Welcome everybody! It's going to be a really, really fun time here. Uh, with one of the coolest panels in this case I guess hottest panels sorry I'm going to stop with the cheesy uh jokes I'll leave that up to Jim Bergman Uh folks. Uh, we should have a very fiery conversation I lied I did it again. um about combustion.

So we're going to talk uh very quickly about some of the basics, just level set what we're talking about and then we're going to go into a conversation of application. So here we go. Uh, to start with just going to introduce everybody I First, want to uh, thank our moderators um Adam muich and Matthew Bruner for helping or Matt Bruner as we know him for helping out with this and helping out with so many things in Hbac school over the last several months? Um, they'll be helping to moderate the conversation and are both contractors themselves who do combustion. An analysis where I'm a poser because I live in Florida and almost never do it uh Jim Bergman is President uh needs no introduction President of Manifold Cloud Services and Measurequick longtime contributor.

Super excited to have uh Jim Davis here uh trainer and Consultants uh with NCI and also uh, the The Godfather of combustion I Think we can all uh, safely say Tony Gonzalez is Technical Training manager at Fieldpiece Instruments Tony is a good friend of ours and always brings it Bill Spone senior President and CEO of True Tech tools. He's senior because Junior is also in the business so we get the pleasure of dealing with him at times. Um, but Bill obviously is one of the people who really got uh Hbac started, believed in us early on and is a tool expert. uh Tyler Nelson uh new friend of the podcast going to be uh, releasing a podcast with him very soon instrumentation and Industrial Sales manager with sourman and then finally last but not least Luis Keller National training manager for UEI Uh and we do have a uh, a new relationship with UEI that I'm excited about.

Uh, really, really like the folks over there Michael Kane is a amazing guy. Uh, so excited to be working with youi all right so get started here. I wanted to, uh, give it over to Bill Spone Bill you didn't know you were going to be uh, talking about this but you can do it you your mouth is full. but I'm gonna give you a second here.

So sure when we just talk about the basic, the basics of what we're trying to accomplish, the relationships between numbers here that we need for combustion. Sure, so you're you're trying to create a controlled chemical reaction and that is exothermic that releases heat. So you have a fuel. Most of the time we're talking about, the fuel is actually all the fuel that burns is vapor.

Even if it's wood or oil, it has to be atomized and turned into a vapor. But let's talk about natural gas. probably the predominant fuel here. so that's methane.

You need oxygen in order to do the chemical process and the source of ignition. and then it releases heat in the process. So uh, that's the real basic sense. But other things happen like if there's not enough oxygen at the right Point uh in the flame front or if there's flame impingement you can get.

you don't go all the way to CO2 you stop at Co You can also have a nitrogen in the fuel or nitrogen from the air combining with oxygen in that flame temperature, creating nitric oxide. So those are the main things. but you're you're measuring something that happened after the fact. you're measuring the temperature and not.

yeah. there you go. Thank you. Uh, fuel heat creates fire.

You're measuring the temperature and you're measuring oxygen. and Co those are the three main things you measure after the fact to see how well combustion happened. I'll stop there. No, that's great and so now over to Tony This is.

uh, this is your slides from field piece just to kind of cover some of this in detail. All right. B I'll just grab that baton and run with it. So what we're talking about here is combustion analysis and what's really important important to understand first is to expand a little bit upon what Bill was saying on what is combustion.

So for combustion, we need that fuel. We need that heat. Um, and we need oxygen. And so in an Ideal World When you have the perfect amount of fuel which in this case is natural gas and just pure oxygen and you put those together with the heat Source you are going to get what's called a perfect combustion where you're going to have those molecules just comb B into carbon dioxide which is not harmful and to water vapor which is on the next slide.

And so in an Ideal World when you have that perfect combustion and that right ratio of the fuel. Um, and the air, all you get are byproducts that are not harmful to us and is the most efficient way to perform the combustion. However, in the real world, we don't feed these furnaces pure oxygen. They get the oxygen from the air and so air is only about 21% oxygen.

The rest of that, the grand majority of that is nitrogen and a couple of small little things. So when you throw nitrogen in there now, you throw off that perfect ratio. And when you put in the fuel, the heat mixed with the nitrogen, you don't only get um, water vapor H2O And you don't only get the carbon dioxide, but you could also get the presence of Co And so when you don't have that right mixture of fuel Fuel and air, um, you get some byproducts that you don't want. and what combustion analysis will allow us to do is to actually understand how well that combustion is happening and without performing that analysis, there really isn't any other way to know that.

Uh, wise man, one said, if you're not measuring it, then you're just guessing And so in the real world, any technician that works on any fuel fired Appliance um would do theirselves a benefit and their customer the benefit of performing a combustion analysis to really understand how these equipment are working. Yeah, that and one of the big things that we're concerned about obviously is Co like. Like you mentioned car carbon monoxide, not carbon. dioxide.

We often get those too confused just in just in speaking. And so I'm going to turn it over to Matt because he talked with Louis a little bit about that earlier today and that's a big thing that you guys touch on. Yeah, so so there's kind of two things going on. One, you're trying to make sure that you're you're burning all that fuel efficiently.

um, and getting those ratios right? But then and then if you're not doing that, then there can be some some significant safety issues and uh, and that's kind of what Louise and I were talking about earlier today. So do you want to take it from there? Louise Sure, I'd be happy to. thanks Matt Um, so you know it's really interesting as as Tony was mentioning and we were talking about the the theoretical combustion and ideal combustion. uh I love this SL because it just kind of simplified it for me while also making it a little complicated because three lines on a chart seemed like a little bit too much the first time I ever saw something like this.

Uh, but the short story of this chart that you're looking at here is the fact that if you know two points on the combustion scale, you can always calculate out the third and that is a big long formula. and I am not big into doing extra formulas if not necessary. but that's what your combustion analyzer is there for to help you. And because while I'd like to think that every manufacturer out there they you know they send out a furnace or a boiler or whatever the product might be and it's tuned up it's ready to go.

You just hook it up and and go. Unfortunately, that isn't what happens in the real world and in the real world, we really wind up with two different things that can happen. You know, we're always shooting for that ideal combustion where we have very low levels of Co because we know we always have to have some sort of excess air when we're doing that combustion process. But what realistically happens is that we're going to wind up with something that's more on the air rich side.

And if you notice when we're looking at the airr side, there's uh, three charts there, one showing the Co, the CO2 and the oxygen when it's too airr Literally What it's saying. There's too much oxygen coming in and we're going to wind up with a lot of that heat just going right up the flu. Um, and we're going to wind up with wasted fuel on the other side, We're going to wind up with that fuel rich side and that's where we wind up with those really high levels of Co that are going to be coming through. Um, and if something isn't properly vented, or maybe we have a cracked heat exchanger.

Now, we're risking higher levels of Co being able to leak into the house. We're also going to wind up with dirty equipment and and all everybody out there that's been out in the field. We know that dirty equipment causes poor efficiency and again, we don't want to wind up wasting any of that fuel because as we also know, fuel prices are not inexpensive and they continue to rise on us. So that's where we can start making some of those adjustments now, right? So when we're looking at, do we have too much? Co Do we not have enough oxygen? We can start adjusting our gas pressures and really dial in that combustion uh process making that furnace or boiler, whatever combustion, uh product that we're using the most efficient? Yeah, absolutely It's it's.

it's huge and and the way I always explain it like to somebody who's never and again in my market. Most people have never heard about this. It's it's just like uh, fuel air ratios in a car right? I mean if you you you get that tuned in you can get Optimum performance. but it's always this balance between risk and efficiency right? Are you able to get more efficiency out of it? Uh, and being a little more risky or vice versa.

but obviously there's even a lot more to it than that. Well, and I think we're also seeing a lot more more manufacturers of of the equipment that are really looking at that that combustion and and trying to dial it in and make sure that everything's right. So we want to make sure with our combustion analyzer that we're being able to not only provide our customers the most effective, we want to make sure that we're also keeping warranty and keeping the manufacturer good there as well. And if I might add something real quick in the manufacturer specs.

typically speaking or as I like to say when I do, when when I speak in front of groups where happiness lives is on is on the average side of the equation and that's that's obviously the point where we start talking about excess air and its impact on dialing in a system is is on that average side of the equation and not going to excessive. but on the average side of the equation is where the optimal efficiency is going to be with your correct percentages of oxygen. PPM of Co and also your percentage of CO2 Yeah, and that's good and I I kind of want to. So uh, let's so now we're past the theoretical phase here.

We are all kind of convinced to some degree of the necessity for the application of combustion analyzers at least in this panel I would say, but the way in which they're applied. We have a lot of other slides about this and I'm going to be kind of jumping around a little bit. Uh is is where I really want us to hit on today. So I'm gonna ask this to Jim Davis First, from your standpoint, who do you think should be conest? uh, testing combustion? Who is that person? uh and and under what circumstances should they be testing just about every service SEC Real quick.

Does anybody know when combustion was actually defined? What year did we determine what caused combustion? 1776 1888 1776 We finally figured out was. but service tech we finally figured out was. but I was there I know what is happening know Oh okay I hear an echo in there? Yeah, that was that. that got really out of hand that Adam that was you that was doing that somehow Adams might got into a death Loop All right.

so every even sales people I've had a couple cases where salesman went in to make a sales call to a new furnace. the people in the building ended up dead and the companies got sued because their salesman were there. So I think whether you test the equipment, everybody enter the house from that anybody HB company should be wearing a monitor. You know if you're not going to test the equipment, at least wear a monitor.

but yeah, if you're a contractor the tech and you go in anybody's house and of course I didn't care whether it was summer or winter because everybody had a water heater which runs all summer and I don't care if you don't work on water heaters. If you're in the building, you work on the air conditioner and the water heater. Kill somebody. It's your fault.

Why is it your fault? Because you were there, you were there. You're the expert. You were there. What did you cause Made to go bad.

You caused water. Here you go, you didn't touch it. What did you do so uh I want to I Want to pass this over to Jim Bergman Um, same question. um but kind of focus on um, the condition side of thing.

So uh, what are the circumstances in the life cycle of the equipment that you feel like we should be testing in combustion? and when are times when maybe it's Overkill to do so well they're they're I really concur with Jim Davis and the fact fact that there's there's no time when you don't do it I mean we. This is combustion is not seasonal, it's it's you do it every time on every on every job, you should always be walking in and at minimum checking for ambient Co and uh, realistically, um, we should be always testing. uh, other appliances that are there I mean I Think where Jim was alluding to is you may adjust a lower speed on an air air conditioning system and all of a sudden an open an open filter slot creates excessive amount of depressurization of the combustion. Air Zone And we end up backdrafting a hot water tank that's producing massive amounts of Co And now we end up uh, creating a We have a source, we have A we have a pathway into the room to create circulation in the house and so the the problem is is that what a lot of times is we're we're blind to to carbon monoxide because we can't see it, we can't smell it, we can't taste it.

um and and the only way to to to know it's there is to have a device to actually measure it so you know and it's gotten to the point Now where we also have standards um like Ahri Guideline X that that walk through you know that we need to do uh, testing the stack and testing the heat exchanger testing in the ambient eror. and so there's you know. year years ago there wasn't a lot of standards that outlining this but now we have BPI standards we have Ahri standards. We have other standards out there I'm sure that that really say techn s need to um, be testing combustion of appliances and being and and ambient Co testing in space.

So the only place you don't have to test is in appliances. that or in houses that don't have a gas meter attached If and uh, and that may be even, uh, sketchy because there's Autos in the garage, there's um, there's other sources of Co aside from the gas meter. so always testing is the the best thing to do. All right.

So I want to I want to toss it over to Bill Spone here and again. This is where if any of you are like hey, I want to add something, go ahead and jump in. But I'm going to toss it over to Bill because the question often comes up about all right. Well then what are some of the challenges with combustion analyzers there? How do we choose one right? I mean do you just look at the price tag? You know? Is it the user interface? What? What makes a good combustion analyzer? And what are some of the things that um, can get in the way of that? Um, thanks Brian Um, one of the things is the presence of a filter for Nox And we I alluded to that in the first conversation that the nitrogen and the air can combined with oxygen creates Nox.

Noox is a cross interference gas. There you go, Thank you. Um, that interferes with most Co sensors I would say most all electrochemical Co sensors and this is a quick illustration. I Did a a paper with Marco Brunsma back at Testo in like 2010 and it's still true today.

You if you don't have that Nox Fil in, you're going to get unusually high levels of Co because the Co sensor will pick up KNX that may in in and of itself. You know seeing more than there because it's a hazardous gas. that's not. Uh, you know that that that's one one issue.

maybe not as severe as affected. Sometimes you go and you compare two analyzers, one with the Nox filter and one without an ox filter and you see that they're different and you make the Assumption The one that's reading more is correct and the other one. the reading less is an incorrect so it can cause confusion when you're trying to choose a combustion analyzer. Uh, I think Also, having a a Um UEI makes sensors for CO2 versus measuring oxygen.

So there's one of two ways to get to the combustion efficiency by a gas test either through an oxygen sensor or a CO2 sensor. And of course you need temperature involved with that to to process the combustion equations. So so either O2 you need either an O2 or CO2 temperature, a thermal couple, and then a CO sensory because it's the most hazardous gas that you want to measure. and then a filter, a nox filter on the Co Gas uh, the Co sensor.

Beyond that, it's really smart to have something like a pressure sensor to measure manifold pressures to measure static pressures to get estimated air flow those are often in and as well as like overfire draft. So a pressure sensor in there is a Great Value add because it should be part of your your work process and your workflow. Hey, Bill yeah is the CO2 and all natural gas the same Cm2 CO2 In other words, it's the CO2 content in natural gas in Ohio the same as it is in Colorado Well, the energy content is very different. Um, the Wobe index and Jim and I Took a trip to to the A Labs when they used to be up in Pleasant Valley Road in Cleveland Jim.

So remember that we saw the strip chart recorder and we saw the variation and the gas quality. and maybe that's what you're alluding to Jim which causes an extreme difference in the way things are combusted and perform uh in different situations. I'm not sure if that's what you're after there I'm just saying if the analizer is measuring CO2 but it uses the same CO2 everywhere. It could be off a few points here there.

okay I'll I'll accept that I've not that I really see a big discrepancy. If that's going to throw you off that much, you're probably aren't doing it right anyway. But uh, I I just wanted to mention that. and I see a question in the chat that I do want to come back to.

Someone said I see an analyzer has a nox sensor Is a filter. Something different. Yes, that's very different. A filter is literally a filter.

It takes out the nox from the gas being transported to the SE Co sensor to give you a better Co Reading: you don't need to measure it, you just don't want it to reach the sensor. I Think too. It's important to state that you know a lot of people that have been using older combustion analyzers have never seen a furnace that doesn't produce. Co And all of the sudden they're going to buy an analyzer with a nox filter in there.

and they're going to see a lot of furnaces that don't produce any. Co Zero parts per man is is completely possible because that's why we put excess air. That's what Tyler was saying earlier is the sweet spots on the side of of the excess. Airline Because we always supply enough excess there for combustion.

so we make sure all the carbon changes to carbon dioxide and the flu gas and that's what the excess there is for. Otherwise we'd have that theoretical perfect combustion. but it is. uh, when you get um, this is again going back by Marco and builded the study back in 2010 was because a lot of the older analyzers were not.

um, were were indicating Co and Testo analyzers were indicating zero and people were just assuming that the Testo analyzer had to be wrong and and in fact it was. It was right. They had filtered out the cross interferent gas which is a nox and so that's ultimately what we want to have. We want to have between zero and a, you know, 100 PPM as ideal.

Um I Think that's what most the industry shoots for. Uh, the HRI Guideline X Is it at 200 parts per million? Now it's a Lobel in the stack. And then our Anie standard is Uh 400 PPM So it's just uh there. They're different standards for different levels, but I just want to affirm that you can have Zero.

We strive for zero and a lot of appliances that are operating well, old or new can operate with zero parts per million. All right, Anybody else want? Go ahead? Matt Yeah, I Have a question off of that. What is that? What is that indicating when you've got? Let's say let's say you've got over a 100 parts per million somewhere between 1 and 400. So it's technically it's still.

you don't have to shut it off. Um, it's indicating there's room for improvement. I Mean that's the the uh, uh. Personally, I think this is where as a company you have to figure out what standard you want to adopt right now.

Ahr guideline X at 200 parts per million is the is probably the um safest standard. If if you're over 200 parts per million uh they would you know that's where you you would shut the appliance down or or to complete tear out and figure out what's going on because every manufacturer knows you can get below 200 parts from. You can get below 100 parts per million easily. Um the the, the, the the The reason that we have these standards and these are by the way, these are C Air free readings that you want to look at.

There's a raw Co reading and there's a CO a air free reading. The Co Air free reading is a calculation and all it does is it. It says it's an Apples to Apples reading. Taking out the effect of delution of of the flu gas is due to the excess air in the flu gas.

So whenever we're talking about a standard for Co of 200 400 100 it's always the Co a free reading not the raw Co reading. and so uh and that reading When we're talking about Co a free it's at what we consider study State uh operation which um Jim and I will argue over all day whether we've seen it or not. But steady state operation more or less means the net stack temperature is is stable system stable. the O2 stable um and uh.

your stack temperature will always continue to rise because the return air temperature continues to rise but your net stack temperature will uh which is the Uh entering flu gas temperature entering sorry not flu gas but entering air temperature uh subtracted from the from the stack temperature. That differential will once it stabilizes. that's your next your net stack temperature stable but that standard when you say well do I I have to cut it off at 200 400 Uh I would say it depends on what standard you want to adopt personally. I if it's over 100 PPM I'm going to notify the the Uh consumer that that they're at risk if it's over 200 PPM I'm going to shut the appliance down.

Uh, some of the manufacturers will tell you that you can go up to 400 PPM uh if if if I had to leave Appliance uh you know I Again, it's a personal call at that point I would personally I'd shut it down because it's just not worth the the liability. What's the National Fuel Gas code uh I'm I am a National Fuel Gas code I Don't know that they have adopted a standard for that. Have the gym I don't know where I thought my head okay there he is. uh it's 400 for vent appliances water heers is 200 so similar to the BPI standards.

Then that was the BPI 27 PPM stop work Jim Well now you're talking about ambient Steel in the space versus steel in the stack. They right, right? All right. So let's let's uh, let's get the let's get back on the tracks here. One of the things that we do want to talk about is the importance of Ambient Co versus combustion analysis because that's for people who don't practice this as much as they should.

They get these two kind of confused. Um, so I Uh, I think I would actually like Tyler to take this because we we talked a little bit about this. Um. combustion analysis is a lot of what we're talking about here in combustion, but the actual um, you know, personal protective very lowlevel side is also really critical, right? And and one of the things that that a technician needs to protect himself or herself about is obviously combustion poisoning.

But as well as protecting their customer. and and it comes down to best practice. I Mean it comes down to a simple thing as personal wearing a personal seal monitor. That's one of the most important things the technician can do.

They're doing studies on our industry right now and they're finding out or they're They're trying to find out why we have such a low retirement rate for service technicians in our field. and supposedly the running average is about 56 years of age. And it's not because we can't get ourselves in, have an attic or across base. it's because we're losing cognitive ability.

And we're losing cognitive ability because we can no longer problem solve because we've had something making an inroad into our cognition. And that is the carbon monoxide because once it gets it hooks in you, it doesn't leave. They are now doing studies on us like they're doing in the NFL for the concussion protocols. and they're also finding out why.

For some outliers out there, there was an increase in the amount of suicides in technicians that have retired from the field later on in life and they're trying to figure out why that is taking place which took place when they study concussions in the NFL. So it's so it's an odd dichotomy there. So when we're talking about this, it is extremely crucial. As Jim Davis mentioned earlier and Jim Bergman has mentioned before, people are running fuel fired appliances inside of a space while we're working there.

You know we've all been in conditions where it's a summertime, working on the air conditioner, working on the air handler, and we smell cookies. Well, we're smelling cookies because we're usually using cooking them in or baking them in an oven of which is a feel fire. Appliance So it is extremely crucial to monitor that ambient environment first. We are so trusting in what people have in their homes for their seal monitoring.

and think about it this way. everybody's going to go. People hand their health over to the lowest bidder. Why do they do that? It's because they get no social mileage out of having a nice seal monitor in their house.

It's not a nice car, It's not a nice lawn. It's none of those things. They're going to spend the least amount of money possible. but yet we're going to be Reliant as service technicians for them to keep obviously themselves safe, but most importantly, us safe.

That is why it is important for Defense level number One, which Jim Daav has always preached. and so Jim, Bergman and the other experts in this Louise and and and Tony as well to we a personal seal monitor very very important as a first line of defense. If you don't have one, a combustion analyzer becomes one because not only can you keep yourself safe, but you can keep your customer safe by monitoring that ambient environment and going through those levels. And once you ascertain that those conditions are safe, then you can go ahead and proceed.

You know you can't as as these as everybody's mentioned earlier on the presentation, you can't smell it, you can't taste it, and you can't see it. But it makes an inroad and it's the continuous inroad for the the constant exposure that is causing the problem. Yeah, it's one of many things that were oh go ahead Jim I was GNA say I mean it's it's U Again, there's like multiple sources as a CEO I I I've uh personally seen guys uh work in in, get in their van and their Co meters going off, their personal Co meters going off because of CO's leaking from their exhaust gas from the cowl. it's it's the and interestingly enough, Co can also pass through the combustion process.

So I've actually when I was um, a vocational school teacher I very vividly remember running a furnace that was running zero parts per million. Co and all of a sudden Co went up to 35 parts per million right when I heard a car starting in in the Auto Automotive Lab right next to us and the automotive. The car kicked off so much Co in the Auto lab that it popped across the wall into mine, went through. my furnace, came out the other side and I was measuring Co and the outlet of the flu pipe that actually went through the combustion process.

So if you're if you have Co in the house it can. it can actually be additive to what comes out the stack and so you you've got to. You've got to First make sure that you have no Co in the space before you. obviously for your own safety more than anything, but it's It's very interesting when you get into industrial processes and things like that.

that, um, you can be chasing down a problem you can never solve because the Co is is coming from a different source and it's literally going right through the combustion process. Unfaced. That's why we got them. Sorry, that's why we have the highest level now.

Brian of all the other Industries for Dimension Also ERS it used to be the oil and gas industry, but the oil and gas industry has further evolved where basically almost everything they do is open air whereas a lot of the things or most of the things that we do is confin space, that's why we have now surpassed that. So now we have the highest rates of all the service industries of dimensioned Alzheimer's is because of the constant exposure to carbon monoxide, even at low levels on a continuous occurrence basis that we're not aware of because we're not wearing a wearable Monitor and US preaching from the rooftops on this presentation today of why they should be using an analyzer and that's one of the facets. and Brian you would asked it earlier who should be using an analyzer and I know you had be as it to a couple different people. It's basically this and I'm goingon to turn the question back to you.

How do you expect your doctor to ascertain the state of your health without the doctor doing your blood work? They can't Unless I'm missing something that is the same thing we're doing with combustion. We cannot properly ascertain from a mechanical standpoint the health and State of Affairs of our patient just by appearances and by how it sounds. it's like your blood work. The blood work doesn't lie, you could look like an Adonis like Jim Bergman and outward appearances.

but your health inside could be a poo show until the doctor does and the doctor will diagnose that, your cholesterol, your testosterone, all these other things, whatever you had going on with your kidneys I'm sure it showed up in your blood work. It's the same thing we're doing with combustion. It could look great on the outside, the cabinet could be nice and shiny, but it could be hell on the inside because it wasn't commissioned correctly. And until we use an analyzer on it and essentially do the blood work on that system, we cannot properly ascertain the state of health of that equipment.

And that is something that we are all looking to change the narrative on. You know, we're lighting a fire in somebody's place or somebody's space. Don't you think it would behoove us to monitor what it's doing, how it's functioning, and its byproducts to see if it's burning correctly, to see if our patient is going to have either a long life or a short introductory of its life by part Replacements and system failure? Yeah, for sure. Lis What are two? Well I Just wanted to say that first of all, this is the perfect time to be talking about Co if you guys aren't all aware.

Uh, as a supporter of the NCAA, it's National Carbon Monoxide Awareness Month. And if you haven't been to their website, No because I Do this because I get to do a lot of the trainings. Um, it's interesting though when I talk about the ambient Airco is I think every contractor out there that I've ever talked to at the end has had a story about the dangers of Co um something that has either happened to them personally, a family that they knew, or another contractor and I was like oh, this is just perfect timing uh for us to be able to talk about those ambient air Co levels. Um, it's just it's amazing though at like I think there was a slide in there that talked about how the when a CO alarm goes off and a lot of people don't realize that and you know on that website I was just talking about.

there's so many stories and we just had a story here in Indiana that a CO detector went off. It was a fully electric um residential area. It was somebody next door was having a generator running and for whatever reason, the homeowner was smart enough to even say even though I'm all electric I need to have a CO detector in my house and it actually saved them because that generator was just blowing right inside their house. With all that Co Yeah, there's so many so many uh, things we don't think about outside of the home that can even impact.

Uh, Bill Spone talks about that a lot about recirculation even back into the structure. Um Jim Davis You had something on your mind that you wanted to share, but I also wanted to hear your perspective on this because you've you've been a pretty big um advocate of low-level Co Monitoring Um for a long time if I'm not mistaken. I Know a lot of victims, but uh, what? are two visual signs that you got a problem with your equipment? The contractors go in and say that's normal rust and white powder. Anytime you see rust on the flu pipe on the burners, you see white powder coming out the seams.

That means you got a vending problem. If you got a vending problem, that means you're spilling. CO2 If you're spilling CO2 you're displacing oxygen and eventually you go to Co. So that is a problem.

but uh yeah. I've seen a lot of victims over the years. I I've still got one down. Been dealing with her for 20 years.

Uh, Bill Spone, Um, you actually had were probably the first one to introduce me to this idea of, um, kind of this. this. Triple Threat When it comes to carbon oxide, you have your combustion and not obviously combustion analyzer is a lot more than carbon monoxide, but you have your combustion analyzer, you have your low-level detector, and then you also have personal your personal Co Monitor and all three of those kind of form a uh, a wall against risk I would say um yeah yeah. protective shield? um yeah yeah.

because you got to look for sources and that's what you use the combustion analyzer for um but you you also need to protect yourself while working in the space I'm reading the live chat here and some people are saying my monitor probably uh Sav my life in an attic one day if I forget who made the comment there but you just never know what situation you're going to walk into and then the um, the low-level alarm or even even a UL 2034 alarm if you can't get a low-level alarm to to protect you, um, protect the occupants long term, you know. shoot I live in an all electric house and I have a CO alarm in here because you just never know. And to be clear, I just want to make the distinction. you everyone by code nowadays is required to have a UL carbon monoxide alarm.

but this what you're seeing on the screen right now is the duration in the PPM before those are going to alarm and if that goes on for a long time even at levels below 30 PPM potentially um, can cause health problems U Kind of back to what Tyler was saying and Lis was saying so I just want to Anchor that we're talking really about actually four different things here. We have your UL rated kind of code required Co Monitor you have low-level permanent C Co uh alarm in place You have personal, protective and then you have your combustion analyzer which is looking at performance. Um, the question that I want to ask? uh and I want to get right into it. Uh so Jim and Jim subject of meter clocking.

Um, it's one that I'll be honest, you know, like Jim's one of the first people who introduced me to this idea because I'm a I'm a dumb Floridian um and I I don't clock meters. You know, like to me, that just seems like such an excessive step. Specifically because in our Market we're not obviously not concerned that much about fuel efficiency because we're running 80% furnaces. So is the answer.

Yes, you always must clock or is there some Nuance to that? I I'll start with you Jim Davis Well, propane has no meter so that's really hard to clock along with oil and most of the stuff I started back in the late 70s, early 80s was commercial industrial. You got 610 appliances in a building. It's really hard to clop a meter. So I've playing with millions of Vus back then and never touched the meter.

Didn't look for one. Um, I found that the meter can be off as much as 10% and again, the meter doesn't tell you how many BTUs were in the cubic foot of gas that day. Certainly doesn't tell you much more than that. Um so I we don't teach to CL me meters.

We got the information in our books, but uh, I've never clocked a meter. I've never found a reason that that solved the problem. Uh, we check gas pressure. But yeah, clocking meters is because, uh, it doesn't equate to everything out there if a protocol covers all equipment.

fine, if it's only specific to one, we don't usually include it. But that's all right. I I I Have a feeling Jim Bern's goingon to have a different take? Yes, you will. Well, well.

I just want to know if you never clocked them meter Jim How do you know they're off by 10 per. Ask company. All right? No. I just had to poke that in there.

Hey uh, so I'm on the other side of the fence on that because I've um, every every single manufacturers every single set of instruction you get from any manufacturer in a furnace will tell you that you need to you, you need to clock the meter. Now there's a couple new resp es to it and Jim's right about. A lot of the things he's talking about is you don't know the the heat content in any one minute which is exactly why you need to clock the meter because if you're tuning it with a combustion analyzer and you don't know whether the heat content's high or the heat contents low and if the heat content is low in the gas and you tweak the oxygen and get it on the threshold, now the heat content goes. High The whole combustion can changed and that's why we we set a appliance up for average heat content.

So when you're looking at um, like if you go to the Egi website, they'll tell you the average heat content of gas over the year, an average heat content uh is probably stays within about 5% uh, a lot of times. even tighter than that. Uh, But it it does fluctuate. It fluctuates.

literally minute to minute hour to hour. If you to go to CSA labs, they actually have huge buffer tanks of natural gas that they use to uh to keep the heat content consistent while they actually test appliances. But but every Appliance is engineered. I was listening to some words and I was listening to some of the combustion analyzer manufacturers that they were talking about.

We want to tune with the combust analyzer. Furnaces are are engineered and tuned at the factory. What we need to make sure we do is set them up properly for the correct input that it was designed for. If we get the input of fuel correct that the furnace was designed for, then it's going to operate with uh, you know the way that it was engineered and it was probably engineered to have typically you uh, anywhere from let's say 30 to 50% excess are depending on the efficiency Appliance Um, and it's gonna.

It's going to have somewhere between zero and 100 PPM of Co Hopefully closer to zero PPM of coo and it's going to have a St stack temperature that's either going to prevent condensation or it's going. it's going to be a condensing Appliance Now that all that said, um in Brian's Market I Don't think it's as critical to clock a meter when talking about 80% efficient appliances versus let's say a lenux 97 or 99% efficient suppliance. These really high efficiency appliances are like race cars and if you're going to get that high efficiency out of them, you, you have to get the input correct so that we, uh, don't have too much excess air and we get, um, you know, we get complete combustion and we get all the water and the flu gases converted to liquid. That's where we get all the extra energy we get about uh, anywhere from 7 to 9% more energy out of the flu gas by actually condensing the water, the water vapor back to water and on a non-condensed appliance like an 80.

The reason we don't have like an 82 or an 84 or 85% officient Appliance is because we want to make sure we have enough Heat going up the stack that the water vapor in the flu gas remains water and so we need to make sure that we're um, we're we're high enough above the the the net stack temperature is high enough that we actually are, um, uh, keeping that water vapor water vapor right? So uh, and a little bit of excess air in an 80% Appliance if if you have like 50% excess Air versus 100% excess excess a Not going to really change your efficiency too much by less than 1% so it's it's um it. but on on a high efficiency appliance that nine, you can literally take a 99% efficient Appliance to make it a 90 94% just by having too much excess air and the excess air diluting the flu gases and not allowing the water to actually condense. And you can actually see it when you get the appliance input correct. you can actually see it by the volume of condensate coming out of the Uh out of the condensate trap and uh, which is which is um, you know again how they get that extra energy out of there.

So I'm I'm a big Advocate I've I've always clocked meters I've always followed the manufacturer's directions when it comes to that I've always gone to Egia to look at average heat content of the gas and set up for the average heat content for the area that you're in. um and I've and I've always had very good results. When I get the appliance set up with the correct input, the the biggest challenge we have I think and it goes back to the manufacturers is very few if any are publishing any any Uh combustion figures like they're not publishing what they allowable Co is I think Lenux is one exception. I've seen them publish some Co numbers lately.

Uh, between 100 and 200 PPM depending on the furnace that that uh installation manuals I've seen, they're not publishing excess error numbers. They're not publishing a lot of the information that would help us to properly tune the appliance or set up the appliance and make sure it falls within the manufacturer's guidelines once the input's correct. Because we do see appliances like Uh Ream had appliances where they're actually putting their dilution air through the burner. So it was very common to see 150% 120% excess air on this suppliance because they're putting not only Uh excess air for safe combustion, but also excess air to prevent dilution of the flu gases.

Um, because excess air can also be used to dry out flu gas just like we use it in a draf hood. But when you got an 80 plus furnace and there's no draf hood, they actually introduce it at the burner so it's just. well. I'll interrupt I'll interrupt you there.

So Jim Jim Tyler any any uh, rebuttal or other takes on that No. I'm I'm I'm in the camp with with Mr Bergman on this from from a gas meter from from clocking the meter standpoint, that's that's what I've been indoctrinated into years ago. Um, and and I know there's different schools of thought on it, but that that's kind of where I I fall in that Spectrum All right I Guess as long as you don't do commercial, you're fine. No.

I I Agree with you on Commercial Jim But course, say the the manufacturers published the combustion numbers I mean that if you think about I've been my background's 70 to 700 tons I've worked on burners that are 40 million BTUs But the difference is the manufacturers published the combustion numbers that you were expected to set the appliance up you know? and and obviously there's a Um that last few weeks I've I've never seen them, you never seen oh uh, Manufactur publish numbers have some CO2 numbers in their book CO2 should be three to five or well 10 to 12 and that's it I've never seen complete specs and there's I'll send you some and and hopefully we're going to see a change in the manufacturers manuals going forward. I mean they're giving us or they're giving technicians no Direction They're complaining that there's an oxygen issue with with with with oxygen coming back to their their condensing systems being less than 20.9% oxygen because there's cross-contamination and yet they're giving no technicians no direction on on how to account for it. There's minimal information given on venting and no one is checking the fresh air coming back to these systems as well. And and and that's an issue and that's been causing the Decay and the wearing down of all the Mechanicals is because if you're bringing back less than 20.9% oxygen back to a system, it's it's causing knocks.

It's bringing knocks back there. and all the other cost of gases that are that are occurring that are actually starting to wear that away and that is what's increased the amount of warrantees that are returned or systems that have returned under warranty during the warranty period that they think are defective and they're not. And are you recirculation of flu gas? Tyler Yeah, Recirculation of flu gases or migration of other flu gases making their way into a fresh air intake because people are not turning on the other fuel fire appliances when they're commissioning when they're working on something to make sure there's no migration. you know there's a lot of contractors out there doing work incorrectly which is causing a problem as well or just chemicals in the combustion.

Air Zone Dryer sheets yep not and and us not or technicians not V not pulling in fresh air from the outside when they're working on when they're installing a condensing system. Let's let's kind of button. all of the you just mentioned a lot of good things there that I think I want to hit on because this goes back to what Matt was asking, which is what people end up always asking. they're like.

Okay, so I measure and it's not what I want What do I Do you know all these things and you're measuring higher ambient cosos than anything? really? You're measuring anything above one ambient Co What do you do about that? And then what do you do in terms of uh, if you're not seeing the results that you want when you are assume commissioning a furnace now again I Know this is a big topic, but what I'm wanting to focus on here is all of these very practical things. And you mentioned a couple uh there. But I actually want to go back to uh, Bill Spone on this because we've talked a lot on this. Some of these sort of less regular.

um, things that can occur or less I shouldn't say less regular. They're very regular, but they're not the things that technicians think of when they are just looking at the Box less regular. Give me a little no, no, just meaning like, uh, we've talked a lot about like uh, the recirculation of of combustion products back into the home and Jim mentioned uh, numbers increasing because of contamination in the combustion Air Zone that kind of stuff. Yeah, and actually I'm I'm working on a an expert witness case right now of a situation where there's recirculation of the flu gas back into the combustion burner which is causing a a downward spiral in combustion.

uh, to the point of creating carbon monoxide. Uh, and then actually in recirculation back in through a fresh air vent. Um, so you in the situation Jim Jim Scen Picture this of this one I was looking at. it's the one with the traps Jim where somebody kind of hot rodded the traps and if you really don't understand how a trap Works A condensate trap and you have condensate coming from kind of like a a mini package unit, an apartment condensate coming from the air conditioner coil, condensate coming from the Uh from the combustion elbow of the exhaust combust, condensate coming back from the the combustion fan.

All these things, if they're not trapped properly, you can get recirculation of flu gases and really unintended consequences. And it the manufacturers manual they're they're installation manual is really got to be followed. Really got to be understood and followed. Otherwise you get these um, unimagined circumstances I Think one of the key things you know I You can go back there's you hear a lot of opinions in this room.

I I Think more than anything what you need to take away from this tonight is you. You you? you need to first of all start testing you. You always need every home you walk into. You should.

Everybody should have a personal suit. Co Monitor Everybody should be installing Lowl Co monitors in homes because Lowl Co Monitors will tell you you have a problem long before Ulc Co monitor ever will. we need to be testing combustion appliances in the stack. There are many, many many many ways.

Um, you know I took an NCI course years ago and Jim Davis and I We We solve these problems differently. but I'm not going to say either one of us is right. We solve them differently. But at the end of the day the problem is solved.

At the end of the day, we've we've rectified the co issue in the home. and I think that's the most important thing is that you first of all need to test and find out what the source is. Then you need to find out. You know if you have a source, you need to identify the path that is getting back into the home.

Bill Spone and I did a case back, uh, years ago where uh, a furnace was making over 19,000 parts per million and exhausting all of it outside, but then recirculating through an overhung fireplace back into the home and the lady got coal poisoning and brain damage from it. And so we we think, oh, I don't need to measure the seal in the Stack. it's all vending outside. Well, you have a source and now you have a path of recirculation.

But at the end of the day, if somebody had tested that and somebody had tested the SE in her home, if she had had a low-level CO detector in her home, if they had used a reasonable standard of care, her brain damage would have been completely mitigated, she wouldn't have had these issues. and it's because somebody didn't take the time to test. It's testing is the most important. First Step Solving the problem.

There are many, many people Jim Davis can help you I can help you Tyler can help you UI can help you Fieldpiece can help you Bill Spone can help you. There's a lot of help in the room to help you get the problem solved. but if you can't identify the problem, we can't help you get it figured out. Yeah, good stuff.

I Want to I Want to finish up with a couple things that came up in chat. Um and I'm just going to sort of summarize. One of them is is the question the age-old question of making penetrations into B Vent Tyler and I Talked about this the other day how frustrating it is that manufacturers don't manufacture with test points or at least a thoughtful protocol for that. but um, he said that you know in some in his location the inspectors won't even allow him to make penetrations in the B vent.

Um, anybody care to to take that one. First of all, is it in the code that they're not allowed to or they're just making that up on their own? They're making it up on their own. Uh, all three manufacturers of bent tin Coy derent have written letters. They wrote letters I think Bill your still backrack when I wrote them to Bob but Bob and Rudy collected those letters I can say I'll put a link in the chat to those letters.

Yeah, but bent. What is the function of B Vent clearance from combustibles? How often is the piece we drill near anything combustible? unless you're making your plums out of tissue paper. Um, and they're not air tight. the seams of every one of those and the elbows leak like a siiv.

So what's our hole doing nothing? So it's again. it's just educating the inspector asking him to show you go in the book where it's not allowed. If he says, well, that's my opinion. tell him you want to speak to you, Want him to speak to your lawyer.

We Hbac and Jim Davis and NCI are not giving legal advice on this live stream We would love to. We would love to do that. except when that happens, the scrutiny of every little in every install you do. oh, you're under the eye of that inspector, so sometimes it's the juice isn't worth the squeeze on that one.

We've all been there before. I Take personal? Yeah, know, absolutely. And and your analogy of it is is one of the reasons. and it's it was very well explained.

Is is simply one of the reasons you're one. You're the Godfather of this and and and those in the chat. Listening to this, You're between that and Jim Bergman and everybody else in this presentation. You're getting some some pearls here.

Um, you know from from some people that you're getting some free advice by by listening to this. So it's H every time. Jim Every time people on this in this group open their mouth, they learn something. Yeah, one of the other things that um comes up a lot and this is true.

Anytime we're we're trying to get people do to do something they haven't done or don't want to do. Um, there's a lot of excuses, but there's also a lot of frustration from the field about all the things that were required to do, would know and have tools for and all that stuff. But I I wanted to turn it over to Matt because Matt had a a nice kind of summary as somebody who just recently started doing combustion analysis of um of what he kind of found out from doing it. Yeah! so I started my own cont contracting business about a year ago and I was talking with Louise about this uh, earlier on the phone is once I was kind of put in the position of okay now I'm in charge of making sure that I'm doing this right.

I I uh I bought a combustion analyzer pretty quickly because all of the kind of top voices were saying hey, this is something that that you need to be doing. um and once I got one, uh I started having a lot of fun with it I mean it just before that my heating process was just kind of go out there. Maybe you know, pull the limit switch and look around but you can't see much. Um, but doing the combust analysis and really starting to check gas pressure every single time.

like I just started having fun. like when you actually dial in the gas pressure and you see everything change like it's just so much more. It's honestly just a lot of fun. like I feel really I just feel cool when I when I dial it in and I see that the the Co you know in the the co airf free was like 150 and then you just change the gas pressure just a tiny bit and it'll drop down to 500 or not 500 it'll drop down to 50.

you know? Um yeah, it's just it's just one of those things where you just get so much more information than you had before. Uh so I would yeah I would just recommend everybody just trying it out because it's a lot of fun. It's like the first time you ever measure airf flow or the first time you ever check superheat and adjust a charge. You know when you do things the old school way where it's all visual which I Don't think anybody here is disputing the value of visual.

We didn't even get into much of that, but but once you do it, then you really start to see the value in it. Yeah! I got a quick question. Brian Hold on Tony uh sorry yeah so um you know just that point on at about of how it's more fun and it makes you feel cool you know? I I Think it's sad to say that we are in a world where we are desensitized to sad stories in order to change. Behavior So uh uh, we should be doing combustion analysis for for the safety of ourselves and for our customers.

but for a contractor in the field really the language that we're talking about is financial and so from a financial perspective. Uh, any contractor that works on gas fired appliances should be performing a combustion analysis. Number one to like Matt's point when you have this really cool tool that you hook up to your customer system and they see that that in L separate you from from your competition. Um, it's a service that you can sell um them that pretty much ensures the safety and efficiency of their system.

and by taking more measurements it can up it can uncover um, upsell opportunities to to not only generate more revenue for your business, but also to provide a better service and comfort for your customer. So so like those two things are not mutually exclusive, they can exist at the same time. And so I I I Like kind of relate it like measuring static pressures. If a contractor is not performing set or measuring static pressures or performing a combustion analysis then you're really uh uh, leaving.

Um, you know, Revenue dollars on the floor and it'll just up the level of your professionalism and your company in front of your customer. Yeah, there has to be a business model behind everything that we do. Um Jim Bergman you were you were saying something. I'll let you kind of take us home here.

Oh yeah. well actually just a question for Jim Davis because I think it's it's interesting I Remember back uh Jim you when I took your class back years ago. So I can say I'm one of your students too. Yeah, 2003 Maybe you had mentioned that um you that when you first came into combustion analysis, you saw this thing.

you're a sales guy and you're like, this is really cool. It's sort of expensive and you've sort of learned by the CED of your pants and and you learned a lot by observation. You learned a lot about how it was doing. You sort of pioneered a lot of the early measurements.

but I'm thinking, you know Testo fuel piece San UEI all these manufacturers they manufacture combustion analyzers right? And then you got all the equipment manufacturers that manufacture equipment and then you got companies like you know NCI And you know, meic quick. We obviously do training and it's like and always you know, got to got to me thinking is whose responsibility is it to actually is it the manufacturer that manufactures a device? Is it their responsibility to do training? Is it Third part: Organizations to do training. Is it the man? Is it the equipment manufacturers obligation to do training? It just seems like a lot of us have sort of taken over that role because we we haven't. There's a necessity for.

but do you have an opinion about whose job? who should be doing this these types trainings and why? Well, a lot of people avoid training because it turns into a sales meeting. so when the manufacturer doing it, when the wholesalers doing it, we get to complain all the time they just tried to sell at something, they just tried to sell at something. So I think the the field is much better off having independent training. People you know you got uh people up in Chicago uh, you know you train uh ES So uh and again, any kind of training I got uh Mr M up in Rhode Island Anybody training that's got field experience? Manufacturers don't have field experience.

Wholesalers don't have field experiences a Rle at least not I think I was the only one never did that. But yeah, I think it's got to be done by people like yourself myself. Anybody that's been out in the field and spent a lot time in the field, Not somebody that's just trying to repeat stuff out of some stupid manual somewhere. What do you think? I I I' agree with that because it goes back to the manufacturers install things Always by the book, they never really see what happens when you don't install it correctly or the or the conditions we run across in the field.

that um, and it's just like I it goes back to Copeland A couple years ago they're putting a an additive in their compressors to help with moisture and oil and I don't think any engineer at Copeland ever said what do you think will happen if they don't pull a vacuum at all on a system and just cut the charge in and it's like full of moisture. And so we had. you know, thousands of TXV failures. but I don't think any other manufacturer goes.

What do you think will happen if they if we do this or we do that or they don't put the vending in the way that we want or the condensate trap the way that we want it? What do you think will happen if it's not a perfect installation? Yeah, and and so I agree with you. It's like we we have the opportunity to see every imper installation and all the out and all the all all the outcome of that and then an opportunity to tell somebody how to correct it. I Don't think the manufactures go that extra mile to actually see how their equipment's installed. They don't have that one one thought.

Sometimes the real world is beyond belief. especially For Engineers Yeah, hey! Jim Bill Told me earlier you went to some drag races last weekend and they didn't have any cars. No I knew I knew we weren't going to get all the way through it without something something. uh no.

I So I wanted to I didn't want to go without mentioning in this Uh, very uh, very Summary: very fast uh live stream in which you you have all been so generous and I'm so grateful for all of your time. There's you know, the one thing that I do a lot of is take uh, people who I would have to spend thousands of dollars an hour as consultants and just say hey, you want to come on a live stream and then I learn stuff so it's great. Um, but yeah, thank you all for thank you all for doing that. But one of the things that I wanted to mention here is that measurement and field observation go hand inhand because if you are just a field Observer and you don't measure and You observe something and you don't know why it's happening, then what do you say I don't know And if you only measure and you don't know how to field observe and you measure something that you don't expect and it's not what you, it's not what you expect.

you know? Well, I don't know what to do about it, right? and it's always both. So it's the observing. Uh, like we were saying earlier observing corrosion or white powder, you know I'm so glad you said that. Looking at the venting like this: Goofy water heater here, Paying attention to even the appliances that are in the area.

Uh, in addition to the three things that we talked about which is low-level carbon oxide uh, static alarms in place um, personal protective alarms and then also combustion analyzers deploying those in your business business even if you don't do it perfectly, starting to measure will then improve your field practices in your in your skills of observation and then your observations will then uh, work better with your Uh with your actual adjustments that you're doing with the combustion analyzer. I think it always is both Jim Bergman uh I stole. This i