying the benefits of
less operating costs because they’re all
working together so what i’m going to do
is i’m going to share with you what i
hope you can do with your customers is
take them in to this discussion so they
realize when you recommend a piece of
equipment it’s not just a check that
they are riding it’s an investment
that they are making so their system
either stays cleaner but by all means is
more efficient thereby
making it less expensive for them to run
the other thing that our recommendations
do is we use less natural resources to
get the job done well of course we’ve
got to create that power from somewhere
and then we have to pay for that power
so whatever your goal is to be greener
to save more green we’ve got that
covered with our water treatment
recommendations
now the cooling tower not running
efficiently what does that mean that
means that the fan needs to come on more
than if it would if the surface area
were there and why isn’t the surface
area there where all that dirt and
debris is now in spaces that the water
should be in or
it’s in spaces that are meant to uh in
the distribution nozzles to swirl out
that water so we can get a large
distribution area if there’s any dirt in
those areas it means we’re going to have
less
heat transfer surface and that means
it’s going to be less efficient in order
to overcome that the fan of the cooling
tower will have to come on and of course
the fan takes energy we have to pay for
that energy and there’s your cost and
there are your natural resources now a
lot of people think that the cooling
tower cools the water by the fan coming
on and you know that you have seen that
cooling tower operating without the fan
being on a cooling tower is a heat
transfer device because it allows air to
interface with water and that interface
is the heat exchange
now eventually all the ambient air
within that cooling tower will become
heat saturated and when that happens
that’s when the fan comes on to draw
more air up and through that cooling
tower so it can continue the process
so if the fan’s coming on on cooler days
and there’s not much of load on that
system
that could be a sign that we do not have
good water distribution within the
cooling tower again it is a heat
exchanger because we have to have a lot
of surface area between that water and
the air and if there is dirt and debris
in that tower
somewhere it is not allowing us to be
efficient now how can you tell with this
well if you can get into the cooling
tower maybe you can stick your head in
maybe you can just simply take one of
the louvers off and you can look in you
should be able to see
a good even distribution now if you look
in and you see an area that looks like
it’s maybe white and has some
evaporative salts on it well that’s
telling you that something is blocking
the path of water to get there and that
equals in efficiency and by all means
whenever you’re going inside a cooling
tower make sure you are keeping yourself
safe make sure you’re wearing gloves if
you are touching tower fill or tower
louvers sometimes those things can be
sharp so just make sure you are being
protected we’ve got fans in those things
and if you stick your head through a fan
when the belt starts rotating it around
you don’t want to be there so don’t ever
do that so make sure you know exactly
what you’re doing before you go into the
cooling tower and going into is a finger
going into a cooling tower or just
barely sticking your head into it you
are going into that space make sure
you’re always safe and when you’re there
being safe you’re looking for good
distribution you’re looking for all the
surfaces to be wet
and if they are
cooling towers probably doing a pretty
good job with distribution but if you’re
seeing areas where it’s not distributing
folks it is not efficient and we need to
encourage our clients to get the
contractors out there to either clean or
repair or whatever needs to be done
because a non-efficient heat transfer
device is not doing a very good job at
transferring heat
now if the cooling tower is not doing
its job in transferring heat it doesn’t
just stop there
everything is now receiving more heat
which means
the chiller has to work harder well
folks if the chiller has to work harder
it’s going to send even more heat to the
cooling tower yes that’s the same
cooling tower that wasn’t able to get
rid of all the heat like it was supposed
to
and then not to mention all the heat
transfer surfaces out in the system that
the design is meant to take the heat
from now we can overcompensate that
again the tower fan can come on the
chiller can work a little bit harder and
of course that pump if it has a variable
drive on it it’s going to work a lot
harder and a lot longer again equating
that i need to run that system longer
and harder which means somebody has to
pay for all the natural resources that
are going into
that machine
all because
it is in efficient
so that really gets into the why we need
to clean
a cooling tower but we really haven’t
gotten into how often do we need to
clean a cooling tower
so
my customer that said we clean our
cooling tower every four years whether
it needs it or not i will give you a
hint that is not a good answer and that
is never the right answer but outside of
that
how do you know how often a cooling
tower needs to be cleaned i heard my
friend mark lewis tell one of his
customers this once and they asked him
how often should we be cleaning our
cooling tower mark told them that the
dirt that settles out on the bottom of
the tower basin should never exceed one
quarter inch and i love this answer
because it wasn’t based on time it was
based on function it was also based on
making sure we were constantly observing
what the tower was trying to tell us by
the way that’s our superpower as water
treaters we have many that’s one of our
superpowers is we are able to
communicate with all this heat transfer
equipment and we can then relay the
messages that it can’t do itself to the
people that own that equipment so they
can do something with it so this gets
them involved with going out looking at
the cooling tower seeing what the
distribution is like but also seeing how
much debris is actually in the bottom of
the cooling tower and i know what you’re
saying trace who really cares about the
debris in the bottom of the cooling
tower there’s no heat transfer that’s
taking place there and you’re a hundred
percent right
so certainly if you have dirt and debris
in the bottom of the tower basin you
know that on the heat transfer surfaces
within the system
you are going to have dirt and debris
there as well and then we are not able
to grab that heat in order for that
process to take place
so that’s just a quick and easy way to
see
you know how often we should do that
based on
what the air is that’s being pulled in
based on how long the towers being run
but i also know you’re probably thinking
that we’re leaving something out now if
you have been a long time listener of
the show you know i preach the gospel of
water treatment and i don’t preach the
trinity of water treatment i preach the
quadrennity of water treatment what i
mean by quadrantity is we as water
treaters need to deal with four areas in
order to have a complete water treatment
program
now those four areas
waters the universal solvent given
enough time water versus whatever you
put it in
water will eventually corrode it so we
have to slow down that corrosion can’t
stop corrosion but we can dramatically
slow it down the next thing is scale we
have a lot of dissolved solids within
the water that we are treating and when
that dissolves solids precipitates out
and it will normally precipitate out on
our heat transfer surfaces first we need
to make sure that that is minimized and
or eliminated
the third item is microbial fouling we
know that things grow within our cooling
systems and we have to deal with that
now when i say we have to deal with that
i mean from an efficiency standpoint
now too often it’s misunderstood what
microbial fouling control means and i’m
here to tell you that it is efficiency
not
legionella now you might be thinking
well trace we’ve got to take care of
legionella and you’re right but there’s
only so much we as water treaters can do
without our customers committing to all
the things that they have to do
they have to make sure that they’re
authorizing and paying for all the tests
that we need to do to monitor that
legionella is being kept at bay
they’re the ones that need to initiate
the plan on how we’re going to do all of
those things now we can definitely be
involved and we’ve got great information
that we can share with them on that but
legally we can’t create that plan we
can’t do that plan without them being
involved with it and then of course
doing the things that we need to above
just an efficiency standpoint now we’re
trying to eliminate a specific species
and eliminates not the right word but
people use that which is why i bring it
up it’s to keep it at bay it’s to
monitor it and when it gets to a certain
level then we knock it down to another
level by the way a successful legionella
program is not that you have no
legionella in the system ever it’s that
you know how much legionella is in the
system and you are able to take
corrective action to bring it back to a
level that’s not historically going to
get people sick and all that’s laid out
in the plan
so all that to say we look at it for an
efficiency standpoint and then the last
leg is general
dirt and debris well the cooling tower
it’s a big air washer it’s sucking in
all that air and anything that is in the
air is now going to get washed out into
the cooling tower we talked about that
before and you’re saying well trace my
products don’t do anything for that how
am i responsible for that i want to say
yeah you’re probably partially right our
products do allow things to stay kind of
fluid along with the water longer so we
can do something with it but if we don’t
have anything there to do something with
it then you’re probably right now what
is the thing that we need there to do
something with cue the entrance of the
filter that’s right we need some sort of
filter now somebody’s probably also
saying trace you’re talking about water
chemistries and now you’re talking about
something mechanical that’s out of the
realm of water treatment and it really
depends on how you look at it i really
believe that you have to have mechanical
and chemical or whatever type of water
treatment you have working together
or you’re not going to have the best
water treatment program that you have
think about it if you have a bunch of
dirt and debris in the system that’s
just going to allow a lot of places for
this microbial stuff to start sitting
down camp
if you have a bunch of uneven surfaces
within the system i.e dirt and debris
you’re going to have nucleation sites
where you can precipitate out and start
creating scale and if we have all this
dirt and debris that’s sitting on our
heat transfer surfaces well we can’t get
our great corrosion products to that
surface
and we’re going to have corrosion so
they really have to work together or
we’re not going to be able to do our job
properly
so with all of that i call it the
quadrity
still the question is hanging out there
how often do we clean the cooling tower
and that of course
depends on how much dirt and debris is
getting sucked in and now how much dirt
and debris is actually getting filtered
out and i hope that you see how
important a filter is
because the cleaner we can keep the heat
transfer media the cleaner we can keep
the heat transfer surfaces
not only the longer that we can go in
between cleanings
but the more efficient all of that
equipment can be
and that is what’s going to save the
customer money that is what’s going to
save everybody from using more natural
resources than we have to
and now you’re probably saying trace i
have talked to people about putting some
sort of filtration and yes i’m
specifically staying away from specific
type of filtering devices that’s a show
in its own but for now we’re just going
to talk about it as a filter
well when you put a filter on
the people that make the filters are
very proud of them and our customers a
lot of times get sticker shock and they
think well i’ve run for this long
without one i’m not going to invest x
because it doesn’t look like i need it i
hope that through this conversation
you can see that there’s an entire
dialogue that you need to have with your
customer to make sure that they
understand the importance of making sure
you’re doing every single part of that
quadrantity
and without a filter folks you just
cannot do it the cooling tower is
bringing in debris with it every time
any air comes in we have to do something
with that
so
as you advising your customer
make sure they understand that it’s not
an expense
it is an investment it’s an investment
that will give them a return over a
certain amount of time now how will it
do that well they’re going to have to
spend less money on operating all this
heat transfer equipment the heat
transfer equipment is going to run more
efficient for a longer period of time
and you will be able to reduce the
amount of cleanings that you have to
perform a lot of times we over clean
to over compensate for not having
filtration in the system so if all of
those things are brought in front of
your customer you are now able to put
that in comparison to however much that
filter is
and then they can see after so many
months maybe it’s even so many years
that they will be making money back on
that investment and i hope that that is
a totally different conversation for you
to be able to get that fourth tier
so we can have the quadrennity so we can
have a proper
and complete water treatment program
remember the quadrantity is the balance
of chemical and mechanical
working together so we can get the
optimal job done
nation i just realized that i have not
answered this person’s question
at all they want to know what the do’s
and don’ts are of tower cleaning but i
thought it was so important for us to
have this conversation before we even
got into the one about tower cleaning so
join us for our next pinks and blues
episode where we are going to continue
this conversation we know why
next episode of pinks and blues we’re
going to talk about the what
nation a zig ziglar quote that i
absolutely love is someone doesn’t need
to be great to start but someone does
need to start in order to be great i
love that quote and james is always
trying to get us to start something new
and this year he’s getting us to think
on water each and every week here’s
james
welcome to thinking on water with james
the segment where we don’t give you the
answers we give you the topics and
questions for you to think about drop by
drop
now let’s get to it
in this week’s episode we’re talking
about testing interferences
what are the interferences in your water
analysis test you run each and every day
how do you know your test results are
not artificially high or low due to an
interference
do you know how to recognize an
interference
is iron and interference high alkalinity
ph
chlorine or other oxidizers
is molybdenum an interference for iron
testing in a closed loop
read your test procedures ask your
technical support department and search
online
take this week to think about and
research test interferences and which
ones may impact you the most
be sure to follow
tow 22 and hashtag scalinguph2o to share
your thoughts on each week’s thinking on
water
i’m james mcdonald and i look forward to
learning more from you
james thanks for that and nation thank
you for listening thank you to the
individual that gave me this question i
know we haven’t answered it completely
yet but i promise we will and it was
something that somebody sent in
i read and i was able to think of all of
these things that i wanted to share with
you i don’t know if i would have gotten
there had somebody not gone to scaling
up h2o.com
and either gone to our show ideas page
and left their comments or left me a
voicemail so it’s so important for you
to share that because i’m thinking this
is a episode that you are going to let
your customers listen to and they’re
going to be able to understand where
you’re coming from all that is from the
scaling up nation so thank you scaling
up nation for making sure i always have
something to talk about and by the way
if you’re out there in the scaling up
nation and you’re wondering what else
you can do wherever you consume this
podcast if you can put a comment about
this show that allows whatever that
search engine is whatever that podcast
playing service is it elevates us a
little bit higher and it allows water
treaters to find us a little bit easier
the scale up nation is well over a
thousand strong
and we are i think in 90 something
countries it is just amazing and i hope
every one of you out there that hears my
voice realizes that you are part of a
community we call that community the
scaling up nation and you are not out
there alone there are other people that
are doing the same type of job that you
are doing and they understand the same
frustrations that you are and when we
get together as a community i just think
things get easier so thank you scaling
up nation for being part of that
community i will make sure that i will
keep the community strong by bringing
another new episode to you next week and
stay tuned in a couple of weeks for our
continuation of this episode have a
great week folks
[Music]
when the mastermind group was introduced
i said let me get on this thing i want
to be a part of this i want to learn
how to be more productive and
make my days where i can enjoy my family
time and separated from my work time and
so
i like what trace does and so i said i
want to be i want to do things a lot
like trace so let me let me figure out
what he’s doing so that’s why i joined
through
to find out more go to
scalinguph2o.com forward slash
mastermind