Eric Johnson (00:00)
can you give a little background, because I think the background will.
Play into what I want to talk about or some topics we want to talk about today. So just a quick rundown of How you started and how you started is a lot like a lot of the other industry how they started but Yeah, how you started some background and then Yeah, we can get on with it
Marty Toth (00:08)
Sure.
Mm-hmm.
Dan?
Yeah, absolutely. Originally from Detroit, Michigan. However, I don't sound like that anymore because I've been in the South so long, which is not a bad thing. ⁓ Redneck Yankee is pretty much my moniker these days. ⁓ Graduated from high school in Tennessee, went back up to Detroit looking for a career.
College, you know, was an opportunity there, playing sports, things of that nature. ⁓ It didn't work out. And so I needed something to do and decided to go into her recruiter's office one day and thought, you know what, the Navy would be a good option because if it doesn't work out up in Detroit, I could always go back and work at TVA.
Tennessee Valley Authority. ⁓ I a lot of friends that I had that I graduated with. Their parents worked for TVA. I graduated in a little small town in western middle Tennessee called Erin, E-R-I-N, Erin Tennessee's in Houston County. ⁓ Great little town, completely different than anything I ever grew up around in Detroit, obviously.
But it was next to Cumberland City, which was one of the large fossil fuel power plants for a TVA. So a lot of their parents worked for that. So where that kind of led me to was looking up a Navy and realizing that there was engineering departments working with boilers, machinery, turbines, pretty much everything that you would find over at the Cumberland City.
for TVA and I thought, you know, this would be a great opportunity. I still had dreams and aspirations of getting the money together to be able to go back to college and play baseball. And as you know, or may know, scholarships for baseball at that time were not very plentiful, nor was I very good. So they weren't giving me a whole lot of money to play baseball, that's for sure.
⁓ and so that's the idea was, you know, have something to fall back on. And so I got into, went to boot camp up in great lakes. Some people call it great mistakes, but it was a path the Lord put me on that has got me to where I am today. And so I never regretted it. I went out to the fleet, became a machinist mate, machinist mates for those that
aren't aware, a lot of people think, hear the word machinist and they think a tool and die. This is not that. Machinist mates worked with steam related equipment, turbines, evaporators, steam generators, things of that nature. But on the ship that I was on, I was on the USS Coronado, we were actually home based out of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, which everybody did. That's great.
As a student in school for the Navy, I was in the top percentile of the class. So they said, where do you want to go? And it's like the kid that grew up in the cold in Detroit, it's like, shoot, I want to go to Hawaii. ⁓ So did I know that you get a little bit of island fever when you live in Hawaii for a while.
being on the Admiral's ship, we didn't really go out a lot. ⁓ But anyway, so that kind of led me into the world of steam. And I wish I would have taken a better opportunity during my Navy time. I would tell anybody, and I have told people that, ⁓ we're gonna go into the Navy. was like, look, you you're gonna be a little wide-eyed, but take advantage.
of the opportunities that the military is going to give you and learn all you can because I came out of the Navy with this concept that I knew a lot. actually came out of school with a concept that I knew a lot, know, ⁓ percentile of the class. And boy, I just walking around and got mirrored, toilet advanced, you know, because of my, my schooling and
I get to the fleet and I knew nothing, Eric. I mean, nothing. And so it was the opportunity to learn and I would tell anybody that gets into something like that is take those opportunities seriously and don't waste your time. Got out and I know you said to keep this brief, but I tend to talk a little bit too much so you can cut me off any time. But I got out and
We really didn't know what to do. ⁓ There were some family situations that occurred that did not allow me to ⁓ go to college. ⁓ We won't get into that. That's not what this podcast is about. ⁓ Nor did I have an opportunity to go to TVA. I tried to apply for their apprenticeship program and was told that I was overqualified at 22 years old Eric Imagine that. ⁓
We know what that was probably all about. And I told the guy who told me that the only thing I was overqualified for at that point was flipping burgers at McDonald's. ⁓ I think I told you that one time before. And so it was ⁓ a rude awakening. I had to find a job. And so I went to work as a welder and tinkered with ⁓ low pressure boilers ⁓ at a plant.
you know, just trying to wait for the opportunity. I remember going into, we used to call it the unemployment office. Now I think they call it workplace development or employment securities or something like that now. And looking for an opportunities. And I wish to this day that I could remember the gentleman. can see him in my face. was a, he's about six feet tall, African-American.
just the nicest guy with the tie and short sleeve white shirt. And he sat down with me and he said, let's look at some opportunities here son. And he starts pulling out all these state jobs, you know? And here I am, I guess I was probably 23 at the time. And I come across this job, two jobs, one as a state boiler operator.
And another was a state boiler inspector
Huh, I kinda think that. And so I applied, I went and interviewed, and I was told that I was too young. So apparently at the time, back in the day, there was a requirement, I don't know if it was written or underwritten, that said that you had to be 25 years old to carry a commission. I've never found anything that...
stipulated that maybe if there's somebody listening that's older than me that could come back and say, yeah, that was something back in the day. He you had to be 25 years old to carry a commission with the National Board. I was too young. He told me that. said, okay. So, still working, still doing.
moved to Nashville, was working a summer. And some guys said, we're going to take this summer and we're going to work an evening job at Robert Orr Sysco lumping groceries, you know, the food Supply Company, so that we could have a summer in the sun and then we'd go to work at night. And all of a sudden, I turned 25.
and I get a call from the state.
or a letter from the state. And they said, hey, we have a position. We remember you. Are you interested? And I thought, well, that's kind of neat. And so that started my career as being the youngest boiler inspector ever hired for the state of Tennessee at the time. So worked that role, went to Jackson, Tennessee, and learned along the way.
took one of the hardest tests I've ever taken, which was the National Board Commission exam. It was a lot different back then, Eric. I don't know if you've ever had a chance to talk to inspectors about their commission, the older. I'm 57 years old. those that took it before me and recently after I did would tell you that that test was a little ridiculous. It was all...
The first day was all mathematical calculations, engineering calculations. You got five questions in the morning. You had to write out your answers, okay? If you didn't show your work, you didn't get credit. And then the afternoon, I gave you five more questions. And then the second day was a half a day, and it was 50 essay-style questions that you had to write out your answers to.
and they would give partial credit and things of that nature. And my main man, Bob Schuller with the National Board has since passed. He was called a lot of things in this time, but one thing I'll tell you, he was one of the most code smart people I ever knew. And he would grade those tests and he gave you no quarter. He would take you down on that. ⁓
can remember Eric giving an answer for a compensation problem that took five pieces of paper to answer the problem. So that's kind of what that test was. again, that was a situation where I was so confident. They called me the golden child. And this guy's so smart. I passed that exam by the skin of my teeth. And that was another eye-opening experience. So what you'll see as an
going through all this is a lifetime of continual learning, a lifetime of learning from failures, not from successes, but from failures. And so I served as a deputy inspector for about eight years until my predecessor, Don Tanner, moved on to the National Board.
and he became the executive director and Don had been the chief. We had very similar backgrounds, though he retired from the Navy. I only served four years. But we could relate. that's kind of the industry had a lot of those people that were ex-military, ex-Navy. ⁓ They are, I hate to say it, but a lot of them are dying out now. And so we're...
the industry had to change, how they did the test and how they broke up the test and had different licenses that went along or endorsements that went along with it. Whereas it didn't when I, it was like, if you were a boiler inspector, you got to do repairs, you got to do in service, you got to do a lot of things. Now it's kind of divvied up.
So anyway, back on track. then I was appointed Chief Boiler of the state of Tennessee. Served that role for seven years. Kind of got a little bit...
like a better term, a little bit tired of politics, of state government, it kind of wore on me a lot. Six of those seven years, I was the youngest chief inspector in North America.
I I'm the third youngest chief inspector ever ⁓ to have been a chief inspector in North America. What does that mean? That means I went in with lot of confidence and some would call it arrogance and ⁓ needed to learn a lot. And I did. I had some great mentors during that time, some guys that had been in the industry for decades.
And so in January 2008, that's enough. Shocked everybody. They couldn't believe it. They couldn't believe that I was leaving. They thought I was going to be, you a lot of people would say I was going to be the heir apparent, you know, for the National Board. And that just wasn't me. And, know, for the longest time, I thought that would be me, the person that would be out front.
I realized the Lord gives everybody talents. And my talent was not that, not that diplomat that sat up front. I was the guy in the background that helped that guy succeed. And, and so now the National Board is led by a extremely talented person and dear friend of mine, Joel Amato.
Joel and I grew up in the National Board together. He's just a little bit older than me, even though he looks a whole lot older than me, in case he ever watches this. ⁓ And he is just, I can't say enough about him. I mean, when you say the Lord puts people in positions, the Lord put the right person in the position to lead the National Board into the next,
decades. mean he's amazing. So I left state government, went to start a Company that was 2008 for those that remember 2008 was not a good time to start a Company. Hung with it for a couple years and then in October of 2010 I was asked to join Boiler Supply Company I went to work at Boiler Supply
The idea was to bring all their individual locations together under one uniform process because they had four different sites that operated four different ways. And so that kind of was the task I took on. And I enjoyed that as director of service operations for about three and a half years until I started Boisco Training Group. A lot of people ask, well, where does BTG come from?
And it's because I started it under a Boiler Supply Company which is Boisco is kind of an acronym, if you would, for Boiler Supply Company And so I started BTG, worked from about 2015 and then I started ⁓ ECS Consulting.
in 2018 and then acquired all the intellectual property for BTG and continue to run that as its own separate entity. And so now my parent company is ECS Consulting. And then we also have the Boisco Training Group. And so I've been doing that ever since. ⁓ Really enjoy what I do. A lot of people I know you're the same way Eric, you really enjoy this industry.
you're very dedicated to it. could tell by looking at the rig that you built behind you, that was classic. wish I had the desire or the patience to put something like that together. That's amazing. I'm gonna get you to bring me over one of these days. And so I've been doing that. on the other side, yeah, I've been married for nearly 21 years. have my beautiful wife.
Kristen, we moved to Florida because she took on the executive role with Advent Health. And I two children. My oldest is 19. She actually goes to Mississippi State University. She's home for the winter break, holiday break. She's got to go back on Saturday. That breaks her daddy's heart because I'd love for her to be around.
And then I have a 17 year old rascal of a son. He's awesome. He is a rascal just like I was when I was his age. he didn't fall far from the tree. And he's a senior in high school and he's looking at college opportunities and baseball opportunities. And he's now taller than his dad. You remember, I mean, you're a tall guy too, Eric. I'm not short and he's taller than me now, but.
but I'm still dad. And other than that, do, I serve on some committees. We talked about this. I used to be on the ASME committees when I was, when I was chief inspector, but now that I'm a business owner, any committee I serve on, as you know, I pay for to go to. So I serve on the National Board of Inspection Code committee and have for years, even when I was...
Chief. ⁓ Currently I'm on the main committee, which is the overall operation committee for the NBIC I also am vice chair for the repairs and alterations part of the NBIC Serve on the subgroup of that part. I'm going to
⁓ off of that to give some newer people opportunities to serve on the subcommittee so that I can kind of go around to the other parts during that Tuesday. And then the one that's really fun is I serve on the interpretations for repairs and alterations. So anybody that sends in any type of, hey, what does this mean type of questions, that committee task for, I guess is what they're
we ⁓ get to go over those and answer. And so when you see those interpretation, know that they came through our committee first. And that's about it, buddy. Other than that, I love this industry. As you know, I have a passion for it. One of the advantages that I've had is that I think I put my fingers on every part of this industry.
the manufacturing to repairs to training to inspection. And I learned something new every single day, every day. And that's about it, Pup.
Eric Johnson (20:35)
That is a great intro. Much greater than I would have done.
Marty Toth (20:40)
Thank you.
Eric Johnson (20:41)
Couple questions on that. So the National Board, ⁓ when you're talking about commission, what does that mean?
Marty Toth (20:47)
Mm-hmm.
what the National Board does is they do a lot of different things but on the Commission side up they will issue, lack of a better term, the license to be a boiler inspector and so the majority of the jurisdictions
in the United States and provinces of Canada have some sort of a boiler law. Okay, there are a few still out there that don't, but all of the provinces I know, I've got to go back and look and see if there are any states that are left over. I know some of the last that jumped on board were like Alabama, but they've been one for a number of years now, South Carolina.
⁓ and so what happens is, is to have, to be part of the National Board or to have a member. And when I mentioned being the chief, all member jurisdictions have a representative and that representative is the member of the National Board. So during my seven years as chief, I was the actual member that represented the state of Tennessee.
during any other functions and ⁓ enforcement of the codes. And so the National Board, the NBIC is then adopted by jurisdiction in whole or in part. And of that, you have commission inspectors. So the first tier of being a boiler inspector is to get your in-service commission.
So that's your inspector that's gonna go out and we used to call it kicking water heaters. You can inspect anything from a booster heater in a kitchen to a boiler at ⁓ a hospital system. And so that's gonna be your in-service inspector. And then that commission then allows for you to get other endorsements. Now, when I was an inspector, your commission
covered not only your in-service, but it also would cover any repair inspections, repair alteration inspections. They changed that up now to where you will get your in-service when you take your commission, and then you have to get a repair endorsement, things so on and so forth. Which I think was not a bad idea because
When you gave somebody a commission that also allowed them to sign off on repair work that's being done, you want to make sure that they have that knowledge base behind them. And back in my day, there were a lot of people that probably shouldn't have signed off, me being one of them early on, until you get more education and experience.
And so that wasn't a bad thing. Then you can get different types of endorsements, like a shop inspector, which was an A endorsement, had that. ⁓ B endorsement was shop inspector supervisor. And when you say shop inspector, what does that mean? Well, that means you're manufacturing equipment to the ASME code, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, boiler and pressure vessel code.
So for a power boiler, I know you know this, but maybe your listeners might not, for a power boiler, that would be a quote unquote a high pressure boiler, anything greater than 15 PSI steam, is going to be built under section one of the ASME code. A section four boiler, like a heating boiler, which could be, and we're talking steam, is the steam boiler 15 PSI or below is built.
under section four of the ASME code. And then unfired pressure vessels would be built, your standard air storage tank is gonna be built under section eight, division one. So that's just kind of an example there. And those inspectors have to be familiar with those codes. They have to go to a school that is going to teach them about those codes. They're gonna be...
given an exam, they have to pass the exam before they get the endorsement. Same thing goes with your shop inspector supervisor. And I also went to nuke school for the end endorsement. And that's for a nuclear power.
inspector and so you're talking about section three. those that's where that comes from is the commission is if you think about it as being a license of for a tradesman to do a specific job like an electrician well think of that same thing for a boiler inspector and those boiler inspectors can work for a jurisdiction they can work for an AIA which is an acronym for authorized inspection agency think of your
Hartford Steam Boilers, your Travelers, Back in the Day Factory Mutuals, things of that. Those were also boiler inspectors and they would then get an additional state commission to work in like the state of Tennessee. And usually what happens is ⁓ if you got your National Board,
Commission you would then you would apply to the state state look and say you got a National Board Commission will go ahead and issue you a State license or a state Commission some jurisdictions would say that's great all good But we want to make sure you understand our rules and regulations so they would give them another exam So that's where that comes from
Eric Johnson (27:02)
Can you quickly explain what the National Board is or does in relation to boilers versus ASME because a lot of newer people and I being one of them and probably still do don't fully understand.
Marty Toth (27:08)
Okay.
Eric Johnson (27:20)
the role of the National Board and how it like comes alongside ASME but like they're two different separate organizations.
Marty Toth (27:28)
Thank
They are, and I'm gonna try to follow your lead in there and say quickly. Anybody to tell you that you never get much quick out of me when it comes to, that's why people thought I should have been a politician, I think.
Eric Johnson (27:44)
Yeah,
I'm just trying to summarize it for the people listening, because even me that I've been doing it 10 years, it's still kind of like, all right, how do these two organizations, they're not, they're separate, but they run very parallel.
Marty Toth (27:47)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Ergh.
Mm-hmm.
They absolutely do. And for a lot of years, because when I was with the National Board ⁓ as ⁓ the chief inspector, a member of the National Board, was also on a member of the Board of Trustees. So we really, really, and they still do, and that's why Joel is so strong in his roles, because we grew up around this, is that.
Though they are two different organizations or associations, if you would, they're organizations too, but they're made up. If you're not on staff, you're a volunteer. So all the codes and standards, they are not government agencies. A lot of people may think that the National Board is a government agency or the ASME is government. It's not, just like NFPA is not.
Eric Johnson (28:56)
I believe both are technically are both non-profit organizations. Yeah.
Marty Toth (28:56)
It's made up.
Non for profit probably
is a better term. ⁓ But again, I'm not a tax attorney. So I'm not going to argue either one of those. But yeah, legal wise, it's yeah.
Eric Johnson (29:12)
Yeah, legal wise, it's not, not,
they're, they're corporate entities, not government entities, but they're not for profit organizations as far as, and that is a wide variation of organizations, but essentially they exist, the technical definition of it, they exist to not make a profit.
Marty Toth (29:18)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Absolutely.
Mm-hmm.
That's right. ⁓ That's why the difference was for the National Board was to say the term not for profit versus nonprofit is that with the Board of trustees, we would have to look at this is that you're allowed to keep so much funds. Anyway, let's not get off on that. yeah, absolutely. And so one of the big things that Joel has always been a strong supporter of is
the parallel duties or tasks that run side by side with the ASME and the NBIC And so to kind of answer that question, what's the difference between them ⁓ is when you look at it, you think ASME, and again, I will have people argue this with post-construction. ⁓
allowances within the ASME. ASME is construction. NBIC is post-construction. And so when you build a vessel, you build a boiler, you build a pressure vessel, you build whatever, once that vessel is in essence stamped, and I mean, I can go into greater detail what that means to be stamped.
Once it is stamped as completed, then the ASME is gone. The only time the ASME is going to come back into it is when we get over into the NBIC and we start to do repairs. We start to do installations, we do inspections, and then the NBIC then references back to the original code of construction.
The difference is, is a lot of people think that for you to use the NBIC, you got to build to the ASME code and that's not true. You can build to other codes, the CE certifications or EU certifications for vessels being constructed.
through getting approval on a vessel that was built to the German code. Okay, well, if it's built to the German code, something happens to it and it needs to have code repairs done. Those code repairs can be done to the NBIC, okay, but they are going to be repaired to the original code of construction. They're to be tested to the original code of construction. So that's how
That's where you're really in the simplified way of saying it is that's where you're going to see the difference is ASME is going to be construction. NBIC is going to be post construction. And the NBIC does or the National Board does more than just commission and
and the keeper of the NBIC, they do valves, they do training. When I say valves, safety valve certification, they have a wonderful valve lab that ⁓ safety valve manufacturers have to actually send their valves up to to verify their capacities. And ⁓ they get their certifications for those valves. So they do a lot more than just commission.
inspectors and write code. Hopefully that answered your question.
Eric Johnson (33:20)
Yeah, that's enough for a podcast without getting full two hours on the National Board. But if you are, if you're a boiler person, you go out and you look at it like a safety valve and you see NB with a little fancy square around it, that's National Board.
Marty Toth (33:36)
Yeah.
That's That's right. You'll see it with the low cloverleaf, the cloverleaf. That's where I think a lot of confusion does come up sometimes is because though they are not exactly alike, they both use, the ASME and the National Board use a ⁓ stamp that has a symbol of a kind of a cloverleaf, a four-leaf clover around it. And so they look kind of similar and a lot of people out there are the same thing.
Eric Johnson (34:08)
Yeah, ASME uses now it's updated, they use a clover leaf with ASME diagonal across it. And then in addition, they'll add a, a letter and that letter goes to the
Marty Toth (34:15)
That's right.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (34:26)
section of the boiler and pressure vessel code. So if it was a section one boiler, it would be for like a high pressure boiler. That's like normal. I don't know how to define normal, but it would be an S or if it's an electric boiler, it's an E and that's yeah. Miniature boiler. Yeah. So
Marty Toth (34:30)
Very good.
Yeah.
Or an yeah, could be either. Yeah. No, that's, that's very
good. And that's something that we laughed for years. We laughed at sitting on the, the ASME codes. We're like, my gosh, you know, you've got these manufacturers that are assigned these metal stamps and that's what they are, a metal stamp. And if they build, you know, section one, section four, section eight, div one.
They have all these different stamps, you know, and...
It finally came to a point where, you know, they started listening and I had since been gone by then. They started listening and said, instead of having all these individual metal stamps with the S inside the clover leaf or, or the H inside or the H L W they did exactly what you said is that it's you're going to get a master stamp, ASME, and you can apply whatever sub indicator.
that you're authorized to, that you carry a certificate of authorization to apply. And ⁓ it just makes it so much more efficient. And people are losing stamps that they don't use for a long time, and maybe they haven't made a ⁓ miniature or they haven't done anything power piping, and somebody says, we're gonna build this spool piece And they go out and say, anybody seen the PP stamp? And it's like, I don't know.
Yeah, so that's pretty smart.
Eric Johnson (36:19)
And by and by stamp, we mean a a piece of metal tooling that has a upside down letter or symbol on it. And when you strike it with a hammer against a piece of metal, it indents it. And now you are permanently indenting the metal and showing. And that's what he meant by when he was talking about getting ASME stamp. If we look at a boiler like a fire to boiler.
Marty Toth (36:30)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (36:48)
ASME states where it needs to be but
and the information, but if you look at the, it'll be permanently attached to a pressure vessel on a plate or it'll be actually stamped into the pressure vessel, but it'll be information. And that's essentially like kind of like your VIN number of your car. And that VIN is going to be stamped on your frame, stamped on your engine stamped or, and under your windshield, that VIN number of the boiler. That's what, ⁓
Marty Toth (37:01)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Eric Johnson (37:20)
when somebody looks at a boiler and wants to know where it came from and all this other stuff, it's been painted a hundred times and the manufacturers stickers are all off of it. That stamp is like, Hey, this is what this pressure vessel actually is.
Marty Toth (37:37)
That's a good point. And if I could add to that, that's where you will see a couple of different things. You will see, number one, the actual code stamp as we're discussing. But then you will also see the National Board registration stamp. Okay. If it's not stamped National Board registration, they actually can use National Board. can use ⁓
abbreviation of it, but what they're going to do is they issue a number. They be in the manufacturing. And some of the things that can be confusing because
you can say, well, that's the social security number of that boiler. Well, it is and it isn't. It's not just the number, it's the manufacturing, it's the year. Mostly it's the manufacturer. So what you would do is if I needed to find out some information about that particular boiler, let's say I need to get the manufacturer's data report. And who's going to...
that information, it's going to be in the National Board. That's where the National Board registration comes from, is that the boiler manufacturer in the United States, I want to say Canada, sometimes matters where the boiler is going to be, is going to be required to register their boiler with the National Board because let's take the state of Tennessee.
for instance, state of Tennessee is gonna tell you that boiler has to be built to the ASME code and it has to be registered with the National Board. If not, you gotta go through a whole big process of getting authorization as a Tennessee special with the state of Tennessee. I mentioned that earlier with one of the clients I'm working with. So those go hand in hand. Now, let's say something happens. Well, something happens to it.
and you get a repair Company to come do a code repair on it, that repair Company is going to have to get a copy of the manufacturer's data report. If the user doesn't have it on hand, or the jurisdiction doesn't have it, most of them don't you gotta call up to the National Board. Well, if you just call up to the National Board and say, hey, I've got National Board number 12345, can I get a data report? They're gonna say, well, I need more information.
And that more information is, I need to know who the manufacturer is. Because manufacturer A could put National Board number 12345, but so can manufacturer B. ⁓ Because the National Board registration has everything to do with that particular manufacturer. Okay? that really, that plays a part in it. And so you have to kind of line.
So if any of your listeners ever run across that situation, don't just find the National Board number, find out the manufacturer's name as well. And there are some manufacturers that will do, that have different shops, that have different stamps. Okay, they have their own stamp. So their name may be very similar, but they may have a hyphenated something in their name that differentiates them from their sister company
Eric Johnson (40:54)
you
Marty Toth (41:15)
And so you've got to have all that information handy before you can call up to the National Board and ask them. Because if not, they're going to have to go through a big long search and they may or may not be willing to do that.
Eric Johnson (41:32)
And that.
manufacturer's name is also stamped in that by the information and that especially in this global economy the manufacturer's name of the pressure vessel does not mean the manufacturer's name on the side of the boiler and i know there's i think it's french AIC maybe or maybe that are south korean i forget ⁓ but AIC builds pressure vessels it's a foreign company
Marty Toth (41:37)
Mm-hmm.
That's right.
Eric Johnson (42:04)
for
I don't like Lochinvar or Patterson Kelly multiple multiple and this is all on the condensing boiler market, but multiple manufacturers will buy those pressure vessels and then stick it in their boiler and design their boiler around it. So if you say, hey, I have a Patterson Kelly boiler. But if you actually look at the actual stamping of the pressure vessel, which is going to be the metal of the boiler.
Marty Toth (42:21)
and
Eric Johnson (42:36)
it's going to say something different like AIC or something that's going to be the Company that actually built it and actually applied the all that all the markings, which don't don't get confused because they're different.
Marty Toth (42:46)
Mm-hmm.
very similar, Eric, when you talk about that. say that you have somebody that you look on the box and the box has one name, but the person that actually, or the Company that actually manufactured it, manufactured it for the name on the box. They sent it to them. Well, let's say they'll do the same thing for boilers. I had a situation.
When I was chief inspector, the National Board called me and ASME had got wind of it. And what happened was you had a Company, they'll remain unnamed. You had a Company that was marketing, selling, and decaling their outside skin of the heating boilers with all of their information.
So it looked like this Company actually built these vessels, right? And then when you looked on the little foil steel, because as you mentioned, the boilers have to be stamped to the shell as long as the shell is of a specific thickness, okay? Anything below that, you can attach a plate, but anything above that, you stamp it to the actual shell.
And so all that information was underneath all the insulation that wrapped around the unit. You had mentioned like fire tube boilers, like a Scotch Marine fire tube boiler. The code's going to tell you where that stamp needs to be located. That stamp's going to be located on the right side of the boiler at approximately two o'clock. Right? Well, that's, and then when you go to look, you look up there, you'll see a little sheet metal plate.
On the side, this got some sheet metal screws and you take that out and flip that up and you pull the insulation out and you'll see all the stamping that she mentioned. Okay. Well, these particular units were more of a coil fin type of unit. And so what they would do is the actual manufacturer would manufacture and then put a bracket that then contained the data plate all under the insulation. Well, what this
supplier was doing on do supplier ⁓ Was they would then duplicate that plate that's under there with a foil plate? that embossed both the ASME symbol for HLW Okay, remember we talked about that where it used to be the metal stamp had HLW in it not ASME like it does now
And so they embossed that on that foil. And then they also put in National Board abbreviated and then duplicated the National Board number. Well, both the National Board and the ASME were up in arms about that because you're not allowed to do that. And so it was funny as a chief inspector because you would look at all these inspections reports that would come in.
from the inspectors, both insurance and state, and they would have the distributor's name as the manufacturer of the boiler. And I would laugh because I was like, yeah, that's what's on the outside. That's why it's on that foil sticker, but they never actually inspected the data plate inside or underneath all the insulation that actually gave the manufacturer's name on it. So that's, you gotta be really careful.
Eric Johnson (46:30)
you
That's why you should always check for yourself and never look at a piece of paper. I've also, it shouldn't happen, but you also have to remember that everything is done by humans. You get a piece of paper and they say, Hey, this is the boiler. And then you take off the cover and you have a different National Board. The model number is different. And you're like, Hey, I have the wrong piece of paper for this boiler.
Marty Toth (46:35)
Let's try.
That's right.
That's right.
Eric Johnson (47:02)
and this is actually not, these two do not go together. We have all the time.
Marty Toth (47:07)
Do you got time for a really quick story on that? Really, very quick? We've got plenty of time.
So, ⁓ back when I was a deputy inspector working out in Jackson, what happened was Shelby County used to have their own code enforcement that covered the entire county. And they had a chief inspector, his name was ⁓ Max Lovely Now we've to remember, this is when I was a young pup, I was still in my twenties. Okay.
And so I was raring and ready to go and you know, I was working that area. I had a bunch of counties over there. And I go down into Shelby County one time and I go to Cordova and Cordova was actually outside of the city limits of Memphis. It was still in Memphis Shelby County, ⁓ which was its own governmental entity. But the charter
for the through the National Board was just the city of Memphis, Shelby County. And so I go into Cordova and I'm seeing all these registrations for water heaters and things like this. And I reach out to Don Tanner and I'm like, I'm down here in Shelby County. I'm not even in Memphis and I'm seeing them registering and Shelby County, it was bad.
Because Eric, what they would do is it's kind of like getting your plumbing inspection. You put a water heater in and you get an inspector come out and he inspects it and you're, you know, you're good to go until ⁓ later on that water heater goes out. And now you've been living in the house for a while and you get, you know, John Smith, you know, plumber to come in and put some new water heater.
right? Done pulling permits. Anyway, so I spent, you know, noticing that what Shelby County would do is a building, a location to open up and they would put in an industrial water or a boiler, okay, commercial water heater, boiler, whatever. And they would do it that one time. And then every year they would just send them an invoice, send them an invoice, pay this invoice for your certificate. And every year they would send.
And I can remember when Max Lovely retired, they didn't hire anybody. didn't have a commission inspector. So when they did not have any commission inspectors, the National Board pulled their charter. So they were no longer part of the National Board. State of Tennessee and most jurisdictions, state jurisdictions are gonna do this like an air permit.
Air permit in Tennessee, if you live in Nashville or Chattanooga or Knoxville or Memphis, you have to follow that county's air permit requirements. If you don't, you got to follow the state's air permit requirements because the state allows for the individual cities, city counties to regulate their own. And as long as they do, we're good. Well, that's what it was with Memphis or Memphis.
And so once Memphis was not complying with state law, we took it over and they were not very helpful with us because all it was, was the money thing. Again, they would just send out, know, renewals. So I can remember we teamed up and all the inspectors went down and we started going through all these boilers that were in service finding so many that weren't there anymore.
but we're still getting a certificate. But there was one situation that was so funny is that we walked in and my partner that was with me, ⁓ Bob Harrison, he and I are still good buddies and we're 30 years apart in age and we're still great buddies. And Bob's over here reading off what the numbers that the city of Memphis gave us for serials, models and all.
And I was like, okay, this one is not matching what you got. And the old guy, the maintenance guy starts laughing. And Bob and I turned around and look at him and he goes, son, let me tell you, this He goes, that certificate doesn't match the one that replaced, that boiler's replaced. So they had replaced three times or two times.
And they still had the same certificate on the wall from the original one and it had been replaced twice before or twice after. And I just, I just laughed. And so what you said is right on. Don't just assume anything. Don't assume that the guy that the, the, ⁓ safety valves on top of your boiler are the proper safety valves. Okay. Because the person that replaced them before may have replaced them with ones that
that aren't ⁓ suitable for that boiler. So don't just look up there and replace like for like assuming that it's fine when it may not be. So I like that. That's great, great advice.
Eric Johnson (52:38)
Also, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I have found that a lot of people believe that because a boiler is new, it is correct. And when a boiler is new, a new installation and everything, it has the probability of being the most incorrect because it is untested and multiple people have not put their eyes on it. it can leave and manufacturers have processes, but it can leave the manufacturing a
Marty Toth (52:48)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (53:09)
place and
Marty Toth (53:10)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (53:12)
They may have tested the boiler to a certain degree or they may not have, but I have seen wrong safety valve ship with boilers. I've seen wrong data tags that are stickers applied to boilers that don't match the actual stamp that is inside the boiler. And I've seen boiler inspectors come and be like, hey, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. All on a new installation.
Marty Toth (53:22)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (53:42)
And a lot of inexperienced people have this belief that, new is good and also... ⁓
boiler owners as well believe that, new is good. And we have a couple of years till this boiler starts needing service and it's no, need it is a boiler and it starts day one that it needs water treatment and needs inspection. And there's no like, ⁓ it's new. We don't need to worry about it till, you know, five years down the line. There's all these install processes and install permits and inspections and outside of just the boiler inspection.
Marty Toth (53:57)
Mmm.
That's right.
Eric Johnson (54:18)
and the electrical combustion, all this stuff that needs to happen. And that is when the boiler could be the most wrong because you're relying on the manufacturer to wire a boiler correctly. And hopefully they do, but I've done plenty of boiler startups where it's not wired correctly. I've never had anything catastrophic, but it's like, ⁓ this is supposed to happen and it doesn't. well, this relay's wrong or this wire's loose.
Marty Toth (54:20)
Uh-huh.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (54:47)
And so on new installations is when you really want to, you should always do it, but on new installations, you really want to hammer home and, Hey, is this report that I have in my hand the same as the actual numbers that are on the actual pressure vessel? And then does that match the equipment data tag? lot of manufacturers will put like a their own printed data tag and making sure everything matches up.
Marty Toth (55:07)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (55:15)
before you get five years down the line, you're like, ⁓ wait, these don't match. And now you're going back to the manufacturer, and everybody looks dumb, and it becomes a messy situation.
Marty Toth (55:26)
Yeah, you only have one time to get off to a good start. You really do. And I couldn't say it better, Eric It's verifying. And you get caught up with that. I always tried to train. I trained inspectors for years. I really, really pushed that. You got a job to do. Do the job. Don't assume. I've seen boilers that were
that were lit off where supports were put inside the boiler that were not taken out of the boiler before it was fired up. It supports and it's like, come on guys, oh, well just burned out. It's like, no, no, no. You gotta take that stuff out. Looking at doing the startup, because you've done a lot of startups, so you know it's a good startup.
a good combustion setting, starting from getting insulation on the unit. You've already spent, in the case of a lot of the boilers that I'm going to go into and consult on, you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on new equipment, but you decide that, yeah, I don't want to spend 12 grand on insulation. What?
Yeah, I don't, you know, it's a brand new boiler. don't need to put water treatment in. You know, don't need to do water treatment. Our water here is fine. I don't need a softener. Yeah, it's you've seen it. I've seen that anybody that's been around this industry seen it in and during the training session. There's a lead in to one of our standard modules that we do for trainings for controls and safety devices.
And I pull a couple of paragraphs of the forward for CSD1. And I know you've got a copy and go out there and look at it and pretty much what it nails down that when I, when I created BTG and started writing training modules, ⁓ I've read through that book, I would say from front to back, but it wasn't from front to back. It was the body.
I read the body of CSD-1 I never read the forward or the preamble or whatever because that's just more reading. And so when I actually saw that, as I was writing that module, my eyes opened up because it said, I'm paraphrasing here, it said the major causes of accidents are automatically fired boilers and it goes down this laundry list.
And then it goes on to say.
that lack of testing, lack of this, lack of that, lack of trained operators. And then the very last one hits true, complacency. Complacency on the part of the operator due to long periods of trouble-free operation. complacency kills. It does. And I teach that, I stress that.
It doesn't matter if I'm speaking to the state of Alabama at their annual conference. I will put pictures of Star Elementary up on the screen and show photos of dead babies. When I say babies, mean elementary school kids and a dead teacher laying next to the dead babies, because I want them to see it.
I want them to see the complacency that occurred by maintenance personnel who thought they were doing the right thing.
thought they were being the hero. And that's one thing that I would preach and I would love for you to preach to technicians when you talk to them, because I do. It's being the hero is not the person that got the boiler back working. Being the hero is a person that got the boiler back working safely. Okay? Because we can get
We can bypass a lot of controls and safety devices and get something to work, can't we? Absolutely can. And then you end up having boiler relocation. And I'm not talking on the back of a flatbed from one location to another. I'm talking about one that's ripping through cinder block walls like that happened at Dana Plumlee back in 2007.
you know, I said to you, you remember, it's like you knew about that report, but you didn't know when we first met, you didn't know that I wrote that report.
Eric Johnson (1:00:29)
I have the report on my screen. is the next topic.
Marty Toth (1:00:34)
that's funny. So a little segue there,
but yeah. And so, you know, all that, both of those scenarios, I talked very in depth about the power plant up in Massachusetts. When Mark Mooney, one of my and Joel's dearest friends was chief up there, that blew up and killed three people. a rupture tube Killed three people. One of them was
on the job for two days, 21 years old, was an apprentice. Why? Complacency. Okay, so complacency kills.
Eric Johnson (1:01:09)
There's some state safety statistic out there I think and I don't know where it is, but I think it's around year 12 on the job is when Statistically most people get hurt is because they start they lose their calibration of safety and by calibration of like what zero is so ⁓
Marty Toth (1:01:25)
God.
Eric Johnson (1:01:34)
to all the listeners, if you put your hand next to a chop saw and safety says, you can only put it one foot away.
And over 12 years you find that, ⁓ I just need to chop a small piece I want to put my hand closer, closer, closer, closer. And you still have your fingers after 12 years and you're like, ⁓ you know, that one foot rule, whatever that doesn't apply. And then at year 12, you're like, I've chopped a thousand pieces of metal. I'm just going to hold it right here next to the saw blade. The saw blade will always be there. And then all of sudden metal moves, the saw blade kicks and it cuts your hand, cuts your finger.
And you're like, wait, what happened? I've done this a thousand times safely. And that is the same thing with boilers and complacency. well, we have a plant that has 15 years. It's been running trouble free. We are, we're good. We just sit here and, you know, this can be on the boiler operators. ⁓ boiler operators We just sit here. We just pencil whip all these reports that they want. Nobody looks at the data and.
Marty Toth (1:02:14)
And...
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (1:02:41)
then all of a sudden something happens and then somebody goes back and they're like, well, either the data doesn't make sense or some third shift operator was writing down, hey, we have hard water. Hey, we have hard water. Hey, we have hard water. Hey, when I blow down the boiler, I'm not getting anything to come out. Hey, and all this stuff. And then everybody goes, oh, you know how this happened? Well, you know, there were signs, but nobody pays attention. And then especially with it happens with new boilers as we were talking about, because the boiler operations
Marty Toth (1:02:57)
Mmm.
Sorry.
Eric Johnson (1:03:11)
starts
day one and I've seen it ⁓ you get you get a new boiler and a year later it's full of scale and the boiler owner is like what happened I thought we just like everything's brand new why is it and it's like well see our water softener over here it's brand new but it doesn't work without salt in the brine tank
Marty Toth (1:03:18)
Mm-hmm.
branding.
That day, man, brother, I've seen that so many times. That's so funny.
Eric Johnson (1:03:36)
and you can say, we trained on this and all this stuff, but if you don't put salt in the brine tank, then that zeolite water softener doesn't work. doesn't remove the hard water, the hard water doesn't care that the boiler's a year old. And now you just fill it full of scale, now you got to retube it. But the boiler is never going to be the same from there on. You can clean it, do all this stuff, but...
Marty Toth (1:03:40)
That's right.
and
They don't.
Eric Johnson (1:04:03)
I mean it's like buying a brand new car and then driving it 20,000 miles without an oil change. Will it make it? Probably, but you're going to start wearing the pistons and everything and the engine will never be the same after that even if you do change the oil.
Marty Toth (1:04:10)
Right.
And you know, Eric,
something too is that you said about, you know, somebody being on the job for 12 years is around the time when they get injured.
The problem that we have is that two out of the three, and even maybe the third one that we're gonna talk more about, the Dana Plumlee, but the Starr Elementary example I gave and the Massachusetts Power Plant example I made, the complacency, the people that were being complacent weren't the people that died.
Okay. It was somebody else's actions that caused the death or injury of someone. And, you know, I often say, you know, yeah, Star Elementary happened back in 1981. That maintenance person obviously probably is not working now. He may not even be alive anymore, but I can promise you this, if he is gone, the rest of his life.
He had to realize that utilizing a defective thermostatic gas valve that he found on his shelf, okay, to replace on that water heater.
is what killed those kids, is what killed that teacher, is what sent, you know, more than 30 others to the hospital. And do you really want to be that person? That's what I tell them. And the eyes of people I speak to, either it's in a class or it's in ⁓ a lecture hall or wherever it's at, they see that I'm serious.
They see I'm not just showing a slide. They see the expression of somebody that has seen the results of this, seen the results of complacency. And I tell them, I said, if you can't do it, find something else to do. Find another job. If you're not going to take it serious. And by all means, owners, management,
Don't put these people in a position of responsibility without authority and education. And that's what I preach. Yeah. I may own ⁓ a boiler training Company or water treatment Company, or, you know, we do a lot of training on a lot of things, but I'm not here to try to market more work. Okay. That's not it. It's me trying to tell you.
I'm tired of seeing people get injured and hearing the stories over nearly 40 years of being in this industry of seeing people get hurt from complacency and putting production over safety. That's the big one. It's all product. You're going to talk about Dana Plumlee That's a great example of production over safety. Absolutely great example.
Eric Johnson (1:07:32)
you
Yeah, a couple thoughts before we talk about that. have on my LinkedIn, my banner, it's a scrolling banner, but one of them, it says the best time to investigate a boiler accident is before it happens. And I would love to say I came up with that, but that is from a insurance, boiler insurance ad from like 1950 that they had, that I had on, that I obtained. But it's essentially like,
Marty Toth (1:07:49)
Yeah.
Wow, that's good stuff.
We need to put that on the
T-shirt. You think that we can, we won't get any copyright infringement there, do you? We put that on the T-shirt.
Eric Johnson (1:08:08)
The the
the the Company is has long since ⁓ probably been bought 40 times and no longer exists, but ⁓ It's not I think probably the only Company is probably Hartford Hartford insurance that hasn't been bought 40 times and has existed since 1800s Yeah
Marty Toth (1:08:22)
Bye for now.
That's right, 1887, I believe.
Eric Johnson (1:08:32)
the ⁓ steam engine or whatever the logo. Yeah.
Marty Toth (1:08:35)
I love it, man. That's historic,
man. You take that away. That's like changing the logo of...
you know, cracker barrel. Don't change it, don't change the logo. Yeah, it's yeah, absolutely.
Eric Johnson (1:08:43)
Ford. Yeah, that's like...
But ⁓ it's essentially like as a service technician, as a boiler inspector, somebody walking into a boiler room with knowledge, you walk in and say, all right, I need to make sure everything is correct to the best of my knowledge before I say everything's correct. And that's why I have a CSD-1 class and I preach this a lot.
A lot of people assume the boiler safeties work. it's just a low gas pressure switch. it's just a high gas pressure switch. ⁓ I've, I've tested these a hundred times before in other places and they always work. Well, you have to have the discipline to say, Hey, until I prove to myself that this switch works and operates correctly as intended, it doesn't work. The switch does not exist. That safety does not exist. And you would be surprised when you set that standard.
yourself as to what you can find and come up with and you know I even from being a service technician even walking into boiler rooms now I'll like point out stuff and they're like ⁓ like it's been like that for ten years nobody has said anything and I think my number one if you ever want to blow up on LinkedIn I think my number one post are posting safety valves with reduced outlets and
You're like, hey, this is not right. And then they say, ⁓ well, it's been like that since it's been installed and it's been inspected. And it's like, OK, but it's not right. you know.
Marty Toth (1:10:23)
Okay, so
here it is, Eric. Here's a great one. Again, Massachusetts power plant. What caused it? What caused it was excessive fly ash built up in the vestibule that is a dead airspace.
it corroded the outside of these tubes that were at 1900 PSI and then caused the pinhole leak that then steam cut into another one, steam cut into another one, next thing you know it failed. Well, what did they find during the investigation? That dead airspace had not been inspected in 10 years.
than yours.
And you sit there and say, it's ran like that. It ran like that for nine years. Why should I go in there? And then then you're 10 blows up and kills three people. One of them 21 years old, two days on the job. Two of them leaving one, leaving teenage girls behind. Another one leaving grandbabies behind. Like shut up with that. Don't tell, don't, don't tell me that. I want to hear it. I'm going to fight you on that every chance I get.
It's all about complacency, my man. It really, really is.
Eric Johnson (1:11:39)
Yeah, there was one I was reading about in near us in Apollo Beach, right on the east side of Tampa Bay, the big bend power station, TECO And it was like, it's recent 2018, I believe 2019. I know nothing about coal boilers. If you're listening to this and in a coal plant or a power plant, invite me out. want to tour. But
Marty Toth (1:11:51)
⁓
Wear some clothes you don't mind, you know, discarding. Yeah.
Eric Johnson (1:12:09)
Yeah, I mean, but
I can't get anybody to give me a tour. Everything's secret. I also don't have the right con I don't, I don't have the right contacts either, but, um, I think it was four people, but something about like one of the boilers developed a plug in the bottom of like the coal ash or something. And from TECO history or something, the boiler had never been.
Marty Toth (1:12:14)
Well, let me see what I can do for you. We'll see.
Hmm?
Eric Johnson (1:12:38)
in order the proper procedure to clean this out, the boiler had to be shut down. Well, it was during, I don't know, during the summer something, something electric load high and management or somebody determined that we can't shut the boiler down because that's going to.
Marty Toth (1:12:53)
over safety.
Eric Johnson (1:12:55)
that's going to cost a day of outage. You know, these giant coal boilers day plus outage or something and they can't risk it. So they told them to clear the plug live. And once again, I have no idea basically how a coal boiler operates or how this works specifically, but they're in the bottom of the boiler or something. They open up a door and they're pushing or ramming against something. And all of a sudden the plug came undone, but it came undone like
Marty Toth (1:13:17)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (1:13:24)
all at one time and it burned I believe it was four people and I think all of them died and basically they were like this should have never happened when the boiler was online but the it was like an outside contractor somebody and they were just like
Marty Toth (1:13:40)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (1:13:42)
Hey, get it done. these guys, you know, a lot of times people will be like, well, you know, just say no. But if you're like, Hey, I have a family at home. have all this and I'm trying to live paycheck to paycheck. And your boss says, I'll get it done. Or you're fired. A lot of times. Well, one people don't know any better that it is wrong, but two, they're like, I'm just doing what I'm told and doing all this stuff. And if they say no, like, I can't. So it's, puts people in a very difficult situation. If you have managed.
Marty Toth (1:14:02)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
It does.
Eric Johnson (1:14:12)
or people that make decisions that are not properly informed and make decisions that are not safe and then people end up dying.
Marty Toth (1:14:23)
But you know, mean, going back to Starr Elementary, when you look at the course of events, it was early morning when the cafeteria workers saw excessively hot water and steam vapor, or water vapor coming out of the nozzle, they call it custodian, custodian comes in, 730-ish, turns off the water heater and calls in.
maintenance comes out. They see that there's an issue, goes back to the shop, grabs ⁓ the used thermostatic gas valve that was sitting on the shelf that was salvaged from somewhere else. Don't know if it works or not and puts it on there. And around 11 o'clock. So what do you think they're doing around 11 o'clock at a cafeteria for elementary school?
And so then what comes of it is it was fine and good for the custodian to turn the water heater off at 730.
but it was not okay for them to turn it off at 1130 after the maintenance guy left. Didn't stick around to make sure everything's gonna continue to work fine. Put it on, why? It's 11 o'clock. It's probably time for him to go to lunch. Okay? And so then what happens is 1130, it's back hot again. Same issues happening. There's no relief valve lifting.
I'm going tell you that here in the second line. No relief valve lifting, custodian doesn't turn it off second time because they need hot water because it's lunchtime. And just after 12, it blows up and kills those babies. So it's that teacher. Reason why the valve didn't lift was because as you've probably seen, real estate's very expensive. And so what are they going to do? They're going to have a manufacturer
of water heaters say, hey, this is zero clearance. You don't need any clearance on the backside because ⁓ there's nothing back there to see. There's no maintenance access, no nothing.
But what is on the side, what is on the side is your T&P valve. those that don't know, that's your temperature and pressure relief valve. T&P valve has a sensing probe that is going to sense the temperature. The temperature reaches the set point on these and it matters what size, but usually it's going to go 210 degrees Fahrenheit because that's required.
under section four of the ASME code under part HLW that says those water heaters cannot operate above 210 degrees Fahrenheit for obvious reasons. You're listening to this, you know that water atmospheric pressure is going to start to boil at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, 100 degrees Celsius.
And so what happened is, is when they had to change out said relief valve.
They took the one off, but obviously couldn't pull it off because it was hitting against the wall. So what did they do? They probably took a pair of wire cutters or something like that and bolt cutters and they probably cut off the probe or unscrewed it or did something, right?
It probably fell into the bottom of the tank and when they went to put the replacement in there, they couldn't get it in there because there wasn't enough room. They were not about to disconnect the water heater. And so what did they do? They took off the temp probe.
it took off the temp probe and screwed it in. So pretty much made it inoperative for over temperature protection.
complacency, right? Doing it the wrong way, getting it to work, being the hero, and the hero. Those guys, somebody wanted to be the hero at that power plant, and they wanted to unclog the hopper at the bottom for the fly ash. That's probably what they were doing. I don't want to speak like I know that particular incident, because I don't, but I could speculate that that's what they were doing.
If they were below the boilers, were probably unclogging the fly ash hopper and doing it the wrong way.
Eric Johnson (1:19:13)
you
Yeah, last before we get too far off the National Board, I probably the only person but just for pure love of the game, I was looking at if I could just take the classes or whatever for the inspector commission or whatever. But it says you have to be a member of a state government organization or insurance.
Marty Toth (1:19:20)
Hmm?
Do it, do it, it'd be great.
to work, yeah,
yeah, to work for one, not to take the commission. You can take the commission exam. ⁓ You can take the commission exam anytime you want. You just cannot receive a commission unless you work for an authorized inspection agency.
Eric Johnson (1:19:54)
Wow, all right. Well, I'm going to look more into that because...
Marty Toth (1:19:56)
Man, take that bad boy.
⁓ It's somebody of your knowledge and experience. I think that for the in-service side of it, I think for all of it, just because.
is that the taking that would be no problem for you. And then anything I can do to help you kind of get ready for that, I'd be more than happy to.
Eric Johnson (1:20:25)
Yeah, I just looked into it and it said, you these are the requirements. And I have no, that's, I'm licensed boiler operator in a state and I have no, in Ohio, Florida doesn't have any boiler operation requirements and.
Marty Toth (1:20:27)
Yeah, it's awesome. It's great. Yeah.
In Florida? In Florida or in Ohio?
Boom machine, machine. ⁓
Eric Johnson (1:20:46)
I didn't want to be a boiler operator, I just did it for the love of the game. same thing with, I don't want to be an inspector or something, but just for love of the game and learning more about the industry. I was like, hey, I want to learn about the National Board and do this and kind of see what inspectors are going through and all that stuff. So I'll look back into that now that I know I can at least take the exam.
Marty Toth (1:20:50)
Yeah.
Do it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. You just can't get to commission unless you work for an insurance Company. mean, ⁓ things have changed a lot. used to be ⁓ AIs were only ⁓ insurance providers. Now you have ⁓ inspection companies that don't actually write insurance because they started finding that the services, they weren't really underwriting the insurance.
was and said they're providing the services and so you have a few companies out there. I had if if I wanted to still be in there if I had the energy to add another flag in the hat or whatever whatever you call it I would have probably started an inspection agency at this this juncture I had no desire to do that but yeah you could.
Eric Johnson (1:22:06)
Maybe maybe
in another life, but you can't that's that's one of the hardest things When you're young you can do anything you want, but then you start getting older and you realize
Marty Toth (1:22:10)
Yeah.
Hmm. Hey, what do you say? You're
saying you're young, you can do whatever you want, but when you get old, yeah, I hear you. Okay.
Eric Johnson (1:22:21)
Well, I'm thinking young as
in like 10, 15. But when you're older, I'm 32. And if you really want to be good at something, you can only do a couple things. And a lot of people overextend themselves. I'm going to be in this hobby, this hobby. I'm going to do this for work, this for work, this, this, this, this. And the one the boiler field is ever expanding. There's always new information, but it's
Marty Toth (1:22:25)
That's right.
Yeah. Sure.
Eric Johnson (1:22:49)
by the time you would work as an inspector and a welder and a service technician and a boiler operator and did all this stuff, you would be 60. And you can't cover it all and you only have so many years and you gotta choose what is important to you even though, like I would love to.
Marty Toth (1:22:56)
That's right. That's right.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (1:23:11)
Sit in a bulldozer for a year like I heavy equipment is cool and and that stuff or even work on a ship and do stuff like that but it's like You you can't you can't just be in all these random jobs and do what you're cool or even a crane operator. I think I love heights are super cool in the Florida has a ton of them, but the tower cranes a tower crane
Marty Toth (1:23:35)
You want to
get up there and everybody looks like little ants walking around.
Eric Johnson (1:23:39)
Yeah, that ⁓ would be so cool. I love cranes and seeing like, especially with boilers and seeing giant picks. then if you want to see real life magicians, watch riggers put a boiler ⁓ into a building and you'll say, ⁓ you have a half inch of clearance. And they're like, ⁓ might as well be a foot because a half inch it's still going to get in there.
Marty Toth (1:24:01)
Yes, yes, yes.
John Largen is a good friend of mine with Boiler Supply Company. Well, I say that I used to drive him crazy when I was Chief inspector It took a lot of years for him to kind of get that out of his head. That was no longer Chief But he is when I, when I say this, that he is probably the most intelligent boiler person I know. And
when there is, and I've got a few others, they watch this, I don't want them to get offended, but John is, what makes him so good though too, is if he doesn't know the answer, he'll tell you, don't know. And that's how I am. If I don't know the answer, I'll tell you, I don't know, but I'll do my best to find out the answer and then guess what, we'll both know the answer. to listen to him, how many boilers his crews have put into spaces.
that you just could not even fathom how they got it in there. And he passes down that knowledge to his people and he's been doing it forever. He's actually VP of Boiler Supply Company. And to see some of the way those guys put stuff in, it's very impressive.
Eric Johnson (1:25:22)
Yeah, absolutely. That's, ⁓ yeah. When, when you have an industry that basically started America, especially in like Chicago and New York, and then you build an entire city around it and then they go, Hey, we have this boiler.
Marty Toth (1:25:32)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (1:25:42)
We don't know anything about it. It's in the basement of this building. It's from 19, it's from 1910 and we need to replace it. How do we do that? And you, you gotta be creative and ⁓ yeah, but let's, let's talk about probably the most famous American boiler accident. Only, I think famous only because of the report that you made because
Marty Toth (1:25:44)
Yeah. Good luck.
Mmm, that's famous.
Wow, I thought we were going
to talk about the Sultana your first second most famous but yeah, okay boiler accident The Sultana you don't know the story about the Sultana. Yeah, look look that one up. We won't waste too much time The riverboat. Yeah, absolutely Yeah Recent memory and not the ⁓ not the one in brocton massachusetts that that pretty much launched a boiler
Eric Johnson (1:26:15)
Salt what is that one? Saltana?
is that the boat? ⁓ In recent memory, in recent memory.
Marty Toth (1:26:38)
Yeah, so Dana Plumley all kidding aside, Dana Plumley, I would say...
Yeah, I never really thought about it as being a report that has been around for geez, you know, 19, 18, 19 years now, as being something that's being utilized until my chairman of repairs and alterations, dear friend of mine, Cathy Moore, with Joe Morgan Company out in North Carolina.
We were talking about.
we're at dinner or something and at some meetings. says, you know that when new people come to work for us, they come into my office or we'll get new reps come in. She goes, I sit down and I reach into my drawer and I pull out your action and report and give it to them. I was like, really? That's kind of cool. That wasn't the intent.
of writing it, and a lot of it was just pure shock that when you say boiler accidents are usually a chain reaction of missteps. They really are. Very rarely are you going to, especially in this day and age of automatically fired boilers, with all the controls and safety devices in place. I mean, let's think about it.
We really have almost standard package boilers like a Cleaver Brooks Fire Tube, a steam boiler. You're going to have one, two, three redundant over pressure protection devices. You really see what it is, is you mostly see it's not just one thing. It's a combination of multiple things.
Now.
case, boiler explosion and deaths. The only thing that I could say was that the maintenance personnel wasn't killed, even though he spent months in the burn unit 70, 85 percent of his body was burned. ⁓ Nobody died. It's incredible for the damage that was caused for
the people that were working on each side of the aisle way that this boiler shot through like a a runaway train on the track. When it was only the luck of God's overlooking that it wasn't boiler number one, there's a bit of been boiler number one that was sitting next to it. You know, to taking down that whole cinder block wall.
that had people working at their machines on the other side of that wall. That there wasn't, no one was over in the autoclave room, because that's what this was, is ⁓ a rubber, automotive rubber tubing parts manufacturing. And so they had autoclaves on the other side of the cinder block wall, it just completely fell.
or that the rear door that blew through this sheet metal wall is all it was, actually bounced off a few cars and hit a pedestrian bridge. If not, it could have shot all the way across into its sister plant.
And that the operator himself wasn't behind the boiler when it blew or in front of the boiler when it blew. He was to the side of the boiler when
I mean, those are the type of things is when you look at this and you go through it, down through it. I was just amazed. was like, you're kidding me. You're kidding. You know, checking it off. This, this is, and I said, and I started to put the report together. I said, this is going to be something else. And was very disappointed when I sat down in the after action meeting.
and told the president of that plant And I mean, I was young. Yeah, I mean, I was a relatively young guy, right?
And he was kind of like, hey, when can we get everything back up and going? That's all he cared about.
And I pointed across to him and I said, sir, this is your fault. But my fault? I this is your fault. You're the head guy here at this point. You put people in position to do their jobs and you don't support that.
None of these guys knew anything about boiler operations. You have faulty equipment. You had no audible, no visual alarms. You didn't even have e-stops installed at the pedestrian exits. Is that an inspector's fault? Sure it is. Absolutely it is. You know, that was one of the reasons, know, things like that was one of the reasons why when I was Chief Inspector we enacted
installation permit requirements that all boilers that are installed in any lethal service pressure vessels are going to be inspected by a state inspector first. Does that mean they're the better inspector? No. It just means that the chief inspector knows that the person that is going out there to do that initial inspection better do their job, but they're going to answer directly to their boss. Right. And
I just told him, said, this is a hot mess. know, guys using bailing wire and bubble gum to keep things together.
not knowing how things operate, bypassing pieces of equipment because they're getting nuisance alarms and just rigging it up so it just works. I'm the hero. I'm the hero. And they're fortunate they didn't kill a bunch of people.
And all he cared about was when can we get the plan up and going again? Man, you better get away from me. So yeah, this is pretty in-depth report. I will agree with that.
Eric Johnson (1:33:04)
I will link the report in the podcast description. We don't have to go over all the details, but it's a boiler. There's very great pictures. It's probably the most famous because the pictures are not a hundred pixels in black and white the pictures are great and it's ⁓ it's very shocking if you know what you're actually looking at.
Most boiler accidents are swept under the rug. No pictures come out or they're from the 1800s and there's only paintings of the boiler accidents going back to the yeah, the riverboat but I've always told people and listen, you know, I kind of got into it with somebody online but I was there's this narrative that boilers are dangerous.
Marty Toth (1:33:45)
Sultana that's a good one.
Eric Johnson (1:34:01)
I'm like, well, no, boilers are very safe. You make it dangerous by your actions. And in this time of engineering in 2026, we have figured out metallurgy and pressure vessels. And if you have at this time due to the National Board in ASME.
Marty Toth (1:34:02)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (1:34:21)
We understand metal to the point where a weld or a tube sheet is probably not going to rip apart and we look at and be like, shoot, we're using the wrong steel. We need to redo something like we would have 150 years ago. But.
Marty Toth (1:34:32)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
or making it out to steel this thick when in reality it only needs to be that thick. I mean, that's where engineering advancements.
Eric Johnson (1:34:46)
Yeah, so essentially
we've figured out the engineering side of it, but what makes it dangerous is, as you said, all those tiny little incidents and it's all those tiny little decisions. it's very, a lot of people think that there's just one major decision that leads to.
an accident, but if you look at it beforehand, nobody ever says, if I shut off this valve, if I do something, that's going to make this boiler and this building evaporate. There's, there's that when you are making decisions, when you're driving your car or something.
Marty Toth (1:35:20)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (1:35:28)
You never say, hey, this is, this is going to cause catastrophic events. So that's why I'm going to do that. As long as you're, you know, you're working in a, under the, positive pretense, but not checking your water treatment and not checking your water softener for a year and not blowing down your boiler. That is a tiny little decision that multiplied over 365 days.
Marty Toth (1:35:33)
in
and
Eric Johnson (1:35:57)
can make your boiler have water level issues. And then your plant manager says, hey, the boiler keeps alarming. Get back there and get it running. We need our shift production numbers. We need to reach our goal. So then you go back there and you...
Marty Toth (1:36:16)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (1:36:18)
blow it down or do whatever. ⁓ boiler's running. You everybody, you hear the fans start, ooh, and you're like, ⁓ hopefully it lights. And for people that are uneducated, basically they just, ⁓ is there a fire in it? All right, there's a fire and there's looking, and they're looking for the lights that they normally see. And, ⁓ okay. And then they look at the pressure. Okay, all right, we're making steam pressure. Okay, everything's good to go.
Marty Toth (1:36:35)
It's all that matters, the fire.
Eric Johnson (1:36:48)
And a lot of times uneducated maintenance people will babysit boilers and do stuff that kind of like Dana Corp do things that are not safe, but they don't really know that it's not safe. They don't have enough education, but, they don't have enough people around them, but all they're worried about is get production going. If you ever worked in a production environment, it's go, go, go. And
Marty Toth (1:37:05)
And.
Eric Johnson (1:37:16)
I have a story, I don't know if I want to tell it about production, but yeah, if you can't say no and have enough awareness and calibration to know when, especially if you're a service Company, an outside contractor and you walk in and somebody in a suit is, if somebody in a suit is back in the boiler room, something's wrong and they say, hey, do that and you know it's wrong.
Marty Toth (1:37:16)
Yeah.
Eric Johnson (1:37:43)
You don't work for them. You're an outside contractor. One, even if you did work for them. But you just say, no, I'm the authority. Basically, I'm not doing that. Get somebody else to do that if you want. there's other avenues. You can call your chief boiler of the state and say, I think most states have a report or a reporting process that says that you can report unsafe.
Marty Toth (1:37:55)
Bye.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Mm.
Eric Johnson (1:38:12)
and you can say, hey, they're doing this. And the state can send out somebody that day or the next day or, and they can walk in and the state has the authority to say, no, you're done here. using...
Marty Toth (1:38:13)
It's all confidential too, yeah. I mean, you can.
That's right. That's right. They put a nice
little red tag on it. I mean, I speak solely from the state of Tennessee because that's the only jurisdiction I ever worked for. They had the authority, but you know, something else besides that. And if your listeners know this as well, especially those in the service industry, you have a responsibility. Somebody was, ah, it's not your responsibility. Yeah, it probably is. And if you look really closely,
and whatever statute or whatever rules and regulations govern your license. If you have, let's say you're a National Board certified repair Company, okay, that has a license to repair boilers in the state of Tennessee, or you're an insurance inspector that has a state commission to inspect boilers.
the same Tennessee. If you see an adverse condition, okay, and not report it to the chief inspector, that's going to fall back on you. Okay, don't let that fall back on you. You know, you have the right and you said this and it's a lot easier said than done. get that. Eric is that, you know, you got somebody here and you got companies and maybe it's a mom and pop shop that
You know, if they lose a contract with big corp, ABC, um, they're out of business. And so they want to satisfy that client, you know, and they're going to do what they have to do. Well, I get that, but there's also a part of, man, if I do that, what happens if it hurts somebody? If I do that and
the operator here is working and I'm at home, you know, in the middle of the night because I'm off, you know, off work and this operator, something happens because I did something I shouldn't.
How can you live with yourself with that? I can't. And I won't. you know, with Boiler Supply Company, we fired customers. With ECS Consulting and Boisco Training Group, we fired clients. Absolutely. You know, if you bring me in ⁓ on a consultant basis, okay, to whatever it is, ⁓
having to do with energy conversion or even safety or whatever. And I'm telling you stuff and you're just like, yeah, we're not gonna do it. Yeah, we're not gonna do it. So why...
I mean, that's fine. We're, know, Hey, I don't want you to train our people. ⁓ this, don't want you to give them the test. just want, well, you know what? Go find somebody else. You know, it's we're, we're doing it the right way. It's not going to be so you can satisfy some, I've got a client now that we haven't worked with in about five years and they don't, they just want to get the check mark. And it's been done. If they're satisfying somebody that's been done, they don't, they don't really care.
or at least they're given that perception they don't really care. They just want the check mark. And it's like, you may need to find somebody else. And that's just, you know, that's the way that I operate. That's not saying that that's the right way. That's just the way I operate my companies.
You know, I just want to do it right. I don't want to have my conscience just eaten away at me ⁓ for money, for production. I'm just not going to do it.
Eric Johnson (1:42:20)
It is the right way. I have experienced that and I try to keep up with safety culture. A lot of companies just want to pay a professional safety Company. Hey, produce a safety manual for us. The manuals come in. They're five inches thick. Look at our safety program. Look at these safety manuals. This is amazing. We have five inch thick binders. They go on the wall. The SDSs go on the wall that are 10 inches thick.
Marty Toth (1:42:34)
Mm-hmm.
This is your
Eric Johnson (1:42:50)
⁓ Give the employees a spill number ⁓ Hey, if you spell chemical call this number and be like, ⁓ look how safe we are and then it ends there and Nobody's ever the biggest thing with training and this I Don't know what the answer is, but There's a lot of
Marty Toth (1:42:54)
Mm-hmm.
same.
Eric Johnson (1:43:12)
information presentation out there that masquerades is training and if I walk into a room and you have 10 people in the room and they're casual maintenance people and the Company says hey you're gonna train our maintenance people I've had this it's like okay well one I'm going to inform them of very basic boiler activities in one to two days or even a week
They are not gonna become boiler operators. And two, there has to be some kind of like give and take here. You can't sit in a room and if you could, everybody would know everything, but you can't sit in a room, watch a video or listen to somebody talk, listen to me talk, and then learn.
Marty Toth (1:43:45)
Mm-mm.
Eric Johnson (1:44:04)
and every single person is different. And you may have a maintenance person in there that has three years experience, and you may have somebody in there with 30 years experience. And there's no easy way to train people. And if there was, let me know. I haven't figured it out and the world hasn't figured it out. But as we have started rolling up companies and training has become a commodity,
Marty Toth (1:44:04)
and
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (1:44:32)
We are treating humans as commodities and hey, jump on this online class, click through these information slides, you get this certificate, you are now trained. And there is no, yeah, there's no.
Marty Toth (1:44:35)
Mmm.
Mm.
Yeah, you're an expert right now.
Eric Johnson (1:44:51)
People will hang out their certificates, they'll post them on LinkedIn, hey, I did this, I did that, but there's no actual checking of competency and can you make the right decisions? Hey, if you blow down a boiler and you open the bottom blow down valve and no water comes out, yet the boiler's running, what do you do? I don't know, I've never had that happen before. And there's no... ⁓
Marty Toth (1:45:00)
and
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (1:45:17)
there's no systems around it and as a Company you have to your employees are not going to remember everything and you don't want key man syndrome you don't want Tom on first shift as the only guy that knows anything and you have two other shifts that know nothing and and yeah and tom's sixty years old and working part-time and you don't want key man syndrome and you want
Marty Toth (1:45:35)
truck theory.
Eric Johnson (1:45:44)
if it can be written down and I always instead of having that five inch binder on the wall take the sheet and say hey this is how you blow down a boiler and you put it where and then you take pictures and do all the stuff and you put it where people are gonna see it when they're blowing down a boiler so then
Marty Toth (1:46:00)
And...
Eric Johnson (1:46:06)
It doesn't matter that it's on the computer system or on the binder in the plant manager's office. If you put the information at the actual point of use, they will have been trained on it in your training class, but also they will be starting to get reminded of the proper procedures because listening, if you tell somebody something and then have it repeat it back, it is the most unreliable
Marty Toth (1:46:26)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (1:46:32)
point of information presentation because if you tell a story and then ask people to tell it back they will tell you ten different stories. Same thing happens with training and a lot of people think well I just told these people this information so now they all know it and they all understood me the same way but if you actually went out one by one and said hey now do this hey do that
Marty Toth (1:46:40)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (1:46:56)
a lot of companies would be shocked to find out what employees are actually doing or what hey they just walked out of a three-day training class they know that they were rocking they were everything's good great give it two days now ask them see see what they understood see what and there is a huge divide and humans are imperfect and i i'm actually like i constantly think about this all the time but
Marty Toth (1:47:12)
Mm.
Eric Johnson (1:47:25)
It's this, I think we've made training as a corporate in America too perfect for humans. Everything is streamlined. Everything is perfect slide presentations, AI narration, perfect graphics, all this stuff and humans are imperfect and...
If you only train on perfect brand new equipment and perfect situations where everything goes perfectly, you're not going to be prepared for the real world. And most training is for perfect situations and information presentation. And something I've realized is actually the best training is when everything is imperfect and you don't.
you know, get up in front of the training class and know every single word that you're going to say and have it dialed down to the exact minute and everything scripted and like a play and, I'm going to tell this joke here and this story here because
you're telling it to humans, you're not there to entertain them, they're there to learn and everybody learns differently and it's like molding clay. You have to do it differently every single class and even with every single human and that isn't scalable and it takes a teacher or trainer to understand that and there's very very few people out there that can do it.
well at scale and that's why I think we're kind of in the situation we are in America of every corporation just says you know what what check can we write what is the number on the check that will make my people trained it's like well it's not that easy
Marty Toth (1:49:18)
Mm.
Eric, here's the thing with that and I think you bring up a lot of good points. Everybody does learn differently. For BTG, we give different opportunities for providing training. If it's a younger generation, we have a hospital.
system and one of their hospitals, I was just so amazed when I went there. They have a very young maintenance crew. I mean, when I say very young and it's very diverse, it's females and males and I look at it and I just smile and I love it because I was talking to a few of them and they were like, you know what? ⁓
go to this school and I was going to go to college and I went to college and I realized, you know, if I go to college, I'm still working at this retail store, you know, or something like that. And I just, I wanted to do something that I could build on and trade. And it just made me smile because I thought it was great. Now those people are going to, training those individuals is going to be different than me training somebody.
that's in their 60s, okay? Or somebody that's not as computer savvy as somebody that is. The one thing that I do say is...
Engagement is everything. Okay?
I've ran into situations where, where a corporation put or a Company puts people into a room. And it doesn't matter if I'm as engaging as I can be in people's opinion. You you see, you see all the surveys coming back and it's very, you know, fills my bucket and it's great. know, people, you know, bragging about how great the classes are and how great and knowledgeable I am.
and everything else, well, don't, there's a lot of knowledgeable people out there. There's a lot of good information that could be put out there, but it's really the presentation. You mentioned it about making it fun. It's not about making it fun, it's about making it one-on-one in a room full of 20 students. And one thing that you get is,
if you go to a BTG class is you're going to get that one-on-one and you better be ready. Okay? Because I'm gonna call on you. Eric, you're sitting in the back of my class, you know, you come in like a back row Baptist and you're sitting back there, could you think Marty ain't gonna call on you? Well, guess what? One of the tricks I do and I think I may have mentioned this to you before is
It's not really a trick. It's something that helps me because it's engaged. know, what do they say? One of the sweetest sounds to a person is hearing their own name, you know, and you go into a room and you have 12, 16 people in there. And I go around the room and we do introductions and telling me your name and I'm asking you to give me one of your hobbies. Tell me how long you've been here.
What do you do here? And then what do you like to do when you're not here? Well, that whole time I'm putting it in my head that I'm gonna remember Eric. It's not that I'm ignoring what you're telling me, because you can tell me, hey, I like riding motorcycles. I've got a Harley. What do you got? I got a Honda or I got a Yamaha And back and forth banter and you're making it fun. But the whole time is I'm learning everybody's name. Why am I learning?
name, not to show you my little, you know, parlor trick of once everybody's introduced, I go around to all 16, 12, 16, 18 people and I tell you what your names are. It's because while I'm teaching, while I'm talking, yeah, I may have a presentation behind me that may have some bullet points.
But I'm not reading from it unless it's something specific to the code or whatever that I need to articulate. It's because I'm gonna call on you, and I'm gonna tell people and I'm gonna forewarn them that you learn something new every day, such as I do. And it's okay not to know because we all learn from our failures. You've heard me say that before, I know.
We don't learn from our successes, we learn from our failures. And if I ask you a question, Eric, and I ask you by your name, number one, you're gonna be paying attention. Okay, you're not gonna be on your phone, because if I see you on your phone, I'm definitely calling on you. You start to nod off, I'm definitely calling on you. And we're gonna engage, I'm not there to embarrass you. And somebody says, I don't know, hey, no problem, anybody else know. Well good, now we're all gonna.
And so there's part of that and then there's part of repetition. And I would always give you advice because you're a trainer as well and I'd give anybody advice. Don't mention something in the first hour of the first day and not mention it again for the next two days because nobody's going to retain it. We've got so much information and this is what it used to kill me is that
We would do training programs and somebody would say, oh, well, we just got one day to do a class. And what do you want them to learn? Oh, I this and this this this. Realistically, their brains are going to be mushed by the time. It's not going to be a seven hour class. It's probably going to be a 10 hour class. And remember, we're going to break at every hour, approximately every hour, because the longer they sit,
now they're sitting on their brains, they're not gonna learn. And so we say, I'm gonna teach you and I tell all students in every class that I teach, I say, and they'll get it, usually it'll be around the second time I mention something. I said, by the way, you're gonna notice something in this class. We're gonna be here two days and you're gonna hear me introduce something to you and then I'm gonna reintroduce it to you.
And then we're going to hammer it home sometime later on, maybe three, four times. Because by the time we get to the end of this class, you're going to take, most cases, a 100 question final exam. Close book. All right? And the majority of people are
pass fail rate is pretty distinct and that to the point where a student that fails a final exam, okay, is invited to come back to our class the next time we have it free of charge. Because that's how we feel about it. And
You know, you'll hear some of these guys that have been in this, man, on some trick questions and, I didn't get a 100 on your exam. I only got an 87.
You know, it happens. ⁓ And so it's not a give me. It's pretty tough, but it's because of the approach that we take. And it's hands on stuff too. know, going out, doing tests on boilers, understanding. Maybe somebody taught you on the job, this is the way you do a bottom blow off, you know, or something called a blow down. ⁓
This is how you do it. Well, let me tell you why that's not how you do it.
really? Well that's how I've always been taught. Even in the same Company, it's crazy. Shift one does it one way, shift two does it another way. And you're sitting there looking at, really? That's interesting. ⁓ And so it's like...
for boiler operations, because that's really where we're keying up here. If somebody were to ask me like you were to say, what's the one thing that you would...
Tell somebody to learn about boilers operations. If it's just one thing to learn, I tell people it would be sequence of operations.
Why? Why sequence of operation? I'm not going to ask you that, but it's your podcast, so I'm not going to put you on the spot. Why is it sequence of operation? Because all these boilers that we are really talking about, let's talk, we're not going to talk electric boilers or whatever, let's talk about combustion fuels. They all have very similar, if not exact, sequences of operation.
And so if I'm an operator and I need to troubleshoot, if I don't understand sequences of operation, and when I say sequence of operation, Eric, your audience needs to know, what are we talking about? We're talking about pre-purge to ignition to run cycle to post-purge or shutdown cycle. That's your sequence of operation, right? If I don't understand how sequence of operation works, how am going to troubleshoot it?
How am I going to know when something's not working properly? When did I lose flame? Did I lose flame while I was running? Did I lose flame while I was trying to light the pilot? Did I lose flame when I was trying to light the main? And if I didn't even get to light the pilot, why? Well, obviously, it's got something to do with the pre-purge. And I tell people all the time, I said, OK, so let's really
talk about that. So if my pilot lit, right, I'm not thinking about anything that happened before that. I'm not thinking about prepurge I'm not thinking about PTFI, pilot trial for ignition. Now is something after that that occurred, right? And so now I don't have to worry about anything that had to do with my pilot. I don't have to worry about my combustion air approving switch. I don't have to worry about my blower motor start.
I don't have to worry about that. Now, let's look here. And so I tell people all the time, if I can understand the sequence of operations, I can find out what caused it to stop operating.
And that is huge. That is huge when we're talking about a boiler operator. Right? Because what ends up happening in the service companies are probably telling this, you know, but I've to tell you the Boiler Supply Companies of the world. They don't want breaking fixes. You say what? No, they're working projects.
Right. The last thing that they want to do is pull Jimmy over here. That's over here installing a new boiler or over here doing a plan maintenance program and setting combustion on the boiler to have to go over to Eric's plant to hit a reset button. Because we had something, you know, trip out and they didn't know what caused it. And so it's like, okay.
This is what it is. And you know what I mean? They don't want that because what happens is that time that they're spent going, doing that, their projects getting farther and farther behind. So if I can teach people, teach people, I'm not going to turn you in. Don't come to, if we're talking about the BBO class, the basic boiler operator class that we've been doing since 2015, very successful.
over all these years. I'm not teaching you to be a technician. And you know what the funny thing is about it? And it says, this is not to make you a technician. We still have a lot of service companies send their people to the BBL class, knowing that I'm not teaching you to be a technician.
And the reason is, because they're wanting to learn what really is a boiler and how does that sequence of operation work? You know? And that's, I think that's what the success has been. And we put it into a package where people walk away and I'm not just a talking head up there with your monotone voice and you know,
you're engaging with them back and forth and you're learning and you're not afraid to say, don't know, but you know what? During the next break or tomorrow, I'm gonna come back with the answer for you. And then we're both gonna know.
Eric Johnson (2:02:56)
Well said, I agree with everything you said. That's a yeah. Sequence operations is paramount. And that's when I was doing service. If I didn't know something normally operators and like machine operators can tell you enough to like, ⁓ so I would also do like industrial burners. you walk in custom film line, three stories tall. The operator platform is.
Marty Toth (2:03:20)
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (2:03:26)
200 yards down the plant and everything's done by radios and they've got 15 burner zones and all this stuff and it's 2 a.m. and They're like, well, it's not running and you're like Okay, where are the wiring diagrams Yeah, what are the wiring diagrams look like and they're binders of wiring diagrams They're like, which one do you want and it's like, ⁓ okay, but it's okay like
Marty Toth (2:03:33)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
What's that mean? Yeah.
Eric Johnson (2:03:53)
describe what should be happening and then tell me what's not happening. well when we push this button we hear all the fans start and then we have a five minute pre-purge and then we start seeing ignition lights and but burner zone seven the ignition light comes on but then it faults out and then the whole system faults. Okay.
Marty Toth (2:04:16)
Yeah, it's
not verifications and stuff. Yeah.
Eric Johnson (2:04:17)
All right, well that I just
know that now I can pinpoint, hey, we're probably not getting ignition or we're not proving flame. If there is actual ignition, we're not seeing flame and getting you feedback on burner zone seven. And I don't need to understand this entire.
Marty Toth (2:04:27)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (2:04:34)
engineered system, I just need to understand what is not happening and with boilers it's the same way and luckily most boilers are consistent in the operation and you know when I was a service technician when I was pretty young I would get people like ⁓
Marty Toth (2:04:36)
That's right.
Eric Johnson (2:04:54)
Do you know how to work on this stuff? Like, well, I've never worked on your boiler, but your boiler is as much like the 500 other boilers I worked on. So.
Marty Toth (2:04:59)
Yeah, but you know, it's very similar. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, see, that's where I tell you that the classes like the BBO class is not too, I know we can do it. We do advanced boiler operators stuff too, but the BBO class, when I say that we're not here to make it a technician, but what we are going to do is we're going to teach you to the point that you're going to be able to communicate with your technician. So like you said, somebody that says, ⁓ I don't know, it's not working or whatever like that. And then you have to force it out of them.
to run through it and maybe they still don't answer you. What we're gonna do is we're gonna teach you how to troubleshoot to the point where you're gonna be able to communicate with somebody. Maybe it's something you can fix on your own or troubleshoot. Maybe I'm not seeing a flame. I'm not seeing a flame, but hey, I look in the back and I see a flame. So there was a flame and then the flame went out. Well, how about let's look at the flame scan.
Okay, ⁓ there we go. So can clean off the lens of a flame scanner because it wasn't able to verify the flame. But then to the point where it says, know what? We're not getting this at this point in the sequence. It's not getting past our power. You know that situation in a hospital where it just happened to be, and this is one of the things as we were talking about.
know, clients and visiting clients. And one of the things we do is we do a lot of consulting work in Tennessee where a lot of these clients, it's not like we write these programs for them. They get submitted to the state, get approved, and they're off and going, we never see them again. We stop by and we will run them, you know, if I'm in the area.
you know, I'll pull in and I'll say, hey, I'm going to come by and run a couple of drills with them, be there for 30 minutes and walk out and say, hey, you guys are doing great or you guys were sucking at this, I'll just work on it. And that's no charge. That's just courtesy because they're a client and we've done it for a long time. But we had the situation where we went in and started running some tests on some, you know, making sure that people understood and...
the communications at the remote stations were being run through. But what was happening with this boiler is most boilers, and you can attest to this, most boilers and operators of boilers want the boiler to come up and stay up. We turn it on, we don't cycle for two weeks or a month or whatever, that boiler comes up and it never turns off. Perfect.
I don't have a problem whatsoever with that. Well, that's what this hospital was having, you know, is boiler comes up and stays up until it's cycled over to one of the other five boilers. And so situation, we started running a drill on one and ⁓ boiler goes down. Boiler goes down or boiler was up. Boiler goes down. Boiler lights again. Run another drill. So we're on the second drill. So once the boiler came up,
and it came out of low fire in this run, give it a chance. And then we run it again. Now it goes into failure.
And I started looking, I was like, huh, this happened before? And he goes, yeah, it actually did happen one time before I I was like, OK. Here's an educational training opportunity. I was like, you went to class? Yeah. In the sequence of operation, when did that happen?
He's kind of on the lawn, he's kind of sitting there scratching his head and then it's like, really? Think about it. But what happened? And he goes, okay, so, we were lighting pilot. Okay, so we just ran it and it just lit, right? Yeah, yeah, okay. But then we ran another drill and created another fault on something else and now it's not lighting.
So what components are going to cause that? And so you see this look on the face of this student that had been through it, because it was a custom class for them, and had been through it, and was like, oh, wow, OK, so yeah, I remember this. And as an educator, my heart just gets filled, my bucket gets filled, and I feel great about it. And what it ended up being was the solenoid pilot valve.
What would happen is, is it would, ⁓ it would open, okay? It would allow the pilot to light, then it would close. Well, what it would do is it would close and it would stick, okay? Then over the course of time, it would release. Does that make sense? And so it would open, fine, because, but when it's shut, it would stick closed.
Well, because what we did was ran a site or let it come up and then ran another fault, it didn't have time to release. So when it asked for that solenoid to open back up again, it was stuck. And so the moral of the story is now this, this guy, because he went to a class like that and understand his sequence of operation. Now he's able to talk to the technician and say, I, you know, what we've got going on here, we've got.
you know, because it's the fire triangle, right? That's the second thing is understanding the fire triangle. You understand sequence of operation, you understand a fire triangle, we're creating a fire triangle, right? So now we say, well, when I looked, did I see an arc? Yeah, I saw an arc. Okay, so I've got the energy, blower motor still blowing? Yes, blower motor still blowing. We've got that. What are we missing? We're missing the fuel. So now where's that coming from? To come from the cylinder.
No, I got a bad solenoid. Hey, technician, we're not authorized to replace this. I need somebody to come out here. I'm pretty sure what we've got going on is we've got some bad solenoid valves Can you make sure you have some on the truck when you come out? No problem. Boom, bada bing, bada boom. They're out there. Few minutes later, they're swapping this out. Yep, you're right. It's stuck. Boom, they're up and running. You know, and it's all because that operator.
was trained to understand sequence of operation. Now I put him through the gauntlet of it, of saying, I want you to think now. He'll never forget that. He'll never forget that. He won't know everything every time, but he'll know all I gotta do is think through the sequence of operation and I can pretty much pinpoint everything that happened. And now I can communicate.
Eric Johnson (2:12:03)
Yeah, that's that's great. I would say for if you're a boiler Company or have operators never assume that they know something because even as a trainer I can show somebody something they can watch me. I can have taught about it all day and then I say all right you do it and they will do it wrong or they'll like miss a step or they'll like
Marty Toth (2:12:22)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Eric Johnson (2:12:33)
do a step out of whatever. And you just need retraining. It's not like human telling somebody something is one of the most inconsistent things to do. But then think about, we have an entire organization and we've never had formal training and first shift trains third shift randomly for a half hour in the overlap and this stuff and that stuff. And then all of sudden
you go to first shift and say, hey, how are you blowing down the boiler? And they'll show you, you go to second shift, how are you blowing down the boiler? And they'll show you something wildly different and be like, first shift trained us. And then you go to third shift and you're like, hey, how are you blowing down the boiler? And they will be wildly different or even not know how to do it and just be checking off the box. And they'll be like, first shift trained you. Well, first shift is doing it, let's say correctly,
Marty Toth (2:13:03)
Mm-hmm.
Totally different.
They learned it right,
Yeah, okay.
Eric Johnson (2:13:28)
But even though first
shift trains second and third shift, second and third shift are doing it wrong because there's nobody there to correct them and to put procedures around it beyond this, ⁓ what is it called? Tribal knowledge. Most and a lot of inexperienced people just think everything is tribal knowledge and it's not written down. It's just this like thing in the air that they have to learn and.
Marty Toth (2:13:45)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (2:13:57)
once you like can start putting up some walls and some directions and paved the roads of like, hey, if you start this boiler, this big motor, which is a fan, this is gonna start every single time before there's a fire. And this is called the sequence of operations. And once they start understanding that, as you said, now there's like some structure around components and then.
Marty Toth (2:14:12)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Eric Johnson (2:14:21)
then they start understanding how everything works together instead of just saying, I understand this bullet point. I understand that bullet point and I understand that bullet point. Well, that's great. But if you don't understand how they all mesh together, you're not going to be able to understand and actually troubleshoot a problem or know what's going on. If you just say, my pilot is a small flame. My main flame is a big flame. The fan makes air, but I don't know how those all work together. And that's.
Marty Toth (2:14:34)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Eric Johnson (2:14:51)
when I did my foundations of steam systems class, basically the class can be summarized into knowing what your water is doing. it's at any point in the steam cycle, you have to know what your water is doing because if you don't understand what your water is doing in your steam system, you're not gonna understand the steam system. And...
Marty Toth (2:15:12)
Yeah.
Eric Johnson (2:15:13)
One of the biggest things that can trip up operators is a problem in the plant will start causing boiler problems. So then they think they have boiler problems, but it can be, ⁓ hey, we just added this giant machine. Steam demand is up, all this stuff, but it's all right. What is my water doing? And by water, it's the phases of water, water to steam. Hopefully you never see ice in your steam system, but yeah.
Marty Toth (2:15:23)
and.
Yeah.
I hope not. I hope not. I've
heard it in some blowdown lines. But no, so there's one last thing that I'd like to add on to understanding sequence of operation is understanding that no matter how long you've been in something, things change. Codes changes, technology changes. And so if we understand, we say, OK, sequence of operations, great. ⁓
understanding your fire triangle for your boiler would be to understand where to find the answer. Okay, that is so important because I had this happen early on where it was an older inspector and I was the young pup and I was deep into the code books. mean, my wife used to make fun. would, you know, she could go to the beach and take a
Nicholas Sparks book and I would take something read about boiler code and she'd call me a code geek. Was that that ⁓
You don't memorize the code. Don't memorize the code. Familiarize yourself with the code. ⁓ Is that what you want to do is you want to put yourself in the position. And I don't have a problem with this because I don't want to just give erroneous information. It'd be like, you know, maybe I haven't worked inside ASME Section 8 Division 1 code requirements in a while. Okay.
And somebody asked me a question. said, well, know, Eric, it's this and not, I believe you've even done that, you know, where you've reached out to me about something that you're unfamiliar with and asked the question. said, so yeah, let me take a look or this is I think it is. Let me take a look. The worst thing is, and somebody taught me this early on and I then in turn,
taught others is when you find somebody that says they know everything about boilers, run the other direction. Okay. Because that person right there is either, you know, is shut themself off to learning anything or to say, I've been in this industry for 38 years.
you can't tell me anything. Or, hey, yeah, the code reads this. When's the last time you looked at that code? You know? Or, ⁓ yeah, you got to hydro this boiler to 1.5 after repairs. Really? When's the last time you read the code? You know, and that's the one thing I would say is find out where to find the answer.
And that's probably a...
That's a skill, I guess it would be a skill. That I don't have a problem with delaying somebody to verify the answer. Because it just crawls all over me. And I guess it could be an ego thing. That I just don't want to tell Eric the wrong answer. You know, I don't want Eric to come back and say, you know, Marty's got this reputation in the industry.
and this, but man, he told me this. He was so wrong. I don't mind being wrong, but if I can take a second or a minute or two to pull out the code book and verify my answer, then I'm a lot smarter than the guy that sits there and says, I can just pull it off the top of my head because one time there's going to be a change in that code and you're going to sit there with egg on your face. And so that's what I would tell you and you know kind of
as we, I know we're getting to the point where we're wrapping up is, is that, is don't feel like you need to memorize everything. Just know where to find the answer. It's huge.
Eric Johnson (2:20:03)
understand the framework and then know where to find the details. I was only successful as I was as a service technician because I would open up the manual and you do things enough. And if you only work on boilers, you start.
Marty Toth (2:20:06)
where to find it, that's right.
Mm-hmm.
Sure.
Eric Johnson (2:20:18)
understanding like the details,
but there's no reason to memorize a pilot set up for a burner when you can just open up the manual. But if you if you if you have all your codes and manuals all teed up and you're like, hey, I know it's in this it's in section one, but I don't know it exactly. It's something around this. Let's look it up. And that's a big thing. Also with training of
Marty Toth (2:20:28)
and they can have a bunch of different ones. It matters what it is now.
and
Eric Johnson (2:20:46)
I try to get over to people last point here. I try to get over to people that, Hey, what I'm telling you is not like this thing I made up and only I know. And it's this tribal knowledge is taught down. Like, let me show you where I'm telling you this from. And let me show you this so that you're not like, ⁓ I learned this and it was in Eric's class and only he knows that this it's like, no, I'm taking this from this code, which is ASME which is this organization. And then this,
Marty Toth (2:21:02)
Mm-hmm.
and
That's right.
Eric Johnson (2:21:16)
You go back to the primary sources and hey, here's the manual of this and this is where all this information is derived from I didn't just like make this up and it's not just as tribal storytelling where you can never reference what I'm telling you and it's just you have to believe me because that Leads to people being oh, I don't remember I Need to either reference Eric's training materials or I need to call him and he's the only one that knows No, I'm not the only one that knows I'm just as a trainer
Marty Toth (2:21:25)
That's right.
sure.
And...
Eric Johnson (2:21:46)
or as instructors it's not I'm telling you information I am making you aware of where to find it and then how to understand it and interpret it and that's so big in the in training so if if somebody is interested in a boiler class from you how do they find you
Marty Toth (2:21:49)
Mm-hmm.
That's right.
yeah, so ⁓ you can always go and just go to ⁓ boiscotraininggroup.com and boiscotraininggroup.com is really the best place to go. To find that you can communicate through that. Definitely we'll do
Eric Johnson (2:22:18)
Can you spell that?
Marty Toth (2:22:36)
We'll do some standardized classes, some water treatment and testing, basic boiler operator. I think a big part of what we do now is more of our our custom classes, teaching people on their equipment. But the BBO class or the water treatment and testing class, those, those are great classes. If you just have a one-off person that wants to come learn about boilers, that's really good.
really good, but yeah, I mean, we do, like I said, we do a lot more than that on the consulting side. I mean, I would love for us to maybe do this again sometime, really talk.
of the concerns with installation stuff, you know, of what you see out there when people are installing boilers and what they're not thinking about. That's kind of a thing is when they're putting boilers in or you've got, you know, mindsets and we work a lot with our clients on stuff like that of understanding what the code requires.
or even what the code recommends and then putting that into practice. But yeah, for any of the training, definitely go to boiscotraininggroup.com. You reach out to me anytime. ⁓ I give all of our students, when they get their books for their class, they all have, it's got my card in there and they know that they can call me anytime because they're questions that they have.
Either it's going to cause me to learn more or it's going to maybe even turn on something that's been turned off for a few years that I hadn't thought about. But yeah, we'd love to help anybody out that needs help with it and we really enjoy what we do just like you do.
Eric Johnson (2:24:36)
Yeah, absolutely. I've always, I don't know how to put this together yet. And you may retire before I figure out how to do it, but I've always very, very light WWE wrestling fan. I've always thought about how fun it would be. And maybe this would be more for people already in the boiler industry who want training, more of a, ⁓ instead of like, ⁓ Hey, this organization putting on this training event or something more of a, like a tag team training event where it's like, where it's like, Hey, this
Marty Toth (2:25:04)
Yeah.
Eric Johnson (2:25:06)
instructor we're talking about this and then tag out and then we're talking about this and it's more of like a light-hearted kind of thing but just bringing in multiple people of different backgrounds and personalities and really get like a good mix in like two to three days of just
Marty Toth (2:25:09)
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Eric Johnson (2:25:25)
We're not here to like, hey, this Company is the best, yada, yada, yada. It's, hey, we are all proponents of the boiler industry, and we all love what we do. And it's just like a just tag team match of just going through all this. thought, I think it would be so much fun. I don't know how to do it yet, but I'll figure it out. But yeah.
Marty Toth (2:25:35)
and
Yeah, mean
just any any type of something like that and you know opening it up to to individuals maybe there's you know some type of function going on or something. ⁓ Now I've sat in on those things before and one of the funnest was when the National Board had me come out give them a presentation out in Las Vegas and ⁓
I didn't get to choose the subject though. They chose it and I was like, I would never have chosen the subject. But we made it fun and everybody, you know, they loved it and it was, it was a, it was a lot of, a lot of fun.
Eric Johnson (2:26:27)
Yeah, yeah, and we can definitely have you back. The good thing about being the owner, producer, and host on the podcast is there are no rules. we can, yeah, so we can, we can already, I think I'm already gonna have, I had a guest previously and he's already dying to come back and keep talking. ⁓ I'm like, dude, you can be on the podcast 10 times. I don't care. As long as, as long as people are,
Marty Toth (2:26:28)
We'll definitely do it.
Sure.
That's right. You call whoever you want to. ⁓
That's right, yeah.
Eric Johnson (2:26:55)
Download and I mean I get some messages here and there and I see the download numbers and yeah, we're getting there But I really appreciate you coming on if you enjoyed this podcast people, please rate it five stars go check out Boisco Training Group and You can find believe are you Marty on LinkedIn? Is that how you say it?
Marty Toth (2:27:04)
No problem, brother.
Yeah, I believe it's under Marty. I don't think it's under Martin. I hope not. ⁓ I was Martin when I was chief inspector and I told people that I stopped going business wise with Martin because you'd like Marty a lot better than Martin. that was kind of the running joke there. ⁓ But yeah, you can go out there. I don't...
I'm not as ⁓ social savvy ⁓ as you. Yeah, it is under Marty Toth ⁓ As you are my young friend, ⁓ have all these, you know, maybe get somebody and have somebody do it for me is probably more realistic. But but absolutely, you know, I'm not I'm not technology illiterate by no means just kind of what am I spending?
spending the hours on. Does that make sense? And that's kind of where I'm
Eric Johnson (2:28:21)
Yeah, yeah, it's
people, sometimes you post some stuff and some comments and other stuff, but if...
Marty Toth (2:28:27)
Yeah, yeah, I'll comment a lot on your
stuff because I think what you're doing is great stuff and I really want to support that and people that are putting good educational stuff out there and you do a terrific job with that Eric. I've commended you on that before and yeah.
Eric Johnson (2:28:33)
But I, ⁓
sometimes knowing where to find the right information is knowing the person to message or to call and the more people
Marty Toth (2:28:59)
That's right.
Eric Johnson (2:29:01)
Expand their network of hey, I know these people in this side and that side and it's like well Why would I need to know somebody in California? Well, I don't know you might have a question about you know this and you don't do any work So but it's expand your network. Nobody has ever said man. I just know so many people they just
Marty Toth (2:29:07)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Eric Johnson (2:29:21)
I have somebody to call for every single problem and I can get an answer. That's, it's just a terrible problem. No, nobody ever says that. If anything, people don't know who to call to get an answer and then they struggle. But yep, I appreciate you coming on.
Marty Toth (2:29:28)
now.
chart.
