The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
[Music] foreign
up H2O the podcast where we celebrate industrial water week happy industrial
water week everybody today is cooling Wednesday and if you’ve just joined us
we are celebrating each and every day this week of industrial water week the
fifth time we have celebrated industrial water week industrial water week is
always the first full week of the month of October and we start out the week
celebrating Monday with pre-treatment Tuesday is boilers today which is
Wednesday we celebrate cooling tomorrow Thursday waste water and then we wrap up
the celebration with career so an entire week of celebrating us the industrial
water treater the best profession in the world and today Wednesday is all about
cooling you know we have some amazing cooling tower manufacturers out there
and so many of those manufacturers are joining forces with water Traders and
the industrial water treatment Nation Community to make sure that we’re
sharing and gaining good information now some of these manufacturers are really
good friends of mine and of course I’m talking about the fine folks at evapco
and if you want to enhance your knowledge about cooling towers by the
way a great way to help you celebrate industrial water weeks cooling Wednesday
well here’s something that you can do you can listen to episodes 137 and 138
and you will hear if you listen to those episodes of vapco’s Brett Alexander
joining us to talk about all things things cooling towers in fact he does a
fantastic job of Bridging the Gap of the terminology we use in the industrial
water treatment industry and the terminology that the manufacturers use
so even if you’ve heard these episodes before I urge you to go back and listen
to episode 137 and 138 I guarantee that
you will learn something new and after all it is a great way to help you
celebrate cooling Wednesday here’s something else to help you celebrate
cooling Wednesday here’s James McDonald hello scaling up Nation happy industrial
water week as we celebrate cooling Wednesday I am reminded of a client that
had a large three-cell cooling tar system that was having problems maintaining connectivity
the cooling tower had two possible makeup water sources the primary makeup Source was tertiary Aura water from
wastewater treatment at 175 micro Siemens the second makeup water source was well
water at 480 microsiemens the operator noticed that when the tower
was running on well water they were able to maintain their proper conductivity of the cooling tower
but when the tower was running on tertiary RO water they were not able to maintain the proper connectivity what
was happening was it a faulty controller the connectivity controller was able to
properly maintain connectivity on well water the connectivity controller was not the problem
was the blow down valve leaking there was an air gap between the blow down line of the drain the blow down valve
was not leaking was it an uncontrolled water loss the answer was that there was an
uncontrolled water loss somewhere this water loss was bigger than the blow down required when the cooling tire was
on tertiary Aero water makeup but smaller than the blow down required on well water
so was it drift overflow or another type of leak we inspected the cooling tower and saw
no drift no overflow from the tower that would explain this Sudden Change in operation
there must have been a leak somewhere but how big of a leak using the cooling
tower operational parameters I calculated just how big the leak was
operating on well water the blow down would have been around 40 gallons per minute a tertiary RO water around 12
gallons per minute I calculated the size of the suspected leak to be at 33 gallons per minute
which was between the two blow down numbers just mentioned as I predicted
this clearly shows why the cooling tire could maintain the connectivity sub point on well water but not on tertiary
oral water since the blow down valve was completely closed when they were currently running
on tertiary RO water this meant there was a 33 gallon per minute leak somewhere a sizable leak indeed
the cooling tar system was used to cool several rather complicated processes with many heat exchangers so finding the
leak was not going to be easy to complicate matters more due to the proprietary nature of some of the
processes The Operators and I weren’t allowed at some of the areas to search for the leak everyone we contacted denied the leak
was in their area we came up with the idea of adding a red dye to the cooling tower to make the
leak easier to find mysteriously after adding the red dye and communicating this to the
surrounding buildings the leak suddenly disappeared and never happened again
I like this story because it made me think about the mass balance around the cooling tower plus I got to use my
mathematical skills to conclusively prove my suspicions I also like this story because despite
the assurance that the leak wasn’t in any of the areas we called it mysteriously disappeared when the red
dye made it undeniable I hope you enjoyed today’s story on water and equally hope you will share
one of your own on social media to help celebrate cooling Wednesday of industrial water week
don’t forget to tag them with hashtag iww22 and hashtag scalingup H2O
if you’re a member of the scaling up Nation if you listen to this podcast you
know that I love math it’s one of the subjects that I get the honor of teaching for the association of water
Technologies it’s one of the things that I think I can help so many people
Embrace with feeling confident about using math to help solve our water
treatment Mysteries and I love James’s story because it is a great example of
how you can use math didn’t really solve the issue but it allowed him to start
looking for the issue it also reminds me of a very similar story we I say we my
father and I when I first started in this industry we had the Albemarle
County municipal buildings that’s in Virginia and we were in one of the
public buildings and we kept losing closed loop treatment it was in the hot
Loop and we looked all around we could not find a leak and of course they did
not have a water meter on it every time we went there there was no treatment in
the hot Loop so we finally met with the gentleman that was over all those
buildings and we just walked around the building it was about a two-hour tour we
went into every single room and I should have played the lottery that night
because you do not get any more lucky than what I am getting ready to tell you
we went out to the loading dock and the janitor was washing his van with hot
Loop water and of course all this steam was coming out of the hose and we found
our leak and we said what are you doing he goes well I’m washing my van like I
always do and we said why are you using hot Loop water and he goes you idiots
it’s cold out here now of course I added the embellishment of you idiots but it
was implied well we educated him that that was not a
proper use of the hot Loop water and we explained to him that that was for
heating the building and he was just going to have to use the hose bib that
was actually a lot easier and closer for him to connect but let’s face it we put
hose Taps on hot and chilled Loops all the time and people will use them I have
another story where a landscape crew actually was in the same facility now
that I think of it a landscape crew was using chilled water to fill up their
water coolers for the day because it was pretty cool they didn’t have to melt their ice they could just put this water
in there well they probably realized that when they first did that in the beginning of the month it tasted really
weird and probably gave them some side effects that I won’t go into on this family show
however we’re able to find that as well and we did the same thing that James did
we started putting dye in the loops we had a red dye in the hot we had a blue dye in the cold and I know a lot of
listeners out there use phenolphthalein as a pH indicator and that has a pink
dye residual to it so you’re able to note that hey this is not the right type
of water so I’m curious are you using dyes in your closed loop systems if you
are do you have a story about it do you have another story that you want to share with a scaling up Nation with
everybody who is celebrating industrial water week well I sure hope you do and I
hope you share that just like I shared my story with you but for you I would
love for you to share it on social media just like James suggested and when you do that hashtag it with
iww.22 and scaling up H2O well one of the other ways that we are
helping you celebrate this amazing holiday is we’re doing many interviews
each and every day on the theme of the day and we’re making them shareable and
very easy for other people to understand the basics of the themes of the day so
today we’re talking about Cooling and I hope that you use these little
interviews to share with people that you want to help educate about the topic now
you get to choose who you share them with but I sure hope you choose because
when people understand what it is that we do better our industry gets better
your job gets better because people understand why it’s so important for
them to take our recommendations so whoever you share this interview with I
just hope you share it and here is today’s interview
Lab Partners on this cooling Wednesday are two cat tricks not just one but two
we have Bruce ketrick senior and Bruce ketrick Jr Bruce’s welcome to the
scaling up H2O podcast thank you happy to be here well I thought what we would do today is
talk a little bit about cooling to celebrate cooling Wednesday and I guess
before we do that how are you guys celebrating industrial water week what are you guys doing yeah we actually do a
daily like Instagram Facebook campaign around water weekend we pretty much do
most of the view oh in other words feel feel complimented because the the height
of a compliment is to plagiarize someone else so it’s all about you trace well
and Bruce uh Bruce senior I am pretty sure I have done that from your material so there we go we’re just sharing the
wealth how would you all describe cooling to somebody that is just
starting out in this industry for me it’s pretty simple I just talk
about the fact that when you get to large industrial size Cooling and you’re
going to move a lot of heat from a building it requires the use of water and
um our industry we really just keep those assets alive so they don’t rust like if you left the hammer out
overnight it would turn into a Rusty Hammer and these are pieces of metal that are have water running through them
all the time and then we also are tasked with making
sure that we do that in an efficient manner so that we’re saving energy and and uh and making them run as efficient
as possible so with that take some chemistry and it takes some monitoring it takes some testing but at the end of
the day all we’re doing is just taking heat out of a building and then using evaporation to cool that building or
that process down Bruce senior you want to add anything to that yeah I mean I look at cooling as the opportunity to
improve people’s lives and the more efficiently we do that uh the less
energy is utilized less water is utilized and and conservation of those are important aspects of what we do in
our everyday life Bruce senior let me ask you how have you seen resources been better guarded or
better protected as the industry has advanced when I first started doing this
cooling water was pretty much at Chrome dropped the PH down to 7.5 don’t worry
about biocides because the chromate was toxic enough to kill all bacteria and
don’t worry about the fact that we’re now poisoning our environment to an eruptible point today we’re looking at
Greener Technologies using plant derivatives to make raw materials so
that we have non-toxic products that are both corrosion and scale Inhibitors that reduce metal loss that control bacteria
and can be discharged back into rivers and streams safely it’s been a a massive
change over the years what would you say some of the primary concerns are around Cooling
so because the cooling systems that we deal with are typically water-based cooling systems using evaporation the
four primary concerns that I see are we’ve got corrosion right so we’ve got to make sure that that metal loss the
water on That Metal doesn’t rust or corrode the system you’ve got biological
concerns so in that case you we worry about fouling and we also worry about uh
you know an industrial hygiene which is you know is that going to get somebody near the this the area sick and
legionelle is one we think about because it is aerosolized there’s Asset
Management so we want to make sure that the piece of equipment that we’re actually trying to keep clean and run
efficiently last for a really long time and then there’s energy management and I
think more recently that energy management piece has gotten way farther into the Forefront and even with today’s
environment in the last six months it’s becoming you know even a bigger push to
really get into that so the scaling piece the the biological control piece you know corrosion scaling biological
control and then that asset piece with efficiency those are those are critical for us
Bruce do you want to add anything to that yeah I I agree with what was just said those are the primary areas of
concern and as we advance in our technology where we will do that better and better I mean
there’s it it’s amazing how 30 years ago 40 years ago the major
concern was scale and corrosion if we don’t have scale we know corrosion we’re
fine we didn’t understand biological we didn’t understand a lot of the following we didn’t understand a lot of the
reactions between biological and metallurgy and just accepted them and
today it’s become uh extremely evident that water is such a valuable resource
that is being watched just at every every step of the way and biological has
become a huge part of that especially the hygiene sector which I think is
going to expand dramatically in the future what do you feel everybody should know if they’re an industrial water treater
and they’re working in Cooling there’s a a number of things they need to know they need to to understand what
they’re dealing with as far as the equipment they have to understand safety concerns in particular what are the
potentials of exposure to the water that they’re dealing with how do they make that water as as clean as possible what
is the potential contamination factors from those systems in the in the Locale
that they’re they’re sitting in I mean there’s just a tremendous amount of things they need to understand with cooling water it can be simply explained
as Bruce said earlier with live extracting heat from a building which is really what it is and as intricate as
understanding every bacterium that’s in the water and how to handle it properly I would add understanding what corrosion
looks like so you know what metal loss looks like and what that can do I would
also say you really really need to have a good solid understanding of you know what earth metals are floating around
calcium being the biggest one in the water and the fact that that’s inversely soluble on the fact with heat especially
and that that’s going to cause insulation and and reduce efficiency and what that looks like and how that
happens understanding how far you can stress water with concentrating it you know we
evaporate pure water and leave all the dirt behind and some of that dirt can really make a problem so you need to
know when you got to get rid of it and add some fresh water and if you don’t understand that you know that that’s the the real Basics are
just getting to that point of how how far can you push how much water you can save because the goal is to save as much
water as possible without causing the fouling or causing the scaling or causing the corrosion if not we just run
a once through system and and let water you know heat transfer right there and we wouldn’t have to worry about any of
this stuff what would you say your funniest cooling story is well my funniest cooling story I know I
can instantly know exactly what that is we um we had a their evaporative
condenser systems which typically have water just inside the cell but this was
a a big four cell system and a big straight pipe that came down to a huge circular tank inside and when we took
the account over it was heavily scaled meaning there’s a lot of calcium deposits on all of the heat transfer
tubes and I got the cleaning procedure backwards so what I did was add the
cleaner that was going to remove and bring all that calcium into solution which also makes a lot of foam
and did not add a sufficient amount nor did I have even on site with me in a
sufficient amount of defomer so as that was coming down from about 30
feet above me into this big huge pit it really violently it made the entire room
filled to like my ankle level of foam the entire mechanical room I ran out to a pool supply store and got
the foamer because it was the closest thing I could think to do and came back and and uh you know went grabbed the
maintenance guy let them know what was going on the guy who ran the facility came down and after I spent a good 10
hours cleaning that room up and it was brilliantly clean now because everything had been wet he laughed at me and
thanked me for cleaning his mechanical room but that is one I will never forget that’s great Bruce senior how about you
I was uh running a trial at a refiner that no longer exists and after we set
everything up and of course that’s before we were able to dial into things like we do now I came around the next
week and we were told that the tower wasn’t functioning at the sufficiently as they had been and obviously our
product was failing so we went out to look at the tower there was this 10 foot bladder laying on the ground which
turned out to be one of the fan blades when the fan blade shot out of the plenum they ripped the plenum apart so
all they were doing is just free cooling so you find out that your maintenance guys aren’t as up to date as you thought
they were when you when you run out to the Tower and find that it’s been apart for over a week well and the old adage
proven true again when in doubt blame the water treater yes it was our fault that the fan blade came apart and tore
the plateau apart yeah how does your product even help protect for that we’re not sure but obviously you should have
been well guys thank you for spending cooling Wednesday with us and happy
industrial water week thank you thank you
thank you Nation there’s no doubt about it if you’re in the water treatment industry
you have met a water Trader that loves telling stories and most likely you are
one of those water treaters some of the best stories that I found come when I
ask the question what do you wish you knew when you first started in the
industry hi this is Russ Baskin president and
Visionary of tower water and what I wish I knew when I started in water treatment
was everything there is to know about algae and cooling towers you know many
times in the beginning of my career I came across this particular concern I
remember my first time going up to a cooling tower I knew what Algae looked like I had swimming pools when I was
younger but I came up to this cooling tower opened the door and the tower was
completely green the water was crystal clear I was all proud of the water
treatment all my readings were great my bacteria was nice but when I inspected the cooling tower
it was green everything was Green from the Basin of the tower to the fill to
the fan bleeds of the Tower completely like it was painted that way
and you know this was something that was mentioned in my training but nobody ever
really took me up there and showed me what something would look like and of course you’re sitting there with the
client and the client has to tell you what a terrible job you’re doing
it’s the water treater’s fault and uh you probably have Legionella in my
cooling tower and you know what I realized was that you know these issues
with algae it’s you know it’s allowed to be in some places not allowed to be in
others we had you know chemicals that were called algaecides that don’t always work
so well and it’s a completely different problem than just testing your water
adding treatment to it and and going on with your business all right once it
gets to a a point like that it’s got to be mechanically clean so we’re talking
about pressure washing and uh hose washing down a tower uh costing money
aggravation time and then you got to make sure it never comes back so that’s what I wish I knew my first
step out into the water treatment world had I known that would have saved me a
lot of bad reach Nation if Russell baskin’s voice sounds
familiar that’s because you heard him during Legionella week that was episode
265 and we had so much fun we brought him back the next week for episode 266. so if you want to hear more from
Russ by all means listen to those two episodes Russ had his entire company
turned around when a New York enacted their Legionella laws so there is so
much that we can learn from Russ and he shares all of that on those two episodes
now speaking of Russ’s story something that I immediately thought of as he was
speaking was a counter flow induced draft cooling tower
if he would have had one of those that would have mechanically eliminated all
of that algae how does it do that it eliminates sunlight from getting into the tower when it comes to algae if we
don’t have sunlight we do not have algae and how many people do you know have
changed their cooling towers out and they never gave consideration to the
design well folks if we can eliminate the light coming into the cooling tower
where it sees water we don’t have to deal with it and it’s so much better if we do not have to deal with algae now if
that’s something that sounds interesting to you or if you’ve never heard the term counter flow induced draft by all means
do what I suggested in the beginning of this episode and listen again to
episodes 137 and 138 where all of that terminology
is explained and again a great way to help you continue your celebration of
cooling Wednesday and I’ll say one more time my favorite absolute positive
favorite way to celebrate industrial water week is to read all of your
stories to look at all of your pictures that you’re sharing on social media and
hashtagging them with iww.22 and scaling up H2O a great way to
celebrate and you’re going to make me so very happy today is cooling Wednesday and cooling
is the only reason that I can live here in the South I would not live in Atlanta
if I could not cool and take the humidity out of the air here I’m sure
you have heard Atlanta referred to as hotlanta boy are they not kidding did
you know that air conditioning was invented by Willis carrier in
1902. he got inspiration while walking on a foggy train platform and as he
walked from the train he realized that he could dry the air by passing it
through water to create a fog doing so would make it possible for him to
condition the air with a specific amount of moisture in it after that realization
within a year he completed his invention to control troll humidity thus creating
the foundation of modern air conditioning I love invention stories
they’re just fantastic if you’re a fan of the History Channel they’re all over there they’re all over the internet too
that’s one of my favorites because that allows me to have a livelihood thank you
Willis carrier I have a job because of you and I absolutely love that job by
the way another fun fact in 1889 Charles Duel who is the commissioner of the U.S
patent office at the time stated that the U.S patent office will
soon close down and here’s his quote the reason the U.S patent office would soon
close down he says everything that can be invented has already been invented
well it’s a good thing they hung in there to accept the patent for air conditioning that’s all I have to say
happy cooling Wednesday everybody here’s another Encore episode of detective H2O
and today you’re going to be enjoying the case of misdiagnosis
welcome to detective H2O the case of misdiagnosis
the birds chirp cheerily as the sun Shone brightly through the street office Windows of Herbert Henry oxidine Pi cwt
detective H2O squinted out the window uncomfortably I don’t like it
everything is so bright it’s hard to see what’s going on out there I’ll take a good drizzle any day of the
week the first clap of thunder in the Black mid-20th Century phone both announced
themselves at the same time foreign [Music]
on the third ring the water detective answered the phone detective H2O here
the best water treater the side of the Ohio solving water problems drop by drop what you got
Mr oxidane this is Misty from widgets BS you might not remember me but we met a
year ago when you inspected our water tube boilers detective H2O remembered Misty alright
he couldn’t forget the sweet smell of lemon verbena perfume he had worked
shoulder to shoulder with her as they climbed through three water tube boilers during the summer plant shutdown
uh yes I remember you inspection water
tube boilers you passed I mean your boilers passed with flying colors yes
that was us we need you again but this time for our cooling towers we’re having
problems with our microbiological control feed program something is not up to Snuff about it but we don’t know what
can you fit us into your busy schedule Mr oxidane let me check my calendar
said detective H2O as I ran his finger down the empty page uh oh yes I happen
to have an opening this morning I’ll be there within the hour will that work of course Mr oxendine I look forward to
seeing you in an hour detective H2O cracked a crooked Smile as
the rain started during his drive to widgets PS in his old Ford he was looking forward to this visit
making his way beyond the guard shack he headed straight to the PowerHouse Misty Downs was just inside the door
silhouetted by a burst of steam from a recent photo blowdown to the drain arms on her hips as she walked towards him
she exclaimed Mr oxidine I’m so happy you’re here follow me
putting up no resistance the water detective gladly obeyed when they reached the water testing station Misty
said look at this Mr oxidine the free chlorine levels have taken a dime right
out of the blue all of a sudden for the last three shifts we don’t know what’s going on
we’ve turned up the bleach pumps but no luck now I’m smart enough to know there are two sides to the oxidation coin one
side is demand the other side is residual you can’t have a free coin residual until you met demand
we’ve been racking our brain see is there process contamination perhaps oil leaking into the system causing an
increased demand I guess on the flip side are those little microbiological craters multiplying such a rate that we
just can’t keep up with demand we just don’t know Mr oxidine we just don’t know
the water detective scratched his chin as he thought let’s take this one step at a time Misty
what you say is correct but let’s start from the beginning can you give me a sample of the cooling tire water we need
to run some tests sure replied Misty a moment later she was
back with sample in hand detective H2O started his barrage of testing beginning
with the free chlorine test it was completely colorless but a sharp well-trained eye did catch something
immediately he moved on to the rest of the testing including total hardness total alkalinity connectivity pH and
tracer this is interesting can you take me to the sodium hypochlorite feed station and
cooling tower Basin please of course have you found something Mr oxidine
Maybe
when they arrived at the sodium hypochlorite feed station the water detective noted the pulsing of the
dosage pump in his tubing with a flooded section priming did not appear to be an issue at this point the pump was pumping
to beat the band moving on to the cooling tower he noted a fine white foam covering parts of the
sumps water surface some of it got caught up and flew out the top fan as he took a peek inside the cooling tower
plenum area detective H2O then LED Misty back to the sodium hypochlorite feed
pump which he swiftly turned off with her mouth open Misty asked why did
you do that we don’t even have a free chlorine residual and you’re turning it off don’t we need more bleach instead of
less the water detector took a moment to enjoy the perplexed look on Misty’s face before revealing his hand a full house
a little crease formed between her eyes so she was perplexed you do have a good understanding of the basics of oxidizing
biocides Misti but I believe you were Blinded By the Light on this one let me show you
the water detective led her back to the water testing station pour the cooling tire water sample into a sample vial and
said now watch what happens when I place the free chlorine test Regent powder into the sample it’s just clear Mr
oxidane that means no free chlorine no watch again said detective H2O as he
rinsed and Report the sample come closer watch the very beginning right when the
Regent first touches the water sample as Misty and detective H2O stood cheek
to cheek watching the free chlorine test raise your powder pillow drop into the water sample it happened
did you see that Misty yes I did what does it mean that flash of pink you saw as the free
chlorine test raisin powder hits the water proves there actually is a free chlorine residual in your cooling tower
what why how did you notice the other test I ran before did you notice the
colors some of them changed the total alkalinity test for instance yes I did notice that one test in
particular turned different colors than normal instead of a green and reddish transition the colors were blue and
yellow I just figured you were using a test I hadn’t seen before no Misty is the same total alkalinity
regions almost every other water treater uses did you notice the white foam on top of the cooling tower when we tuck
our look inside the plenum area yes I thought it was from whatever the contamination is what’s going on here Mr
oxidane regretfully bringing his consulting services to a near close detective H2O
Finally Revealed his complete hand it’s quite simple actually you’re over
feeding your sodium hypochlorite when this happens it can bleach out the Water Analysis tests giving suspect or
erroneous results the free chlorine levels are so high that they are bleaching out the free chlorine test almost immediately but when you watch
closely as the tester agent powder hits the water you can see a flash of pink that’s the reagent doing its job just
before it fades from the high sodium hypochlorite levels also the total alkalinity test turn blue and yellow
because the sodium hypochlorite over feed the Tracer test was affected as well so I suspect you may be over
feeding your inhibitor product too lastly that white foam we saw on the cooling tower water was once again from
the sodium hypochlorite overfeed that’s why I turned off the oxidizing biocide pump
seeing her disbelieving look the water detective tucked the cooling tower water sample prepared a dilution and ran the
free chlorine test again a beautiful pink color bloomed in the sample see once we properly dilute the
sample the free chlorine residual is clear as day smiling broadly Misty gave the water
detective a big hug thank you Mr oxidane or should I say
detective H2O you saved the day for once the water detective was
speechless as his face turned the rosy pink of her free chlorine test
[Music]
in the underbelly and penthouses are 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 this
side of the Ohio solving water problems drop by drop
foreign [Music]