#13 What kind of water do you put into your hydronic system? (with Mark Olson)

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Mark Olson, Caleffi North America GM, joins Greg and Dan during this episode of the Ask Caleffi podcast.  They discuss problems that can result from poor water quality within a hydronic system that can rob its equipment of life and reduce energy efficiency.  They discuss prevention methods to help you on your next service call or new installation.

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Transcript

00:02

[Music]

00:05

welcome to

00:05

ask Caleffi the podcast that dives into

00:08

real life problems that plumbing and

00:10

hvac technicians face in the field

00:12

we're your hosts from the Caleffi tech

00:14

support team i'm greg tubbs

00:16

and i'm dan firkus welcome we look

00:18

forward to sharing some stories from our

00:20

tech calls and using our background and

00:22

expertise to make your days a little

00:28

easier hey there

00:30

welcome back we're here for episode 13.

00:33

we're talking water quality in

00:35

particular water quality and hydronic

00:38

systems

00:38

we have a guest today we do yeah welcome

00:40

back everybody so today we have

00:43

actually our general manager mark olson

00:44

joining us

00:50

hi there guys hey mark welcome thank you

00:53

so an all too common issue i think we

00:56

run into in hydronic systems

00:58

is a problem with the lifeblood the

01:01

water quality

01:02

sure what can we do

01:06

to solve that problem well we've got a

01:08

lot of products that'll help clean it up

01:10

but the first thing you need to know is

01:12

what what's actually happening inside

01:13

and why it's happening

01:15

yeah i mean being that you've probably

01:17

been here the longest of all of us

01:19

you've heard plenty of horror stories

01:21

haven't you yeah just a few

01:23

and seen a couple actually yeah get a

01:26

phone call about a product that doesn't

01:28

seem to be performing and it ends up

01:30

being a water quality problem so

01:33

what is one of the biggest things that

01:36

you think

01:37

should be done to prevent a problem with

01:41

a product that's

01:43

water quality related well i think you

01:45

have to step back and think about water

01:47

quality

01:48

i mean there's two aspects of water

01:50

quality there's uh mechanical

01:52

you know that's the stuff that's heavy

01:54

it's you know it's it's in the bottom of

01:55

your system

01:56

maybe it's the effect of corrosion and

01:58

oftentimes it's an issue when you are

02:00

doing a retrofit and you're

02:02

and you're looking to replace a

02:03

component and you have compromised

02:05

equipment

02:06

that's the easy stuff to solve because

02:07

you can flush that out with a high

02:09

velocity flush

02:10

and uh get all the debris out because if

02:13

you don't

02:14

or if you miss a big leg when you're

02:16

purging you know some of that stuff

02:17

that's been sitting around can end up

02:19

coming back and roosting somewhere it

02:20

shouldn't be

02:21

in your system it could be a pump or

02:23

whatever yeah

02:24

i think that's i think that's kind of a

02:26

big part when you're doing a retrofit is

02:27

getting in there and trying to clean

02:29

that system out before you

02:31

put that new equipment in and then

02:32

looking at what what you're using or

02:34

what kind what the quality of the water

02:36

is you're putting back into the system

02:37

right

02:38

and you might not as the contractor have

02:39

the history on that system you won't be

02:41

going in i'm not sure how

02:42

old it is and you know we were in a job

02:45

done in kenosha wisconsin a couple years

02:46

ago and it's interesting and they had a

02:48

water quality problem there's a new

02:50

contractor brought onto the job because

02:51

the first guy kind of disappeared

02:54

and uh his turned out to be a more of a

02:57

mechanical problem he had a lot of

02:59

corrosion in the system from

03:01

years of oxygen getting into the system

03:03

and so basically between flushing and

03:05

using a magnetic separator he was able

03:06

to clean that up pretty good

03:08

sure do you have to go in there and do

03:09

anything for air separation

03:11

to try to get that oxygen out uh they

03:13

actually had pretty good air separation

03:14

on the

03:15

somewhere in the system and it was a big

03:17

job it was a big campus down there

03:19

and uh he didn't even have the blueprint

03:21

on it in terms of where it went

03:23

okay uh so uh he had to just power power

03:25

flush it and then

03:26

still he still had debris in there so

03:30

rather than let that debris come around

03:31

and end up roosting in your you know

03:33

condensing boiler and creating a problem

03:35

then they had boilers going out on you

03:37

know high temperature or low flow

03:39

they were able to correct that but

03:41

that's the mechanical side that's that's

03:43

stuff that uh

03:44

why strainers and dirt separators can

03:46

can take care of

03:48

i think the tricky part to answer your

03:49

question greg is uh

03:51

water quality is largely chemical and

03:53

when you get into chemistry

03:55

now it's a whole new ballgame because as

03:58

much as water chemistry is fairly

03:59

straightforward and

04:00

water's pretty predictable in this

04:02

behavior

04:03

when you start mixing it with things

04:06

then it starts to get a little tricky

04:08

it does get tricky and that's the

04:10

easiest part to overlook

04:12

is the chemistry because you can pour

04:14

system water into a glass a clear glass

04:17

and look at it and go

04:18

yup it looks clear it looks clean it's

04:19

all good to go

04:21

or you're going to see the mechanical

04:23

stuff you're going to see the rust and

04:24

the corrosion and the debris that's

04:26

existing in the system from years of

04:28

being in service

04:29

and a lot of oxygen being a lot of

04:31

different types of metal components

04:33

too join together then introduce fluxes

04:36

and solders and other components and

04:39

chemicals that

04:40

all of that reacts with each other tape

04:43

and pipe dope

04:44

i mean there's a lot of different other

04:46

chemicals yeah well i think i think the

04:48

first thing

04:49

i think you just whether it's a retrofit

04:50

or a new system even a new system

04:52

should be flushed out real good you know

04:54

manufacturers might have

04:56

some kind of residue some type of film

04:58

left over inside their tubing

04:59

or whatever from the manufacturing

05:01

process

05:02

that could react with your with perhaps

05:05

chemicals that you might

05:06

end up putting in the system so it's

05:08

good just to flush that all out

05:10

that's where a detergent comes into into

05:11

play a nice cleaner

05:13

high velocity flush um whether it's

05:15

newer or old

05:17

yeah now you're dealing with uh with a

05:19

new new set of cards right you're right

05:20

right but then what do you what kind of

05:22

water do you put in great question

05:24

and the answer is i'm guilty of it

05:27

and you've done it i'm glt of it

05:29

absolutely we're given the job we

05:32

our marching orders are here it is you

05:34

go put this boiler in

05:35

they need to have heat by the end of the

05:36

day so okay this is what we're doing

05:39

and it's a big job in itself sometimes

05:42

to reconnect and

05:43

re-pipe from an old style boiler whole

05:45

cast iron to now

05:47

a condensing boiler and we go put that

05:50

in

05:51

and run it and everything you're filling

05:53

it with what's on site

05:54

what's on site you have no clue exactly

05:56

we did a survey

05:57

i'm not sure if you remember that greg

05:58

in a coffee with cleffy some years back

06:00

we said

06:01

basically what kind of water are they

06:03

using or what kind of treatment

06:05

and about a third of the respondents

06:07

this is a couple hundred guys uh you

06:08

know our base

06:09

yeah hydraulic contractors and and

06:11

designers

06:13

about a third said site water they just

06:15

use whatever's on site

06:16

it could be well water it could be city

06:18

water that the house is using or

06:20

the building softened water or hard

06:22

water well then the other third

06:23

right softens it or demineralizes it and

06:26

then the other third i will take the

06:27

site water and put some chemicals in it

06:29

sure right but you don't you know um

06:32

the issue i think is by sight water a

06:35

lot of slight water is pretty good

06:36

if it's if it's relatively low in

06:40

minerals have been dissolved for

06:42

instance some municipalities will pull

06:44

their water from

06:45

surface water a lake or a river sure

06:47

that tends to be much less hardness

06:49

than say groundwater right okay but when

06:52

you're

06:53

pulling groundwater now you're down

06:55

especially in the limestone area

06:57

you're going to have quite a bit of

07:00

scale that can come out of solution and

07:02

where does it want to come out of

07:03

solution that

07:04

in the hottest part is the which is

07:07

always changing

07:11

that's where you'll see that scale build

07:12

up you'll see inefficiencies

07:14

i was in salt lake city some years ago

07:16

and uh with our rep

07:18

out there and uh it was interesting i

07:20

forget the name of the contract real

07:21

sharp guy

07:22

but they just had a run on these boilers

07:24

that were just failing and he had all of

07:26

these

07:27

water two boilers uh heat exchangers in

07:29

his shop they had to cut

07:31

several of them open and you look inside

07:33

and it was very obvious

07:35

it was simply hard water that was coming

07:36

out absolutely yup

07:38

so that water was put in it wasn't a

07:40

treated by any means wasn't

07:42

it wasn't softened but with water

07:44

softener and

07:45

obviously didn't have any treatment

07:47

right yeah that was that

07:48

scale is going to or the lyme mineral

07:51

deposits going to precipitate out of the

07:53

water as you heat it up

07:54

yeah and it's going to collect right in

07:56

that heat exchange and you can have the

07:57

best water uh

07:58

air separator in the world uh it doesn't

08:00

make any difference uh

08:01

that magnesium and calcium is going to

08:04

come out of solution

08:06

and it's a good scrubber it's it's a

08:08

good softener in fact a water um

08:10

a heating system if you had have hard

08:12

water because over time

08:14

what's going to happen that heat

08:15

exchanger is going to find all the

08:16

hardness and

08:17

bring it out of solution certainly will

08:19

yeah just uh so

08:21

um so i think that just kind of knowing

08:23

what kind of water quality you have when

08:24

you fill the system

08:25

even if it's sight water a quick test um

08:28

you know what kind of uh

08:29

conductivity are you getting so you know

08:31

how many total dissolved solids are in

08:33

the water

08:34

right and that might be most a lot of

08:36

places the united states the total

08:37

develop solids is largely just hardness

08:40

it isn't these other chemicals these

08:42

chlorides and um

08:44

perhaps iron and some other things it's

08:45

largely hardness

08:47

and you can treat that simply by

08:48

softening it you know

08:50

and then you're pretty you're pretty

08:51

good to go although by softening

08:54

water then you start entering into the

08:56

other part of

08:57

problems and that's corrosion corrosion

08:59

yeah absolutely because you're

09:00

increasing that conductivity when you're

09:02

softened right yeah so

09:05

um and so um and

09:09

you also can raise the ph as well

09:12

which isn't too big of an issue except

09:14

when you get into aluminum heat

09:15

exchangers

09:16

right high ph yeah aluminum aluminum

09:18

does not like high ph

09:20

oh now we've replaced a few of those

09:22

yeah absolutely

09:24

only after we've gone through all that

09:26

right

09:27

and that's that's the tough part about

09:29

it too is like

09:31

we've had to go back you know well hey

09:33

you were the guy that installed this

09:34

thing and now why

09:36

is it why is it giving me problems right

09:38

so

09:39

because we didn't know any better this

09:41

was back in the late 90s early 2000s

09:44

when

09:45

these you're seeing more and more

09:46

aluminum heat exchangers

09:48

and you were seeing the tight passage

09:50

stainless ones with the giannoni type

09:52

exchanger in them and they got hot

09:55

and you know they they did what they did

09:58

right

09:59

they lined up and then you're getting

10:01

called out there for a low flow problem

10:03

yeah you saw a lot of them piped

10:04

incorrectly too you know proper flow

10:06

rates through the boiler creates hot

10:08

spots which separates that lyman

10:10

scale yep that's exactly it right

10:13

so getting to the bottom of it is

10:16

really in an ideal world

10:20

in a perfect world scenario before you

10:22

even take on the job maybe you draw some

10:24

water off

10:25

and have it tested or tested do a test

10:28

sure

10:28

ideally that would be the best case

10:30

scenario obviously it doesn't happen

10:33

very often

10:34

and this is what you end up with is a

10:37

scaled-up boiler

10:38

right or a good boiler inhibitor going

10:40

in as well to help with

10:41

treatment and protection of the internal

10:43

components right

10:44

that's also something that needs to be

10:46

done yeah it's

10:48

you look at the water quality remember

10:49

that water water quality

10:51

sample that i put together where we i

10:53

had

10:54

a jar with all different types of

10:57

components from steel to black iron to

11:00

copper a piece of flux i had a piece of

11:03

solder in there flux teflon tape had all

11:05

the different metal components together

11:07

brass and bronze as well and filled it

11:10

with just tap water

11:11

and then filled another jar with the

11:13

same components with tap water and

11:15

inhibitor

11:16

and another jar would just demineralize

11:18

water and the fourth jar would

11:19

demineralize water

11:20

and inhibitor and it was amazing within

11:24

a week the jar with just tap water and

11:27

this is city water it's

11:28

you know treat it locally that

11:32

was already starting to get hazy and

11:34

cloudy

11:35

the demineralized water had a little bit

11:37

of cloud to it but when you added the

11:38

inhibitor it kept it

11:39

a lot cleaner and ultimately in the end

11:42

after

11:42

about four months the mineralized water

11:46

with the inhibitor is even still today i

11:48

looked at it today

11:49

it's spotless clean looks like it looks

11:52

like i just filled it

11:53

right now demineralized water is

11:56

probably more expensive than

11:57

uh uh other forms of treatment i'd say

12:01

we go down to the grocery store and you

12:03

get distilled water was it 99 cents a

12:05

gallon or something like that right

12:07

now so i mean it's not too terribly

12:09

expensive but

12:10

i mean the ideal water to prevent any

12:13

type of problems

12:14

is to mineralize water and uh one heck

12:17

of a nice air separator

12:19

so you keep that oxygen absolutely

12:21

oxygen if you do that

12:23

and prevent any type of um water coming

12:25

in from a makeup standpoint have a good

12:27

solid system design

12:28

so you're not leaking and getting makeup

12:31

water back in

12:32

what does makeup water have it has

12:34

dissolved oxygen in it right so that's

12:35

what you're trying to keep out so

12:37

demineralize water with a good air

12:38

separator placed properly in your system

12:40

you're going to be good to go you don't

12:41

even need chemicals

12:43

in fact in germany they really preach

12:46

water quality there's a society of

12:48

german

12:48

engineers that created a standard for

12:51

water quality

12:52

we don't have that here in the united

12:53

states because our hydronic market's

12:54

nowhere

12:55

right you're the size of germany i think

12:56

we sell like 1 900 million boilers or

12:58

something right here

13:00

everything's heated with water there

13:02

right everything's heated with water so

13:03

they take it to a whole new standard but

13:05

they really frown on chemicals and they

13:07

they emphasize get the conductivity of

13:10

the water the electrical conductivity

13:12

which is

13:12

driven by how many minerals have been

13:15

dissolved in it whether it's calcium or

13:17

magnesium

13:18

or iron anything that gets dissolved in

13:20

water will raise its conductivity

13:23

and as strange as it seems if you get

13:25

rid of all that conductivity and we

13:26

think

13:27

water is something you can get shocked

13:28

if you've got you know current

13:30

voltage on you it's actually a resistor

13:33

and

13:34

if you can get rid of if you can get rid

13:36

of all the dissolved minerals

13:38

okay and you have basically prevented

13:41

it's like taking a uh you know a car

13:45

and disconnecting the wire from the

13:48

starter to the battery

13:49

okay the battery's there which is a

13:51

dissolved oxygen perhaps

13:53

okay that's really the driver of

13:54

corrosion

13:56

but by taking cutting the battery cable

14:00

it's the same thing it's basically

14:01

eliminating the conductivity of water

14:04

yeah sure yeah

14:05

and if you do that um you can keep the

14:07

system like that forever as long as

14:09

nothing else

14:09

gets into it right there shouldn't it

14:11

was well designed yeah yeah you're right

14:13

if it's a well-designed system and

14:14

you're not

14:15

adding makeup water and you're you have

14:17

all the oxygen out of it you're not

14:18

going to have issues yeah

14:20

i think that probably the biggest uh

14:23

well maybe not the biggest but a very

14:25

common problem with water quality is

14:27

when you

14:27

are using antifreeze you know what's the

14:30

typical type of antifreeze we use around

14:32

here

14:33

propylene glycol glycol right propylene

14:35

glycol and propylene glycol

14:37

um you know it's it's a scavenger of

14:40

oxygen it likes to

14:42

i mean if you have any dissolved oxygen

14:43

in your system it's going to

14:45

it's going to absorb that scavenge that

14:48

and what that does over time is the ph

14:51

in the system starts to drop

14:53

right and it becomes acidic now

14:56

now it's ability to corrode components

14:59

especially ferrous components from your

15:00

iron

15:02

your uh your piping uh it gets quite

15:04

aggressive

15:05

it just accelerates yeah and we've seen

15:07

some hydro separators come back here

15:09

that obviously were in a glycol system

15:11

that got real

15:12

acidic because it ate a hole right where

15:15

you know where the weak link was in the

15:16

hydro separator which typically well

15:18

joined or something like that right

15:19

right

15:19

yeah that's where you know especially a

15:20

glycol system you need to be doing

15:22

maintenance and managing that glycol

15:24

level and

15:25

and right the quality of that system so

15:27

that it doesn't become aggressive

15:29

you probably have experience going back

15:31

and seeing these acidic glycol systems

15:33

yeah we've seen that

15:35

it's it's pretty amazing how that

15:37

changes

15:38

and it does you're right it gets really

15:40

aggressive i've seen it eat out buffer

15:42

tanks and

15:44

hydro separators again if you could

15:46

drive off the oxygen

15:48

with a very well placed a

15:50

well-performing air supply a coalescing

15:51

air separator

15:52

placed after the boiler where it's the

15:54

hottest and drive all that dissolved

15:56

oxygen not letting more oxygen in

15:58

i mean that glycol can be maintained for

16:00

quite some time because now

16:01

it's just doing its job of antifreeze

16:04

and it's not degrading

16:05

right now it's providing freeze

16:07

protection and so that's what it's

16:08

supposed to do right

16:09

yeah absolutely but you got to keep

16:10

trying it because especially if it's not

16:12

your system design it's got something

16:14

that's got compromised over the years

16:15

yeah yeah so really what it boils down

16:18

to is system maintenance

16:20

system maintenance on the piping the

16:23

boiler itself

16:24

the fluid quality yeah it all works hand

16:27

in hand

16:27

right so if you fall behind on system

16:30

maintenance right so

16:31

it's always up to the the homeowner or

16:34

the business owner the customer

16:36

to be adamant about it right try to get

16:40

them on a maintenance contract so you're

16:41

coming in

16:42

on a routine basis to to yeah provide

16:45

that maintenance

16:46

let them know they have there's

16:47

chemicals if you're going to use

16:48

chemicals

16:49

you know let them know and it has to be

16:51

maintained even

16:53

glycoside even your your conditioners

16:56

well and especially you know any high

16:57

efficient boiler

16:58

i mean maintenance is so important and

17:01

more important than

17:02

than anything with a high efficient

17:04

condensing boiler sure

17:05

so getting in there once a year and

17:07

getting them on a regular routine and

17:08

educating the customer that

17:10

you know what it's in the end it's

17:13

cheaper to do your annual maintenance

17:14

and stay on top of it than it is to

17:16

wait till there's a catastrophic failure

17:19

right and a lot of that's recommended

17:20

right by the boiler manufacturer too

17:22

yeah you know here's here's your water

17:25

test it has to meet these

17:27

certifications you know these readings

17:30

have to be read

17:31

every year so i mean you and i are

17:34

familiar with one

17:35

particular brand a boiler that if you

17:37

didn't

17:38

go and do the test it was a matter of

17:40

dropping two little caplets in a

17:42

in a vial and shaking the water and it

17:44

would turn a certain color

17:45

right and that that would tell you okay

17:48

we need to do this or no your fluid is

17:50

okay

17:51

right yeah and that was part of their

17:53

maintenance kit

17:54

it was it was part of their maintenance

17:55

kit a survey we did

17:57

as well about water quality is

18:00

some some years back and another couple

18:02

hundred respondents uh coffee with

18:04

collect webinar survey

18:06

and the question was

18:09

what causes hydronic system

18:12

failures the question was and it was a

18:15

multiple choice

18:15

of six answers or something like that

18:18

66 percent of the respondents responded

18:22

that

18:23

water quality is whether directly or

18:25

indirectly affected

18:26

a failure of a hydraulic system design

18:29

66

18:30

wow thirds yeah not a not a component

18:32

that fatigued

18:34

not something that broke that's

18:35

something that wore out which was what

18:37

we

18:37

relate to anything else that's

18:38

mechanical right it was a water quality

18:41

and water quality can be addressable it

18:44

needs to be maintained

18:45

yeah i believe that i absolutely believe

18:47

that the fact

18:48

yeah we believe it because we've lived

18:50

it the hard way

18:52

you know hard way of breaking the bad

18:54

news that yeah you know your fluid

18:56

wasn't

18:57

up to par and it caused the failure of

18:59

the boiler

19:00

or it caused the failure of the pump you

19:02

know yeah

19:03

a lot of iron in there and it was a

19:04

variable speed pump

19:06

yeah that was part of it yeah right

19:09

right

19:09

so it's a it's a big issue

19:12

it's it's complex because it gets into

19:14

chemistry but

19:15

some practices that get put in place can

19:18

really make it a lot easier and that's

19:20

making sure you clean the heck out of a

19:22

boiler system

19:23

a hydronic system if it's a retrofit

19:26

just you know

19:27

purge it if you got compromised things

19:28

replace it you know make sure you got

19:30

some

19:30

good working materials going back in and

19:33

doing your uh retrofit

19:35

and um and even in a new one just get

19:37

any materials out of there and you

19:39

mentioned

19:39

too dan and greg you know just simple

19:41

things says

19:42

copper shavings um pipe tape i mean

19:45

we've seen all that stuff before we see

19:48

now no magnetic separator is going to be

19:50

able to get that stuff out and if it

19:51

survived a good purge

19:53

now you're relying upon some separator

19:55

to to

19:56

to to um to get rid of that stuff right

19:59

and that's where

20:00

you know a dirt separator comes into

20:02

play because it doesn't work off of

20:05

magnetism it's just getting rid of that

20:08

stuff that doesn't get attracted by a

20:09

magnet

20:10

right that could create havoc on

20:11

something it could cut uh absolutely

20:13

yeah i mean think of copper shavings you

20:14

know those are those are sharp

20:16

yeah oh yeah they are they'll get lodged

20:18

anywhere and heat exchangers pumps

20:20

even just small shavings right it's the

20:23

small stuff that really becomes the

20:25

problem

20:25

even corrosion it starts off as

20:27

microscopic you know when oxygen reacts

20:30

with say your

20:31

pump volute or your expansion tank

20:33

anywhere where there's a ferrous

20:34

material

20:35

it's not like all of a sudden it's like

20:37

a rusty barrel

20:38

kind of look it's like it's like powder

20:41

that creates the corrosion effects and

20:43

it slops off

20:44

and it starts flowing around in your

20:46

system

20:47

like like the consistency of baking

20:49

powder all right right

20:50

and it floats around and floats around

20:52

us it's not captured it floats it

20:53

settles

20:54

the system turns off it settles and

20:56

system turns back

20:57

turns back on it floats around flips

20:59

around over time if it's not treated it

21:02

kind of extracts the cake

21:03

almost like if you take a baking powder

21:05

and you put it on your your counter and

21:07

on a humid day and you come back an hour

21:09

later and you try to blow it off it's

21:10

it's already caked there

21:12

so now now nothing's going to treat that

21:14

you can't put a magnetic big magnetic

21:17

field in there and try to retrofit clean

21:19

that right

21:20

and there's just nothing now you can do

21:21

but other than that the old-fashioned

21:23

way

21:24

purging out power flush and that's why

21:27

even with a retrofit application i know

21:29

when i was going in on

21:31

on calls or presenting projects for

21:33

retrofits we always went in and did a

21:35

clean

21:35

you know did a clean and flush on the

21:37

existing system before we put the new

21:39

equipment in because

21:41

you know one just deciding factor to

21:44

replace the equipment you know

21:46

might be that it's old equipment another

21:47

one might be for efficiency

21:49

so you know you look at an old system

21:51

especially with radiators or

21:53

european style radiators any of those

21:56

grooves or

21:57

surfaces that become caked with with

21:59

material become less efficient for heat

22:01

transfer sure

22:02

so if you could go in and take a thermal

22:04

image camera and take a picture of a

22:06

radiator right before

22:08

and then clean it i bet you'd see

22:10

afterwards it's quite a bit more

22:11

efficient

22:12

in in heat transfer oh yeah if you think

22:15

of uh

22:16

a micron you know one one micron i think

22:19

there's no one millimeter

22:21

not a microphone you can't see a bike

22:23

right here

22:28

if you just kicked a take your heat

22:30

exchanger whether it's a

22:31

instantaneous hot water heater or a

22:33

boiler or whatever

22:35

and you coated it with one millimeter of

22:38

calcium scale right scale you've just

22:41

penalized the heat efficiency for

22:44

that heat apply the appliance by 10 by

22:46

10

22:47

right right so if you've got a million

22:48

btu boiler now you're really talking on

22:51

900 000 bt

22:52

and that's just one millimeter you know

22:54

one that's like a pinhead you know

22:56

right now you build up over time you you

22:59

really

22:59

diminish the efficiency and in capacity

23:02

of that system that's about the

23:04

thickness of greg's fishing line

23:06

about one i don't know he fishes for

23:09

some pretty big fish

23:16

big stories anyway right yeah right

23:18

[Laughter]

23:21

so yeah one millimeter i mean like you

23:23

said dan just in those heat exchangers

23:25

even if it even if it's not even scale

23:26

if it's just

23:27

you know magnetite that is settled into

23:29

the bottom of a panel rad

23:30

or something like that uh yeah you're

23:32

going to penalize this capability to

23:34

deliver

23:34

heat back into the room right so that

23:36

just ends up going back around and you

23:37

become less efficient in your system

23:38

yeah yeah and i think because of the

23:42

high cost of not having efficient

23:44

equipment is why the

23:45

the europeans really put special i mean

23:47

their cost of fuel is much higher than

23:49

ours right sure

23:50

so we don't have really that outlook of

23:53

really looking at every nook and cranny

23:54

for

23:55

economic efficiency but they do and

23:57

that's why they have water standards

23:58

water quality standards and

24:00

the contractor's liable he's got to make

24:02

sure that when he fills a system

24:04

in fact most hydronic systems in germany

24:06

for example

24:07

i shouldn't say most i can't say that

24:08

factually but a lot of them

24:11

they fill the system up you know

24:12

pressurize them

24:14

and then there's no makeup water there's

24:16

no autofill it was on it okay

24:18

if it's losing pressure okay maybe you

24:20

come back out and

24:21

you tap to top it up right to get sure

24:23

that's bit of air that's

24:24

and then after that point it's sitting

24:26

there at you know

24:28

15 psi pressure as long as it's if it's

24:31

sitting there it's

24:32

no reason why it should stay there

24:33

forever i mean it's it's a hydraulic

24:35

sealed system it's a closed system it's

24:36

the closest

24:37

it should stay there and if it goes down

24:39

to 5 psi i mean something

24:42

you know is wrong so they have to come

24:43

back out and service it so there's a

24:45

much more attention to detail over there

24:47

and and so

24:48

you know will we get to that point here

24:50

in the united states with hydronics

24:52

um as far as attention we might we don't

24:55

have a water quality center but maybe

24:56

someday

24:57

all of us in the industry might gather

24:59

it together we've talked about it before

25:00

but

25:01

we haven't done it yet but yeah yeah you

25:03

may see it in time

25:06

it sure increases the level of

25:07

understanding too when you have a

25:08

standard like that you know people start

25:10

teaching on it yeah it does when i

25:12

and i think as a contractor when you can

25:14

start to

25:15

put into place prac good practices for

25:18

managing water quality and hydronic

25:20

systems you just take yourself to that

25:22

next step

25:23

i mean because i think that you know

25:25

maybe is

25:26

one one thing here that takes a look

25:29

gets taken a little bit for granted so

25:30

when you're that contractor that makes

25:32

that your focus then makes

25:34

it and puts steps in place to ensure

25:36

that you're

25:37

designing installing and commissioning

25:39

that system properly i think that takes

25:41

you to the next step

25:43

well you know water quality is it's not

25:44

a real exciting product it's not

25:46

i mean when you think about it it's not

25:48

very exciting in terms of like because

25:49

you can't get your hands on it

25:51

you know yeah it's not like you got to

25:53

try and wrap your mind around it

25:54

if you're not a chemist and you have no

25:56

aspirations of being a chemist

25:58

it's pretty filling up got it let's go

26:01

right on to the next one i mean

26:03

ironically i i hated chemistry i mean

26:06

yeah i got into college without having

26:08

taken chemistry

26:09

over at michigan i'm an engineer and my

26:12

first semester

26:13

um it's so ironic that now i like water

26:15

quality

26:16

and the chemistry side of it i had a

26:19

chemistry lab

26:20

with the prerequisites you had to have a

26:22

year of chemistry

26:24

so i'm doing this lab you know

26:27

laboratory experiments

26:28

and at the same time i'm trying to read

26:32

a book that i should have had the lesson

26:33

on

26:33

you know the prior year and that put

26:36

such a bad taste in my mouth about

26:37

chemistry

26:38

it was like from then on i just didn't

26:40

want anything to do with it that's right

26:41

i wanted to stay mechanical

26:43

but then in in this industry because it

26:45

became such a big issue

26:46

and we saw the effects of a lot of our

26:48

fellow manufacturers having problems

26:50

with

26:51

water quality especially as they

26:52

migrated on the hydronic side from

26:54

cast iron boilers over to the less

26:56

forgiving condensing boilers

26:58

you know and everyone pointing their

27:00

fingers at each other as to what what's

27:02

causing all this problem

27:03

all these failures then i think uh my

27:06

interest

27:06

certainly went certainly so we teach a

27:09

lot about water quality right

27:10

yeah i have a lot of water water quality

27:12

products right well we have to

27:13

understand that because that

27:15

affects how our products perform so it's

27:17

really important to us that they're

27:18

getting put in with

27:20

good water quality so that they last and

27:22

perform well

27:23

because when they come back and fail

27:26

because of water quality and that's

27:27

traditionally why

27:28

something is failing it doesn't

27:31

one for us it doesn't make the product

27:33

look good right oh exactly

27:35

right exactly so there's a built-in

27:37

interest to really try to understand

27:39

water quality you know and help educate

27:41

the contractors out there and and

27:42

it really can be boiled down to some

27:44

simple practices yeah really minimize it

27:46

but

27:47

you know can't just throw blindly water

27:51

into a system

27:52

and hope that it's not going to be a

27:54

problem because if

27:55

even if it's city water coming like here

27:57

with milwaukee i think our

27:59

our water comes largely from what lake

28:01

michigan or something and

28:02

if it does it might have seven grains of

28:04

water i mean

28:06

you pop that into a system thinking you

28:09

got great water well

28:10

guess what those that water is going

28:12

ultimately

28:13

that hardness is going to come out it's

28:15

going to come out absolutely where it's

28:16

hottest again right on that heat

28:18

exchange right

28:18

right yeah and if you don't have a

28:21

failure

28:21

at a minimum you have a a

28:24

underperforming product

28:25

right right yeah absolutely but then to

28:27

simplify it you know

28:29

for a lot of the contractors that are

28:31

listening they're

28:32

you know they're going to be out talking

28:33

to the end consumer yeah so from an end

28:35

consumer standpoint

28:37

i always presented it when i was in the

28:38

field it's like you know we're going to

28:40

take steps to manage the water quality

28:42

in your system

28:43

so that you know what you're going to

28:45

have a

28:46

good performing system you know you're

28:48

paying a premium for a hydronic system

28:50

and i think

28:51

you know all the guys know that so when

28:53

you deliver that product

28:55

at the end it's going to be well

28:56

performing it's going to be long lasting

28:58

and taking the steps up front and

29:00

ensuring the customer you're going to do

29:02

that

29:03

is is what gives them peace of mind to

29:05

pick you as your co

29:06

as their contractor yeah it's easier to

29:08

charge them and

29:09

and and have them pay for it up front

29:12

than it is to

29:13

come back and find out that you did

29:15

something wrong

29:16

and have to charge them for it they're

29:18

not going to want to pay for it no it's

29:20

hard to

29:20

it's hard to get them to understand that

29:22

right you know you need to do your job

29:24

right up front

29:25

yeah so that's a little bit on water

29:27

quality

29:28

yeah i i think we've covered it and then

29:30

some thank you mark for stopping in and

29:33

yeah this was fun

29:34

i'm so happy that i finally got invited

29:37

to your

29:37

what is your third lucky

29:47

so you should i i feel a little bit

29:49

better about that now

29:50

yeah thank you yeah this is fun call me

29:54

back anytime on this

29:55

yeah this is a this is a blast great all

29:58

right well thanks everybody

29:59

we'll see you next week sounds good

30:01

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30:02

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30:05

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30:07

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