The following transcript is provided by YouTube, mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode click HERE.
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by the rising tide Mastermind the rising tide Mastermind is where people just
like you get together every week to help each other with issues let’s face it
issues are hard so why start from square one when somebody can tell you what
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[Music] thank you welcome to the scaling up H2O podcast
the podcast where we scale up on our knowledge so we don’t scale up our systems I’m Trace Blackmore the host of
the scaling up H2O podcast and Nation today is the very last day that if you
want to save 10 on getting a course that will build your
confidence in you achieving your certified water technologist designation
so if money is a motivator and you want to save 10 now forget all the things you
get when you achieve your certified water technologist designation where all
your peers know exactly where you stand in the industry your customers now know
a whole lot more about you even before they meet you because of those three
letters and so much more but if 10 off pushes you over over the edge then
please today the last day go to scaling up h2o.com forward slash cwt prep and
put in promo code cwt10 for your cwt Prep course this
course is designed to build your confidence so you can proudly schedule
that exam because you know exactly what you need to study and you’re going to
get so many standardized test taking tips to build your confidence so you can
schedule that examination one more time that’s scaling up h2o.com forward slash
cwt prep and put in code cwt10 that code does end today and as I
said when we are at the awt convention on October 4th I cannot wait to shake
your hand and congratulate you for getting your cwt and I also want to
congratulate you if you haven’t taken your cwt exam yet but you have it scheduled folks please let me know that
information I know this is something that you can do and being a cwt I know
the reasons why you need to do it so Nation
it’s up to you can’t wait to shake your hand hey here are a few things that you
might want to add on your calendar and as always you can go to
scalinguph2o.com navigate over to our events page and we’ll have all the
information you want to know about these events and more so you can go to what is
going to help you devour more information in the water treatment
industry the American Society for healthcare Engineers is having their annual conference August 6th through 9th
in San Antonio Texas and then the AquaTech Mexico in Mexico City Mexico is
having their conference hosted by the water quality Association September 5th
through 7th and finally the association of Metropolitan water agencies as having
their executive management Conference October 22nd through 25th in Coronado
California for these events and more find out all the information that you
want to know by going to scaling up h2o.com
speaking of information that you want to know here is a brand new periodic water table with James
hello and welcome to the periodic water table with James where we think and learn about water chemistry drop by drop
please use your week to search online ask your colleagues or even pick up a
book to learn more about each week’s periodic water table topic if you do at
the end of the year you’ll be 52 water chemistry smarter so let’s raise the water table of
knowledge together and get started today’s topic is
polyphosphates what are polyphosphates what are some examples of polyphosphates
used in industrial water treatment what function do they serve are they corrosion Inhibitors or scale
Inhibitors or both or neither how do they work what PH range or
polyphosphates most effective are they synergistic with any other water treatment chemicals
can polyphosphates revert back to phosphate what factors can increase this reversion
do you use any chemical products with polyphosphates in them remember knowledge is power and taking
the time to learn more about water chemistry each week will help make you a force to be reckoned with
be sure to post what you learn to social media and tag it with hashtag water table23 and hashtag scalingup H2O I look
forward to learning more from you [Music] can I mention the upcoming awt
conference on October 4th I hope that is on your calendar and I hope that I see
you there but today we are going to talk about last year’s annual conference and
there is an award that acknowledges all of the things that are fine suppliers
that give us the Wares in order to do what we do for our customers each and
every day and the association of water Technologies looks for certain criteria
to celebrate our suppliers that are just really knocking it out of the park by
doing the very things I just mentioned so we’re going to be talking to them today on our interview
Partners today are the mats of AP Tech group we’ve got Matt horine and Matt hi
callus how are you guys doing today doing well thank you trace nice thank you thank you for coming on scaling up
H2O we’re going to talk about a lot of things today uh we’re going to talk about a B Tech group what you guys do
there but I want to start off with who you guys are and introduce you to the
scaling up Nation so if you guys will please let the scaling up Nation know who we’re speaking with
good deal thank you Tracy I’m Matt horine I’m the president at AP Tech AP Tech group been here for 21 years this
summer so my second career job as a chemical engineer out of college so it’s
been very rewarding and enjoy very much being part of this team and a leader of
this team but also a part of this industry I’m Matt heykalis I’m the Vice President of Sales here at AP Tech group I joined
the team oh four and a half years ago prior to AP Tech I work for a company
called Crown Solutions starting in 2001 uh spent uh close to 18 years with them
in various roles starting out in the field you know cutting my teeth learning the business the the Technologies uh
just how to how to solve problems and and interact with customers and moved up
to up to Regional sales at one point and also spent some time in the technical department well welcome both to the
scaling up H2O podcast I thought we’d start out with talking about the
prestigious award you just received and I think a lot of the members of The
Association of water Technologies do not know what happens off camera and
actually getting that award so congratulations you all received the supplier of the Year award last year
thank you thank you and and I’ve been on the board for awt I know they just don’t give those things out there’s lots of
things that you have to do you have to prove that you’re here for the industry so what was that process like somebody
called you and said you were nominated what happened then yeah actually Matt and I were we’ve been
at a customer visit out on the road so doing a little road warrior work and uh Matt gets a call I can’t remember if I
was driving or he was driving but he answered his phone and I can hear him going yeah okay all right yeah well
we’re going to the Vancouver and he gets off the phone he goes hey we were just
nominated for a supplier of the year so like oh that’s really cool so that’s kind of where it started and then you
know we’re like okay I think we got a shot at this and you know over the summer as we’re making up our plans we’re like yep we got to make sure we’re
there and it’s there on Friday night in Vancouver and we’re not leaving and you make sure our travel plans accommodated
that and sure enough there are maybe you know a day or two into the conference so people are like I think you guys got
this and you know we’ve got a good feeling then so very exciting and you know definitely Jim wasn’t able to Jim
Heimer our owner wasn’t able to be there that week but you know I think he was proud that we were able to be able to
receive it and accept the awards so and Katie Lee as well so you know just the
lead leadership and the the management ownership of the company it’s something they’ve worked at for a long time and
been a part of their life and their families so yeah certainly a measurement of success and enjoy and accomplishment
so you prepared a speech you didn’t know if you were going to have to read it or not is that what was going on I’m not a
great preparer of speeches I’m more of an extemporaneous speaker so I kind of in my mind I had probably the four or
five you know things I knew I wanted to touch on and you know they called Matt’s name Matt I call us his name he’s like
man you need to jump up there and do this so I was like okay I got this so no it’s uh you know what you’re proud about you know the work you put in you know
when it’s when it’s been tough when it’s not been easy and you know when it’s been very rewarding and this is one of those so things come off easy and you
know what 20 I was a little bit more trembly or shaky than I thought I would be going up there because you know by the evening I kind of knew it was
happening but you still get up there and you’re like man this is pretty cool and there’s a lot of there’s a fair amount of people out there in the audience
and I think they still do this so this is kind of the behind the stage magic but you get a prop reward and they
actually ship you your real award is that correct correct yeah they gave us you know it’s a little you know just a
little bit smaller than a piece you know a notebook piece of paper and some thickness but then you get a yeah you get a proper Trophy award that gets
shipped uh to the office and we’ve got it displayed out here just out we got actually the you know the the one they
handed out show in one place and we got the bigger one showing in another place so very good to have that and it does
start a conversation when people come in and something easiest if we’ve got are easy for us to talk about if we’ve got
oh you know local leaders maybe people from the you know the West Westchester Township business Community come in or
you know your Bankers your insurance your vendors come in and you know oh tell us about what’s going on hey we got
what’s this and they you know I think they all feel a part of that too and I’m sure when you’re talking with your
customers they feel proud to do business with somebody that’s won an award like that for sure and I think as we’ve evolved
over the last I’ll say you know five years and certainly coinciding with Matt coming on board and us really diving
into want to be you know while we’re a vendor to the Water Treatment Community and water treatment industry we also
Pride that we have people on our team and our staff who have worked in the industry are part of the business understand the you know the science the
technology and that bit of it and you know we’re able to really be a resource and I think this is kind of that proof
in the pudding that that really paid off well congratulations again that is no small feat thank you well let’s talk a
little bit about AP Tech group how did the company come to be I guess I’ll take that one since I’ve
been here since I was employee number four so if uh you know lots of people listening will know Jim Heimer uh he’s
still our owner and kind of semi-retired he’s enjoying the uh Snowbird life a little bit so it hasn’t returned here to
the uh relatively nice weather in the north as of yet but he’ll be back in a few weeks but so Jim had been with
Calgon early in his career so that’s where he cut his teeth water and water treatment and you know through looking
to move back to Cincinnati getting some other you know experiences in chemical distribution him and a partner started a
company called applied process technology so you can see where AP Tech came from and which was a a more
traditional water treatment uh company you know much like the mess you know the rest of the awt membership and that’s
when Jim got involved but uh so they manufacture for themselves but also had their book a service business but in the
late 90s when Jim was introduced to the solid products he decided that man this is something I still got enough of my
career left I want to do something a little bit different see if I can make make an impact and they split the company into late 2001 or early 2002 so
the other gentleman kept that bit of service business and traditional water direct water treatment sales for however
long I think it still exists to some degree but Jim kept the manufacturing bit focusing on solid products so
starting in Incorporated 2002 there were three employees I hired on in
July of 2002 as an employee four so Jim toddly and myself still exist as part of
the business 21 years later and all good friends and you know almost family for you so it’s it’s good stuff if we have
somebody listening today that is just familiar with traditional chemistries
the liquids that we all use how is solid chemistry different it’s really not uh we are using the same
kind of set of raw materials that you would be using in your liquid products
the key with us is you know we’re putting in all actives so every bit of
the chemistry is derived from the actual raw materials that I have functional
properties and purposes you know once they get into into the bolt water or
into the the water depending on the type of application you have so the real Twist of it is is you know we’re not
adding any additional water or any other you know
kind of neutralization chemistry we do all that in-house we we handle that the
solubilities on the front end take all that water weight out and give you something that’s you know tightly
packaged that then you reconstitute at the point of use but functionally
they’re highly active highly functional High performing chemistries we utilize
great Partners within the awt so you know other suppliers uh like ourselves
that we rely on for those raw materials so in a nutshell um it’s just a
different way of of doing it but achieving the same type of performance and results yeah and we’ll tell people
you know we’re not chemists or Engineers that are trying to come up with a new way to control calcium carbonate or to
prevent corrosion where again as Matt said we’re relying on the experts from the industries from the other raw
material developers and producers and we want to make sure we stay up to speed and we’re able to utilize those
formulate those into our products and continue to offer the best formulations we can and I think you know we’ve got a
lot of flexibility in the way we do things and our techniques and we’ve gotten we continually get better so we’re able to address you know the
varying water chemistries that you get across the country across U.S and in the through our International distribution too so very rarely do we have any
situations that we can’t develop a chemistry for so we’re not we have very few limitations in that sense much like
a liquid formulator would so you can you know adapt and come up with a unique solution when it’s needed
now I know you guys produce products for cooling towers does that also include closed loops and boilers as well
it sure does we you know Queen’s ours is our bread and butter Queen Tower Inhibitors bread and butter it’s about
60 of our 60s about between 60 and 65 of our production is cooling tower
formulations and that’s just you know the kind that’s not too dissimilar from the industry as a whole just based on
consumption and cycling and all that you know it’s just what it is and our products do have a good fit in HVAC
applications so air conditioning whether it’s in a building like this or a school
a hospital whatever it may be a hotel but we do have a full line of boiler products by component uh or that’s kind
of traditional all-in-one or one drum treatment so we can blend them that way or break them out and then our closed
loop line is I think really cool and we’ve expanded on it over the last years we invested in some capital and tablet
and equipment so we can make anywhere from hockey puck size tablets down to I don’t know ones are about the diameter
of a quarter or a nickel and only you know 10 to 20 grams but nitrite molyb day traditional good closed loop
corrosion Inhibitors you know with buffering with some polymer in there for some dispersion azol certainly in there
as well and then neither nitrite or molyday for the primary corrosion control and beyond that it’s imagine to
boil out chemistry or chemistry you could use in a closed loop to clean out a post commission or you know
pre-commissioned clean uh some descaling some you know irons yeah so it’s it’s a full line I think
that’s really cool because you know you start looking about what makes things different or what you know when you got
to consider using a solid product you know sure there’s some considerations you take into I have the right equipment do I have the you talk about that closed
loop you’re putting a tablet in a pot feeder instead of pouring a liquid in and you we can got cool calculators that’ll tell you hey I’ve got I need to
raise my nitrite you know 50 PPM you put in your volume or your anticipated volume and I’ll tell you exactly how many
tap dissolve away in five ten minutes at most and that that’s a good one so we’re looking to expand on that for sure so we
we feel good that we are able to touch those main three facets in our type of water treatment being cool in boiler and
closed systems as well can any system be converted over to a solid product system yeah we like to
look at it from a best fit standpoint so we never want to you know look at things that are too big of a stretch you know
if the material balance is such that it’s more appropriate you know utilizing liquids or if you’ve got hands-free
delivery and the ability to bring base storage in no worries there our our thing that we look at is the systems
that are just you know they’re tough to manage because there’s a lot of just chemical management handling Logistics
disposal let solids do that for you and you know focus in on the the areas where
you can you know you need to leverage that you know larger Demand with liquid
programs so I would say we want you to focus on what’s a best fit for you for
your organization and for your customer and a lot of that is just you know if you stick with the kind of the that best
fit area I mean that that I think resolves and helps you know you know the overall program an offering and adds
value at the end of the day so we’re not going to sacrifice you know performance
for our customers and their Pro their customers and Prospects and their client base by trying to say hey you need to
use our products Here There and Everywhere right as Matt said best fit ideal fit speak in this language and you
know what if we can educate everyone on ideal fit best fit and where to use our products and provide them a good
experience they’re going to find the spots and then they’re going to that that builds the trust it builds the hey
these guys aren’t here to try to just you know sling some Goods right we want to provide a solution that’s the right
solution in the right spot so I say you know it’s finding the round Peg for the round hole instead of trying to jam it
and something in the wrong hole and it doesn’t work right and we’ve told people when they come in people say oh this
would be a great application for solids because it’s so hard to deliver there but it’s like no that’s not a good you’re not going to have a good
experience your customers not and you’re going to put your business you’re not maybe not their whole business but that piece of business potentially at risk or
you’re you’re going to spend a lot of time for someone it’s not going to provide the results so we want to be open and honest and I think that’s where
this background certainly that Matt brings and leads up with the water treatment experience from 20 years in
the industry and haven’t been out there that he’s got a good sense of it and he’s able to relay that with our team to
our customers what equipment is needed in order to utilize the solid technology yeah for
like ongoing a program so you know programs you want some level of automation monitoring control uh you’re
going to need a dissolver and what we call our Ultra M that’s going to cover about 90 of your applications so the
products that we manufacture the core products are primarily in our paste form
and that pace can be formed out in several different ways we can cast it
into bottles that go in the Ultram dissolver or you can put it into a disk form which is stackable inventory which
is really nice it’s more inventory on hand it’s the ability to add inventory on the Fly and things like that but for
the most case that dissolved that Ultra m dissolver is going to cover you know you need to repressurize so you’re going
to use your standard chemical feed palm and the same control methodology you’re using for you know liquid program
equivalent you’re going to apply with with solid products so that’s going to be boiler cooling primarily with the
tableted products these are more slug dose manually applied so there’s really no equipment outside of I need an
opening in the system so pop filter feeder hand or a tower Basin or
something like that where you can just simply apply the product and move forward so a couple different ways to
get there but it’s it’s really simple technology once you kind of understand that I need pressure to to generate
enough spray it needs to contact the product it will dissolve rapidly I will make solution you can test where the
solution strength with just simply conductivity so it’s you know you learn that you’re pretty much down a path of
being able to apply solids well let’s explore that a little bit where you talk about concentration
strength because I think everybody’s concerned well how do I know it’s dissolving at the same rate what if it’s
hotter what if it’s colder so how do you know you can check because Matt was mentioned there’s you know spot check
when you’re on site to kind of get you you know hey I’ve and we’ve got charts on our product bulletins it says hey if
I’ve got this much TDS in the reservoir or whatever my conductivity is they don’t say hey I’m at a half percent I’m
at three quarters of Prince or percent solution strength so that gives you a baseline but our big game changer for us
certainly on the cooling water was being able to trace it with PTSA and be able to monitor it that way so if you get a
little bit of swing your pumps are just going to accommodate that and feed a little bit longer to get you to 100 parts per billion or 125 parts per
billion or whatever you may be shooting for that was a game changer for us and that big piece of our cooling water business was being able to have our
Inhibitors traced in that sense so that’s been I mean I think probably 85
Plus percent now of our cooling water Inhibitors that go out people are utilizing the PTSA and being and then
obviously the equip monitoring equipment available on the market that complements that and I think we wouldn’t recommend
differently also go into the disk form of product you now have a kind of a thick surface that you’re spraying up
against it’s not something that’s changing over time through the course of a bottle dissolving something down the
discs are you’re basically bringing the product and the water to the same level consistently so it really makes you know
very good consistent Solutions you know over time and Matt was talking about you got you know process monitoring the
variables that you can do orp so the primary oxidizing biocide we use does
respond well to orp so you can always do feed verification understanding that orp has its you know nuances there’s changes
with temperature and pH that ultimately effect but the key is is does it change at what rate of change do you have just
at least confirm you are achieving some level of of product application
in installing the equipment needed for the solid program what are some of the
things that people might want to anticipate a customer might have extra questions about
sure I think a couple things you always want to kind of prepare for in advance is obviously understand if you have Wall
space or you know if you’ve built out a little platform coming off or you know kind of a semi wall coming off that you
can use we actually have a pretty neat gadget on our uh app where you can take a picture using the camera on your phone
and it’ll spatially put in a dissolver so you can kind of go that’ll fit there so I think that’s just an understanding
our dissolvers are pretty sleek and don’t have a take up a lot of space but you need you know a little bit of space
above so you can make sure you got room to add chemicals you know we recommend the pump being below because you maintain flooded suction so that’s a
good practice so tools are basic you know drill uh if you’re going to no
solid wall whether it’s you know concrete screws or you’re going to use anchors or something like that but uh
people typically are often put them in on Unistrut or something like that so just whatever kind of anticipate what
Hardware you might want to get it mounted from there level and Plum is important so we still utilize the
magnetic float valve so it’s non-electric so we don’t have the electric requirement which is nice in a
wet location for sure and especially once we’ve gone International we have to deal with CE requirements and things
like that but the best when that float is hanging completely vertical so you want to be able to accommodate that so
that’s good other than that it’s always good to have a local shut off with water right there so if you do need to do any
maintenance or take a unit out of service you know it does have its own little shut off but it’s nice being able to shut it off upstream and one of the
things we’re always trying to remind people is we find it because we have a little diaphragm solenoid in there
there’s more stuff coming through building water sometimes and you realize it gets caught on that little solenoid so serviceable filter anytime you can up
front so that’s always good we took the approach not to add any uh backflow as
part of our device and let the installer refer to the local regulations so we know that varies from City to City by
code so certainly anywhere where you can install in a mechanical room after the rpz is great but you know just something
that someone should consider when they’re going on site so different than some of the older models we had and I
know in the wear wash and laundry feed they often come with a vacuum break or something like that but we just saw so
much variance you know from this city to that City to the estate and you know that locality that we thought it better
to let the installer take care of that so this is kind of a note there but certainly another option too when going
through installation there’s Partners out in the industry that do a lot of the panel and skid Mount systems for all
your kind of a feeding control equipment most of them are willing to work and come up with a pretty cool looking
panels that you know incorporate solid dissolvers and you know whether we coordinate with them shipping you know
customer might purchase three and say hey can you ship them to you know this fabricator or whatever and we can do
that we’re happy to do that and work with them as needed and those are great companies as well what are some of the pressure
requirements that are needed for the dissolvers I think on the low end we really need to
just have 20 psi Dynamic pressure for the unit to operate sufficiently which
in most cases you’re going to have so there are you know some you know rare
instances where you know other uses in the plant might starve pressure but you know 20 psi Dynamic pressure is I think
reasonable um if not they do sell fairly reasonable booster pumps we know we have some
customers that have you know maybe the insulation in a penthouse and a tall building and it’s maybe for whatever
reason they don’t have sufficient boost to get water pressure up there where just a little you know electric inline
you know pump could get you that little boost in pressure so but but 20 psi
Dynamic is is what’s needed I think we designed the current dissolver pretty well too with the solenoid doesn’t you
can live at 20 psi and there’s not a lot of pressure loss just in our fittings and things as well so maybe some earlier
models did need you know maybe closer to 30 or 35 which you did maybe more frequently running but I’d say in the
last several years that’s not a very common question we get but to Matt’s
point if you do have a penthouse that’s probably the most likely place you know you’re in the 30th 40th floor in a city
center somewhere but again not something that can’t be overcome I’ve heard of a lot of awt companies are
for safety reasons saying if I’ve got to carry pales up a wall that’s attached to
a ladder and go out of a hatch that’s very dangerous and they’re requiring solid chemistries are you hearing things
like that yeah that’s been a common one I mean you’ll get a call or have a conversation
with someone they’re like you’re not going to believe this someone’s still tying a rope or a quarter around a handle on a five gallon pail and you
know taking it up to a rooftop unit somewhere and you know and I was like man that is not a great idea those
handles aren’t meant to do that but so we do hear that and they are identifying that that’s an opportunity because these
guys can go up that ladder maybe with a backpack on and you can you know put in the couple whether it’s bottles or the
discs that we have and go up there and you’ve got a dissolver located up there so you take care you address that
delivery issue by installing that dissolver up front you take care of that appropriately then then it’s a matter of
uh you know getting that product up there when needed and the other thing too is with the size and the compact
nature if you’ve got a little cabinet or something up there you can keep several months worth of inventory on site
without you know it’s not having to need a several square feet or an area on you
know you’re not utilizing much floor space or anything to maintain image or a small cabinet small if it’s inside a
mechanical room just a little corner to stack boxes on a shelf you can keep you know half a Year’s worth easy on
especially on some of those type applications with the chemical demands often not huge
what is the volume difference so we all can visualize a five gallon pail a 30
gallon drum a 55 gallon drum so what is the equivalency from something we might
have from a solid product I think you know so kind of if you take it real quick and start back at like
dosage considerations the average dosage on one of our scale and corrosion Inhibitors is going to be say 20 to 30
PPM so you know if that Liquid Blend is somewhere between 100 and 125 so you
know what it is 80 to 130 you can kind of see that you know we’re four to five maybe four to six times more
concentrated so I typically look at like a 30 gallon drum if you take a 250 270
pound you know divide that by four or five four five or six that’s kind of you know I think on a we’re going to scale
and corrosion inhibitor for a cooling tower that product that’s pretty much uh my my kind of gauge you know over in the
past you know you’re running people have 10 active liquids and you go here you got 50 almost 50 pounds in this case so
that’s 500 pounds that’s kind of where you know over the years that had become a little bit of a rule of thumb but
certainly over the years people have made more concentrated liquids you know those have been able to be more readily
accomplished um you know you’re looking under boiler water it could be more like a 15 gallon
kind of container you know sulfide or if it’s an alkalinity booster when you start just comparing what the active is
yeah there’s a high solubility in some of those amines can be stuffed into a liquid form at a fairly High
concentration so it’s not quite the equivalency there but certainly on the cooling water side there are some some
appreciable gains that could be made I think we were I know we’ve worked with one customer we did some unique you know
custom formulation it kind of worked out that each bottle or each unit in there was basically worth a five it was equal
it was almost exactly equal to a five gallon their five gallon pail so you know those four uh bottles in there 20
to 25 gallons for them that worked out quite well because it was a good I can they they’re mine they could get around
that now I live in the south so we don’t have this issue normally but apparently in other parts of the country it freezes so
I imagine that you don’t have to have any worry about your products freezing no that’s that’s not been an issue that
we’ve ever been made aware of and it has been something we’ve touted and we have several good customers in Canada right
so you know where they you’re able to distribute and utilize our product and across and truck it across that country
where it’s certainly very cold in the wintertime and you know even in the U.S Chicago Minnesota Wisconsin a bit of the
country too where it’s pretty cold for several months out of the year so I think that has been something that
wasn’t a wasn’t something that was set out to be an intended uh benefit but certainly something that’s been realized
in you know certain geographies what are the top five troubleshooting
tips that you want to make sure everybody out there in the scaling up Nation knows if they’re going to start
using solid chemistries yeah I mean I I get this all the time
and it’s just it really gets back to my water you know treatment roots and being
out there in the field and servicing and just looking at things that prop up I mean start you know start local start
small right am I generating solution if I know that I am then I move upstream or
Downstream from there right so I am making good solution that means the dissolver itself is functioning well
I’ve got sufficient pressure you know things are are lining up on that end of things do I have pump Prime you know do
I have pump capacity so we are making very safe Solutions we’re not you know
having to drop PH down to two or drive ph up to 12 or 13 to keep things soluble
we’ve done all that in our manufacturing process so when we do generate solutions they are on the weaker side they could
be anywhere from you know 10 to 20 times less concentrated at the point of use in the dissolver but that’s by Design so
the key for us is you need to make sure that you’ve done the math and to know what’s the what’s my material balance of
the solution I’m generating how much do I need to you know transfer into the system to achieve dosage so to me it’s
just it’s it just kind of go into those things can am I is my math working out have I generated Solutions where that
relates to probably over the years one of the biggest things is do I have a big enough pump you know someone’s I go all
right I’m going to use solids in this application but I’m going to utilize the pump that’s there and they’ve got a 12 gallon a day pump because that was
feeding what was coming out of a pail five gallon panel and that does not deliver enough Solutions so certainly
having big enough pumps often a 24 gallon a day is but we certainly if you can pull it off and they’re starting
scratch 40 go 48 44 gallon a day that’s going to cover most things and that’s probably one of our number one and as
we’ve vocalized that and made that part of our trainings and when we’re out in front of uh our customers service Sales
and Service teams just reiterating in that I think that’s overcome a lot over the years that’s been the number one
thing that I think yep you know again I mentioned earlier the serviceable filter in front of the dissolver that’s just
gonna you know it’s gonna solve a little you know list of something that you get a little piece of debris on that
diaphragm now why is my dissolver you know why is water coming out of the Overflow for well that’s it’s working
the way it should but there’s something that’s it’s not physically closed so making sure that’s there and I you know
one thing I think don’t forget the dissolver it’s it’s a working moving
piece of equipment well it’s got minimal moving Parts it still needs some attention on a regular basis you know
whether it’s a cleaning a PM just someone’s got to put their eyes on it the same way you would a pump or uh you
know a controller or whatever you got to take a look at it and say hey yep on this service visit it’s in good shape
you know I can verify it’s working I’ll check it out next month and it’s going to take you up a minute 90 seconds to
give it a once over and you know you you feel comfortable that hey you left it in good work working order so I think
sometimes there’s a perception I can put this on the wall and forget about it for a little bit but it is a you know it’s a piece of equipment right so nothing
complicated but if it’s not attended to properly you know things tend to Trend the wrong way
when I teach water treatment I normally get on people because they don’t understand the volume of water they’re
actually treating and you guys have come out with some great products to figure out how much water you’re treating can
you tell us about that yeah we’ve got an app that we developed internally so it’s a very it’s Android
uh you know Apple’s a web app you can use so it’s a great tool I know when
Matt’s talking to folks or other technical sales team or talking to folks often it’s let’s open up this app and
work together through it and you know basic operating data water chemistry that everyone has you know they’ve
scratched on a pad somewhere they just know because they’re in that market so much you type that in and fill that out
you can get some pretty handy information pretty quick and on-site on your phone on your tablet whatever you
can be pretty you have a pretty good understanding what your chemical demand is going to need am I going to need you know a case you know a bottle of say a
week a bottle a quarter a case a month whatever it may be and you’ve got that so if you can get down and get into this
match saying understand that mass balance knowing how much product you anticipate using that’s your starting point if you don’t anticipate what you
need and you’re regularly comparing what your usage should be to what you anticipated to be and during your survey
so we’ll get comments well your product’s not dissolving or it’s dissolving too fast well did you check
the result in one of the residuals whether it’s the phosphonate or maybe it’s Azo if you want to check that to a backup or just following your PTSA and
someone will say to me oh it’s dissolving too fast well what’s your PTSA level it’s at 100 parts per billion
what’s it’s feeding it you’re feeding in proportion to what the demand is the reason it’s dissolving dissolving too
fast quote unquote is that your system needed that product or something like
that so always making sure that hey yes you might perceive that a bottle used to last you two weeks and now it only
lasted one week but if your parameters are testing accurately in your bulk water then you’re following load the way
or following the operating conditions the way it should so something to maintain um and then the reverse of it is I’ve
got people have said in the past oh this stuff isn’t dissolving well what’s your
back to mass Point check the solution strength in the reservoir oh it’s exactly where the product bulletin says
it should be that means you’re not delivering it to the system either fast enough because maybe your pump wasn’t large enough to deliver the need or we
had someone that had a check valve installed backwards you know a pump is you know not working so those are things
that if you understand and again just a hammer home Max Point what your system should be using and utilizing like our
app to get that number dialed in up front and you compare and you know reconcile that you can you set yourself
up for success and then I think Matt you want to touch on you know we’re talking about other tools and products we got the PTSA
tablets that we’ve developed for system sizing which is cool and all your calculations what a novel you know
product it’s you know for us our PTSA tabs going to you know keep the lights
on here and it’s really going to be you know astronautical no no but what it is it’s a tool uh it’s an ability for you
know water treater to Simply carry a small tube of known you know mass of
PTSA uh utilizing the solid guide app so you know eyeballing this it looks like
it’s maybe a 5 000 gallon system but I’m just not sure well the app says I need
to add five tablets to start with so you take a background PTSA you add the five
tablets you need those system volume turnovers and mixing to get that well dispersed you can run your your PTSA
tests over time and see it kind of peak and then Plateau out as long as I got blow down shut off what a great way to
quit quickly you know determine system volume so great for condenser Waters cooling tower applications things like
that there are some process Loops chilled hot Loops you could use it in as well the key is is with anything else
with PTSA know know what the interferences are but just having the tablets I think are nice versus you know
kind of partially putting in a bottle or what of the liquid equivalents on the ptsi so we we knew we could make it we
made it we built some tools around it and it’s pretty cool and in fact the demand for those has really picked up
let me get orders you know pretty much weekly for for tubes whether it’s saying
you need a single tube or a pack of 10. I think as much as much as we can empower the and arm the water treaters
with good tools you know good athletes good players good Craftsmen use good
tools they can create good results so I think as long as we can continue to do that and instruct you know the folks how
to use them how to utilize it that makes us better makes the utilization of our products better you know I think some of
the system sizing stuff and things Matt’s brought into people’s minds about that you know considering you know
turnover in the system Half-Life and things like that there’s been systems before maybe just on basic operating
Dynamics we’d look at and go ah man solzy they’re gonna be tough and they’re going to be great and but you can now
factor that take it to that next degree and go yeah this is this is this can be done there’s not a problem here or this
bio side feed is going to work or this inhibitor feed needs to be different because of those situations when maybe just the standard kind of calculations
don’t pan all the way out so you have an open mic directly to 20
000 listeners what do you want to leave them with what do you want to make sure that you drive home from this
conversation I think be open-minded and take that kind of
thirty thousand or forty thousand foot view when you take a look at an application and say
why would aptex products or solids be a ideal fit here and let’s work with that
and then from there feel free anytime to contact our team we
are here to empower people and make it better and make it understandable and
and connect all those dots it’s not magic it’s not you know it’s not a black box it’s not you know anything
complicated it’s good chemistry packaged in a unique way that we’ve worked on
honing for 20 plus years and with the team we’ve got we want to help people
utilize it and make their lives and then their customers lives easier better more
simple and so please feel free at any time to reach out everyone here is motivated to help motivated to
participate in helping our customers and more open door open window open mic
whatever open phone to answer those questions my biggest thing is you know you always are seeking to to add value
to create value solve problems we’ve got a lot of Quivers in our arrow in this
industry you know whether it’s the technology it’s you know expertise
experience we can leverage you know our my big thing is every conversation you
know that I have with folks is I want to leave you know that person or whoever I’m talking to with just something a
little bit more um that’s kind of how we’ve been approaching things you know here you
know since I came on board was you know how can I create value you know to you and your organization and that can just
it can be as simple as I’ve got product technology or I’ve just got some experience and something that I’m just
passionate about that I want to share so I mean that’s and that’s the you know kind of fun
hard for me transitioning from the other side of the business to the side of the
business I’m on now which is a supplier vendor and partner and it’s fun to to
kind of utilize the things that I’ve learned over this years you know dealing with end users and in in the market
itself to now supporting it and it and it’s been fun so you know we’re we we
like talking to people and we want we want to talk to people in the mountains it can be about our products it could be
about water treatment in general we again we want to you know as we were saying talking earlier about the supply
of the year we want to be a part of the industry we appreciate being a part of the industry and it’s a big industry
with lots of difference and I was saying Technologies options techniques we’re one of those and we’re happy to talk
about it we’re happy to learn about other people’s stuff and we’re happy for collaboration you know that’s one of our core values is collaboration so we’re
relatively smart folks but you know we’re not the smartest and you know hey we’ll take on whatever people bring to
us and have open dialogue conversation because we’re constantly learning and I think I speak for myself I’ll speak for
math probably we got a lot more work in this industry ahead of us as uh you know guys in their mid-40s a lot of more fun
to have too well Matt horine Matt haikalis thank you
so much for being a guest on scaling up H2O thank you trace appreciate it
let’s get nomination I just want to take a minute and thank all of the people
that serve our industry I think of all the people that I call on a regular
basis when a customer needs something when I need something when one of my people needs something and we might need
a solution we say hey we’ve got to do this and we don’t know how to do that do
you have a particular product that will help us get to that outcome and each and
every day I know we are all using our supplier members to help us become more
successful so Nation I just want to give a shout out to all of the suppliers that help us in the industrial water
treatment industry we simply can’t do what it is that we do without them and
it’s my hope that you’re utilizing them to their fullest extent they are experts
with what they provide and what they do so don’t think that you are bothering
them don’t think that you have to continue thinking the same things you’ve always thought about the same equipment
that you continue to use so whatever the equipment is reach out to The Trusted
advisors that your company has and find out what are the latest innovations that
they’re coming out with what are some new ways that you can use the equipment that you have that might save you time
each and every time that you service one of the offerings that most of our
suppliers will do for us is have training courses whether they’re virtual or they actually come to your office and
allow you to learn about all these new innovations that they have or they’re
just simply answering the questions that you have on how you can use their Wares
even better so if this isn’t something that you’ve considered do doing I know for a fact that they would love to do it
and it will make you better it will allow you to spend less time doing the
things you don’t want to do so you can spend more time with your customer and
after all that’s what service is all about so please reach out to these fine
folks today and make sure you’re taking advantage of all of the suppliers that
allow us to do what it is that we do Nation I hope you had a great Friday and
I will talk with you next week with a brand new episode [Music]