061 Pinks and Blues
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welcome to Scaling UP! H2O the podcast
where we’re Scaling UP! on knowledge so
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we don’t Scaling UP! our systems
hello Scaling UP! Nation Trace Blackmore
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here your hosts for Scaling UP! H2O and
today we are doing a special pinks and
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blues episode of course you out there in
the Scaling UP! Nation know that we’ve
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recently gone to weekly podcast
boy what a lot of work it is for yours
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truly but I’ll tell you I love doing it
because I’m getting your feedback about
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0:44.0
how you wanted this show each and every
week and I am pleased that I am able to
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do that for you
in order to do that I need for you to do
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0:53.0
something for me each and every week we
are running through all of your
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questions so I am going through them at
a faster rate than ever I need you to
0:58.2
1:05.6
replenish that reserve so go to Scalinguph2o.com and you have two choices of
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how you can do that you can record your
voice directly on the website by
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clicking on the sin voicemail and you
can ask your question right here on
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1:21.8
Scaling UP! and I might play it on the
air and I can answer your question for
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1:26.3
the entire Scaling UP! Nation the second
way you can do that is you can go to the
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show ideas page and you can send me an
email straight from that site to let me
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1:38.7
know what it is you want to ask for your
question and that’s exactly what these
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1:45.4
people have done so I am going to answer
questions from the Scaling UP! Nation so
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1:53.1
let’s get right to it so one person asks
he goes into that I talked a lot about
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1:58.9
becoming more efficient on testing so
his question is what are some of your
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2:05.8
tips for me to become faster at running
my tests it’s a good question but I want
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2:11.5
to talk about the question first a lot
of people think that their get faster at
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2:17.0
running tests by cutting corners or not
running certain tests folks we are water
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2:21.5
treatment professionals and that is not
an option we always have to
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2:28.1
run the test to the best of the ability
of us and the test to be run and that is
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2:32.6
non-negotiable
so taking any liberties with procedures
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2:38.3
or pencil whipping I think Jim Luke and
itch calls that the graphite cellulose
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2:43.7
method that is not allowed for a water
treatment professional you are hurting
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2:49.0
the industry if you do that so the
question asked how do we become faster
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2:55.2
at running the tests and I’m going to
add as properly as we can run them
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3:00.2
because after all if we have bad
information or no information about the
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3:05.5
system how are we ever going to figure
out what we need to do to make our
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3:09.1
adjustments or water treatment
professionals folks so now I’m stepping
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3:13.1
off my soapbox and answering the
question so the first thing that I would
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encourage you to do is what’s your
baseline when you run your tests when
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3:22.9
everything is ready to go how long does
it take you from the opening of your
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3:28.3
test kit running all your tests cleaning
up and closing your test kit and that is
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3:32.6
your baseline number and then look at
that ad with the number of tests that
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3:39.7
you have to run the complexity of those
tests does that seem reasonable and I
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3:44.5
think you know the answer to how
efficient you are in running these tests
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3:48.9
I’ve set it on other shows but if you
have to look at directions to run your
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3:54.3
tests you don’t know your tests so maybe
even I should take a step back and
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3:58.8
before you figure out what your baseline
of running tests are you need to make
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4:05.3
sure you completely understand how to
run your tests from memory with no
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4:10.9
mistakes and you can consistently get
the same answer once you’re there how
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4:18.2
long does it take you to run your tests
and I like to say actually it’s people
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in my company like to say from the
opening of the test kit from the closing
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4:27.1
of the test kit what is the time in
between so that includes the cleanup as
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4:30.4
well so what you’re going to do is
you’re going to take out a stopwatch and
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you’re going to figure out what that
is and then that’s gonna give you
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4:38.9
something to build on folks I got to
tell you when I was working with my dad
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4:45.1
I used to love to do this because in
addition to working by yourself you
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4:49.8
start going in the same accounts over
and over again and it can get boring
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4:55.4
again my father told me if I ever got
bored in this industry I was doing
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5:00.9
something wrong and this was one of the
things that I chose to do so I didn’t
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get bored as I was learning more things
to learn about the system so for example
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I would go out I would compete against
myself when I would run my tests and
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every single account and I noticed that
just the simple fact that I was keeping
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track of how long it took me to run
those tests that made me a little bit
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better things get better when you look
at them so simply knowing your baseline
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5:35.5
knowing how long it takes and competing
against yourself to not sacrifice
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5:39.9
standards but to make yourself more
efficient I promise that that will make
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5:45.2
you better some other things that you
can do is one you never want to
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5:49.8
sacrifice the ability of your tests to
tell you the right results so never
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5:56.3
become faster then your accuracy can
allow you to take so what I would
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suggest with that is to build a standard
or take a really large water sample and
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6:08.3
test it and as you’re trying to get
faster you know what you’re supposed to
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6:13.7
get each and every time you run that
test and now you can ensure that you
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6:18.8
haven’t left anything out another thing
you can do is work with others it’s so
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6:25.3
fun to have a competition with somebody
else who’s doing the same thing because
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6:30.3
now you both are not only learning from
each other but you’re challenging each
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other so who can you challenge to see if
you can make each other better with
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running your tests this next tip is
where I think a lot of us just never
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think about it
Behrman with the order in which you run
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your tests somebody might have shown you
the order that they ran their tests and
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6:56.1
you never thought about it and you just
simply run those tests in that order
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7:01.7
over and over and over again well folks
that might not be the most efficient way
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7:08.7
to run your tests what I like to do is I
like to look at all the procedures of
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7:13.5
all the tests that I run on a regular
basis and I want to run my longest ones
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7:20.1
to develop first most of the time that
silica silica requires a 12-minute
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development period and I can do a lot of
things in 12 minutes so the thing my
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father used to always tell me is you
should never be waiting on your tests
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your tests should be waiting on you so
think about how much time you’re
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spending waiting for something to
develop and if you are finding yourself
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7:46.5
waiting for tests to develop that’s
probably telling you that is definitely
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7:52.0
telling you that you need to change the
order in which you run your tests now
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7:56.7
keep in mind – your tests can’t wait too
long there’s some tests that need to be
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8:00.8
read immediately free chlorine is an
example of that but there are other
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tests that have like a 10-minute waiting
time so there’s no reason that we can’t
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run tests like that and have them wait
on us so we can run them when it’s our
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8:16.1
time to run them another thing you might
want to look at is how you’re collecting
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8:20.0
samples and how organized you are
collecting samples if you’re on a
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multi-campus area will you save more
time by doing all of your tests
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8:30.3
at one location or does it make more
sense to go to the various eight
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8:36.0
locations and run your tests separately
now that is a case-by-case basis and I
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can tell you that I can come up with
reasons to do both depending on campuses
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8:44.9
that I’m thinking of there are some
where it just makes sense to grab all of
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8:50.5
your samples and there’s no really good
place to run them except one mechanical
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8:55.0
room so we’ll grab all those samples run
them in that one mechanical room and now
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9:00.6
we know what to do as we are
walking around that campus now we’re not
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9:05.4
just grabbing samples when we’re in
those mechanical rooms grabbing those
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samples we’re looking at inventory
levels and we’ve already mentally
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serviced that account so we know what to
expect and if we don’t see what we are
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expecting or making notes so we can
bring the things that we need to
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accurately service that account when we
come back after running the test so if
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you’re going there 15 times it doesn’t
matter how fast your test running is
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9:36.4
you’re not gonna be saving any time that
way now there are other places where
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9:42.1
it’s so spread out it just makes sense
to run them separately so you need to
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9:46.7
think about that but that’s probably the
point if you’re not thinking about how
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9:52.1
you’re collecting and running samples
don’t just assume the way you were
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trained to do that was the best way
experiment with that making sure that
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10:03.3
you never compromise quality so those
are a couple of tips that I can think up
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10:10.8
off of the top of my head but I want you
to really think how valuable this is so
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imagine five minutes we just say five
minutes for running our complete battery
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10:21.8
of tests well big deal five minutes well
let’s say we normally service six
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10:27.3
accounts in a day well folks that’s a
half an hour that we’re going to save a
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10:34.6
day and over a week’s time that’s two
and a half hours that we are going to
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10:42.3
realize just by making ourselves more
efficient at running the test you
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multiply that for the month you multiply
that out for the year folks this is
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10:52.8
serious time five minutes is huge and
you’re not going to start with five
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10:56.1
minutes you might start with thirty
seconds and that’s going to build – one
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11:00.8
minute maybe that builds to two minutes
but if you don’t start looking at that
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11:06.7
nothing will change so my final answer
to that question after all of that is
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11:13.0
what’s the best tip to run my tests fast
sir it’s to want to run your test faster
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11:17.4
another member of the Scaling UP! Nation
writes in they want to know how they can
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11:23.3
get better consistency when multiple
people are running the same tests folks
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11:27.4
this has been an issue that I think US
water treaters have wrestled with for
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11:31.5
years especially when we have customers
that are helping us out with running
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11:37.2
tests in between our visits so you need
to look at technique just like we were
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11:41.6
talking about before and most of the
time our customers will have dropped
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11:45.7
count test kits sometimes they might
have spectrophotometers those are a
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11:50.1
little less easy to mess up in my
opinion but a lot of times they don’t
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11:56.0
want to pay that in order to get that
accuracy the biggest thing that I see
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12:02.1
that people make mistakes is how they
hold the bottles when they do these are
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12:06.0
their titrations or their adding
different reagents so remember you want
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12:12.3
those bottles to be straight up and down
and any deviation from straight up and
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12:18.5
down could change the size of the drop
and nine times out of ten that’s where I
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12:25.3
have found the issues the other most
common thing that I see is dirty
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12:31.1
glassware or dirty sample where if we’re
testing the same thing each and every
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12:36.3
time in the same vial maybe we don’t
have to clean it every time but folks
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12:41.8
let’s face it the cleaner our stuff is
the better results we’re gonna get with
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12:47.5
that stuff it doesn’t take that long to
rinse things out to clean them to store
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12:52.5
them upside down to dry them and then
they are ready to go each and every time
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12:56.9
when we are depending on them now my
personal preference is I rinse
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13:02.0
everything with deionized water and all
of our customers have a DI bottle there
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13:08.2
so they can rinse their glassware now as
far as us in the field and our company
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13:14.1
we wash our glassware at least weekly
we’ve got a special dishwasher for it
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13:20.5
and everything but if your stuff is not
clean you don’t know what other stuff is
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13:23.6
on that
stuff probably the final thing that I
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13:28.6
can think of to help you with that
question is have you run your test side
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13:34.1
beside the person that you’re having
issues with or is everybody run those
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13:38.7
together a lot of times when we train
customers or maybe another employee
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13:45.6
we’ll show them that we can run the test
but we never see them run the tests so
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13:49.7
when we all do that together we can look
at things like are they holding the
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13:54.2
bottle correctly are there little things
that they are doing that could be
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14:00.2
contributing to why we’re not getting
the same thing I did this recently and
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14:05.1
this was after a training that we had
done so I know we covered this the
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14:10.8
customer just forgot and when they were
testing for sulfite they were taking the
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14:15.8
sample directly out of the boiler with
no cooling at all well folks there’s no
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14:21.2
wonder that they were getting a
different result but here’s the key I
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14:25.1
didn’t know it and when I asked them if
they were running the test the exact
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14:31.3
same way that I taught them to run it of
course the answer was yes when we ran it
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14:37.1
together I immediately saw what the
issue was and we were able to solve that
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14:41.1
so maybe getting more involved might
help you with that as well I got to
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14:46.6
commend you if you are realizing that
other people in your company or some of
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14:51.0
your customers are getting different
results than you are you are doing your
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14:54.4
job as a professional water trader
you’re not just writing down numbers
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14:59.3
please folks don’t ever write down
numbers again Jim calls that the
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15:05.3
graphite cellulose method that does not
belong anywhere in water treatment and
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15:10.7
end-users if you’re listening yes part
of your job might be to run these tests
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15:14.8
and maybe the water treater you have
isn’t looking at them like they should
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15:19.4
unlike this water treater that we’re
talking about right now but do your part
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15:24.0
if you’re going to take the time to have
a log and to have a test learn how to
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15:30.8
run it properly so we can all use that
information to make the program better
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15:37.1
third question asked why do we filter
some samples and some we don’t filter
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15:42.7
well that’s true we have filters in our
test kits and some tests require
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15:47.7
filtering sware others don’t and then
I’ve seen some people that don’t even
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15:53.0
know why that filter is in their test
kit so let’s talk about that question
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15:58.3
one of the tests that comes to mind
about filtering is the phosphate test
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16:04.4
for boilers and once you get your sample
you then filter it and then you do the
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16:09.1
phosphate procedure whatever one that
you decide that you’re going to use well
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16:13.9
the reason you filter that one is you
want to know how much and I don’t know
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16:18.7
what to call it other than call it free
phosphate you have in the system and
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16:24.9
what that means is it hasn’t combined
with anything else in the system like
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16:31.2
calcium so what the filter will do is it
will filter out anything that the
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16:37.4
phosphate has bonded with so now in your
sample you have just phosphate that’s
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16:41.7
ready to go to work and bond with
something else so that’s what that
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16:47.3
filter does and another time you might
use a filter is to prove to a customer
16:47.3
16:51.6
that they have a dirty system but you
can filter that out and everybody in the
16:51.6
16:57.8
Scaling UP! Nation knows that I am a
strong proponent of getting a filter
16:57.8
17:02.9
feeder on closed-loop systems and having
a sand filter on cooling towers folks
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17:08.9
there’s only so much stuff that we can
do chemically or using a device or
17:08.9
17:14.6
however you’re treating water if we do
not have the mechanical aspect of
17:14.6
17:20.8
filtration it is so hard to get our job
done and sometimes it is just impossible
17:20.8
17:26.0
so we might use the filter just to show
hey look at all the stuff that I can
17:26.0
17:31.7
take out of this water and as you know
mr. customer that water is the best heat
17:31.7
17:35.8
transfer medium out there but we’re not
just transporting water we’re
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17:40.4
transporting all this water and garbage
floating around in it if we can get all
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17:44.5
this garbage out we can clean up the
heat transfer surfaces
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17:49.7
we can clean up the heat transfer medium
which is water and that is going to
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17:56.2
translate into savings it will cost you
less money to heat and cool this
17:56.2
18:01.8
facility and that’s ROI return on
investment this filter is going to cost
18:01.8
18:06.9
you X but because we don’t have all
these dirty surfaces to transfer the
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18:11.5
energy through to transfer the heat
through it’s going to pay for itself in
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18:16.4
two three four five months
so hopefully that allows you to
18:16.4
18:21.4
understand what some of the filters in
your test kits do and why some tests
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18:28.4
specifically ask you to filter my final
question is asking specifically about
18:28.4
18:35.6
episode 55 where we talked about the
little blue pill in the bottom of
18:35.6
18:43.0
Legionella samples the thiosulfate and
what that does that eliminates that
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18:51.2
neutralizes any of the oxidizers that
are in the system so you have a sample
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18:57.8
right then and there not a sample that
can be worked on with whatever oxidizers
18:57.8
19:03.3
in the system so this person wants to
ask why can you not take your sample if
19:03.3
19:07.9
you’re missing that pill because the
tower doesn’t have a pill so what’s the
19:07.9
19:12.5
difference why can’t we grab the sample
anyway and that’s a great question and
19:12.5
19:16.7
it’s actually one I’m so glad you asked
because I thought about it after I
19:16.7
19:22.6
published that episode so thank you for
that Scaling UP! Nation is making Scaling UP!
19:22.6
19:27.2
better I appreciate that so you are
exactly right the tower does not have a
19:27.2
19:33.4
little blue pill in it but your test
does and here’s how I want this to make
19:33.4
19:39.2
sense to the Scaling UP! Nation when you
take a test the clock stops right there
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19:47.8
so I took a test at 10:22 a.m. and I am
only sampling exactly what is going on
19:47.8
19:55.3
at 10:22 a.m. nothing after that even
though that the tower will continue to
19:55.3
20:00.2
use the oxidizer in sterile
or come down whatever it’s trying to
20:00.2
20:05.2
kill the test can’t do that it has to
stop at that moment in time and that’s
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20:10.0
why that little blue pill is in there it
neutralizes the oxidizer and it says
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20:16.4
this is what you have at 10:22 folks I
got to tell you I love this new format
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20:21.4
of coming at you weekly I love that
people are asking questions to me
20:21.4
20:29.3
because I know it takes pressure off of
me so I know that I am doing exactly
20:29.3
20:33.8
what you want me to do because you’re
asking me these questions otherwise I’m
20:33.8
20:37.4
guessing sometimes I guess right
sometimes I might not guess right but
20:37.4
20:43.4
take the guesswork out and help me by
submitting your questions I hope that
20:43.4
20:47.2
some of the things that we talked about
here from listeners in the Scaling UP!
20:47.2
20:54.2
Nation will motivate you to do something
different to be better to make the water
20:54.2
20:58.7
treatment industry better because you
are working in the water treatment
20:58.7
21:04.9
industry folks I’ll talk to you next
week
21:04.9