Eric Johnson (00:00)
Welcome back to Boiler Wild. My name is Eric Johnson. On this podcast, talk about boiler industry topics as well as personal development. Wild, part of the name of this podcast stands for work hard, invest yourself, lead others and develop yourself into person of excellence. We should always strive to be better. And this podcast can help you do that. I am on a journey in trying to help and improve the boiler industry. Founded a company called
Boilearn about three years ago with a mission to drive continuous learning and improvement in the boiler industry. So I hope to help you learn something through this podcast and in any other way that I do things through YouTube videos or LinkedIn post or even training online or in person. So that is what I do. Thank you for listening. If you haven't already
Please rate this podcast five stars. That really helps me. And it helps the other people searching on Spotify, Apple, or any other podcast app to find the podcasts. Going to get into a touchy subject today. And it's only touchy because the people who sell boilers make it touchy.
And this is gonna be about the best boiler you can buy. Boilers are just like any other commodity. You have ones that are supposedly the best, and you have ones that are supposedly not the best. And there's a lot of opinions, there's a lot of marketing around it. But let's first start out in the car market. So the car market has been around almost as much as
The package boiler market has it's a little bit older than the package boiler market. Package boilers really started around I think the 40s or 50s, where you could just like buy a boiler that had everything in it instead of having to assemble a boiler. But the package boiler market is much like the car market. And you know, you start off with Henry Ford and the Model T. He really made that.
car great for all people. And nowadays a lot of people have brand loyalty, Ford, Chevy, Toyota, whatever you want, you know, Dodge. And there are people who say, well, I will only buy a Ford pickup truck because it's the best. It's this, it's that. And that's typically based off experience, or maybe they have a family member that worked for Ford or something like that.
Or somebody will say, I will never buy a Ford pickup truck because I bought one and with fifteen thousand miles on it, the transmission blew out and they didn't didn't warranty it and it was in the shop for three months and they had a bad experience with it. So then they only buy Chevy trucks. Well, the people who buy a Ford pickup truck, there's two people that can buy the same truck and have two
very different experiences with it. But if you boil it down, it basically comes down to personal preference. With boilers, it's a little bit of the same with personal preference, but there are really two main identifiers of what makes the best boiler. And spoiler alert, it's not a brand. There's no brand that is better than an another brand when it comes to boilers, just like cars
The cars, you know, they'll go back and forth and say, this is the best car or this is the best truck. But just like cars, it comes down to the application. And that is the number one indicator of what is the best boiler for you is the application. If you are needing vehicle to haul firewood into the woods.
to heat your cabin, you're probably not gonna buy a sports car with a trunk that can barely fit a set of golf clubs. You're probably going to buy a SUV or a pickup truck and maybe get a trailer th so that you can tow the the trailer and a small car is probably not gonna do well with that. The small car will also probably not handle some dirt roads in the woods well and may get stuck and
You'll want some four-wheel drive. Same thing with a boiler. If you buy the wrong boiler for the application, no matter how many settings you change, no matter how much modifications you do, it is going to be wrong and nothing is going to work well. And unfortunately, boilers are a little bit more expensive and harder to change than cars. So I think
the market would look a little bit different if people would change out boilers as quick as they changed out cars. Like if you bought a boiler and the person who sold you the boiler didn't secretly in their mind know that you're gonna be stuck with that thing for a minimum ten years and that you could change it out a year or two later pretty easily. I think people would sell boilers a little bit differently. But and I'm not saying that people
actively or trying to do shady things or whatever, but I've I've heard and seen some stuff. So number one indicator of the best boiler that is right for you is the boiler that is fit for the application. And that may seem like yeah, duh, but I have seen plenty of times and I've talked to people plenty of times of boilers being sold not right for the application. And that is either
The customer is lying or I wouldn't say lying, but they are buying for an application that doesn't exist yet. So they may be saying, Hey, this is what we need it for, but this is for the future. So we really want a boiler that can do all this. And they have this wish list and you match the boiler to that wish list, well, half of that wish list doesn't come around and then all those extra things end up being a hindrance
for the life of the boiler. The other part of it is the
seller of the boiler the boiler rep is only wrapping a certain amount of equipment so they may only w rep one boiler manufacturer and that manufacturer only makes a specific set of models of boilers and burners and they only have access to the equipment and when you are an owner you typically will get multiple quotes multiple bids from people but
Not always and if you already have a established relationship with a company, you may just get one quote, one bid, and you trust them and their experience. Well, that would almost always work. However, sometimes that doesn't work because the boiler they will sell you is that they sell or rep.
And is not the one that you actually need. And where I've seen this go wrong is typically the person selling it will add a lot of features to the boiler, or they will sell a boiler beyond the customer's needs. And if you have a customer who has just scaled up their boiler and they've ruined, let's say just a simple Scotch Marine boiler, and they've ruined it.
due to bad water treatment and everything. And you sell them a similar, identical boiler and maybe you sell them a little bit higher grade boiler that uses a little bit of thicker steel that costs a little bit more. You sell them a fancier burner that you know will save them fuel.
And maybe an O2 trim system and all this other stuff. Well, you've added all that stuff in, and that's great. And ideally the customer would take full advantage of that, but they just scaled up a boiler to the point where they ruined it. Is an O2 trim system really going to save them fuel if nothing changes on the customer side and they scale up their brand new boiler? No, it's not because
Even if you have a perfectly tuned burner, if you get an eighth inch of scale, it's now like you're reducing your heat transfer by like 30% or whatever the number is. But it's a lot. So a little bit more efficiency from your combustion is going to be offset by the dramatic efficiency losses from the water side of the boiler. So the
Customers preventative maintenance andor maintenance schedule or maintenance practices really play into the boiler. There are other boilers that are very susceptible to poor maintenance practices that are very non repairable on the pressure vessel side. And if you install one of those boilers in a place that
Typically does not pay close attention to maintenance on the boiler side and is always having repairs and tubes replaced and having water quality issues. You are probably going to be prematurely replacing that boiler that typically cannot be repaired, or the cost of repair in the field is the same, or 80% of a new boiler.
your customer is probably not going to enjoy that new piece of equipment. And I was a part of a project where a customer was sold a boiler. And this boiler was a great boiler. it was a vertical fire tube boiler and it was excellent. However, the customer had an issue where
They were having processed water mixing in with their condensate and the processed water had hardness in it and the hardness was coming back to the boiler into into the feed water tank and then going to the boiler and they were scaling up their boiler. Well, with a vertical fire tube boiler of this model, there were tubes inside of this boiler. Well you can't there's no like belly of a fire tube boiler.
of a vertical fire tube boiler where all the scale can like be cleaned and dragged out. You can really only clean out the scale that you can see visually from the four hand holes around the bottom of the fire tube boiler. And what it ended up happening is they did melt and have a tube leak, but they melted the bottom of the fire tube boiler just due to the scale buildup over
five years I would say of a of this of this boiler and they they knew this was an issue they knew the scale was an issue but they never wanted to take the recommended actions of fixing the issue with the scale and it wasn't we screwed up yes we saw these actions and
We ruined the boiler and they took accountability themselves. No, the customer said, well, this boiler was junk because we couldn't adequ adequately clean it with scale. And that could be true. And as a boiler rep, everything that happens to the boiler is your fault, whether it's your fault or not.
And you have to kind of anticipate that. So what it ended up happening is that vertical fire tube boiler with tubes ended up being replaced with a lesser model, a downgrade of a vertical fire tube boiler with no tubes. So this was a very simple vertical fire tube boiler. And it had to be vertical because the space in the boiler room was very, very tight.
There was definitely no room for any other boiler without a major expansion. But the new vertical fire fire tube boiler had no fire had no tubes. And when scale would build up on the water side, you could easily clean out the scale because there were four hand holes round the bottom of the boiler. And since there were no tubes, the the entire bottom could be cleaned out.
A hundred percent and you can inspect the entire bottom visually and get it all clean. And the customer ended up liking that boiler better because the boiler could be cleaned easier, even though on paper that boiler was a downgrade, inefficiency, and a couple other areas due to it not having tubes. So that's one example of matching the boiler to the
Process or to the customer. If you have a customer who insist on saying, Hey, we really want this boiler, and we really want this system and we really want this, you have to make sure that they understand what that entails. And some boilers and control systems and efficiency upgrades of maybe like
surface blowdown that's automatic. There are some simple ones, there are some very fancy ones. But if you plan on putting in a surface blowdown and it is all automatic and then you plan on never calibrating or cleaning the probe and you just want the boiler to run and you only want to touch the boiler once a year, you're going to have a very frustrating customer when the
Surface blowdown does not work. And when the surface blowdown starts alarming because the probe is dirty or the probe is off calibration, and they're also gonna be confused as to why their general maintenance technicians can't just quickly calibrate and clean the probe. It's gonna require not that it's hard, but it takes somebody that actually knows what they're doing.
versus somebody who just works on everything and has to figure it out. A boiler is not something that you just want a general maintenance person just coming in and having to figure out what's going on. So that's where I would sign up for a at least a minimum of a outside water treater to come in and make sure the chemicals are correct and make sure the water treatment in the boiler and the system is correct and make sure they're not doing
extensive damage to their system, even if they're having an in-house people check the water on a weekly basis. Cause we all know that that doesn't end up being a long term thing and it ends up going by the wayside because production or anything else comes first before doing a little bit of chemistry that people can't see inside the boiler, except when you open up the boiler on an annual basis.
So number one is do you match the boiler to the end use? Another part of this is
The steam demand, some steam demands are very, very quick. So you'll have like corrugation, corrugators will turn off and then they'll turn on and the steam demand will go from zero to a hundred percent. And there's some other ones where steam demand will be on and off. A lot of processes there'll be like steam tunnels, the heat product. That will be one where the steam demand quickly spikes versus
If you just have a heating steam demand or you're you just have like a bunch of heat exchangers or something like that, and it's a pretty steady load 24-7, then you will have a boiler that will just kind of match the load and then just kind of sit there and not modulate a whole lot. Whereas if it is constantly modulating through the demand, you need to make sure that the boiler can handle that instantaneous demand.
And what is the customer's expectations with that instantaneous demand? That instantaneous demand may mean hey, the boiler needs a larger steam space inside the boiler. Hey, we're gonna sell them a boiler with a steam accumulator outside of the boiler, or hey, this boiler makes steam super quick. You know, there's other things that you can do, like a like a Miura boiler.
or a vapor power boiler, like a vapor power circulatic, they are known to make steam very, very quick. And that is an advantage versus like a Scotch Marine boiler or a water tube boiler where you have to heat it up a little bit slower.
it may not be able to adjust to steam demands because a Scotch Marine boiler or water tube boiler will have more water inside of it. And the more water that you have inside the boiler, the more water that you have to heat up and steam, and that will slow down the reaction to the
instantaneous load demand whereas a Mura boiler or Clayton or a Vapor Power Circulatic they have lesser water content in the boiler and they work a little bit differently and they are able to make steam much faster. That also plays into does your customer shut down the boiler on a weekly basis on the weekends every night and
Or do they turn on the boiler and it runs for a year? And that is going to play into what kind of boiler you want to sell them. If they are shutting down the boiler on a nightly basis, you want to make sure that the boiler you are selling them does not have a lot of refractory in it and does not take a ton of time to warm up. The warm-up time on a boiler can significantly decrease their energy savings and
the amount of energy usage will go up because now you're w slowly warming up a boiler, which is a disadvantage of like a Scotch Marine fire tube boiler or like a larger water tube boiler where you may be able to install a quick heat up boiler like a vapor power circulatic, like a Miura like a Clayton. they are
built differently to handle that, although I will say there's still some downsides to the you know, zero to steam in five minutes. Don't expect that to be maintenance free.
there's no boiler that's perfect when it comes to that. There's always pros and cons and trade-offs, and you have to understand what your pros and cons and trade-offs are for your customer. So you have to match the boiler to the customer and what their expectations are. If your customer wants to come in at 6 30 a.m. and turn on the boiler and have production going by 6 45, you're going to need a boiler that is going to steam quickly.
And have low amount of refractory and is able to handle all that. If you want a customer that has a boiler with 100% repairability, and as long as you can get some metal there and some boiler makers that know how to weld, they can fix it. You are gonna want a different kind of boiler. And depending on what that is.
You can change the style boiler a little bit. So if you if your customer wants a water tube boiler, and we're on the smaller side of water tube boilers here when we're talking about this, but if you want a water tube boiler, you can have a traditional water tube boiler or you can have a flex tube boiler. A flex tube boiler is gonna be a Unilux boiler or a Bryan boiler or a Cleaver Brooks like FLX boiler.
where the tubes flex and the tubes support the steam drum and come off the mud drum. But the tube flex and move in a way that there is a low risk of thermal shock. The warm-up periods will change between those boilers, but it is significantly faster than the warm-up period of a traditional membrane type.
water tube boiler where you need to go a little bit slower on the warm up. A flex tube is meant to move around and that is an advantage of a flex tube water tube boiler versus a traditional one. So if you have a customer that wants that quick warm up and they just don't want to worry about it and the boilers are constantly being shut off and you want a water tube style boiler, a flex tube is an excellent choice for that.
But these are these are things you have to think about. And the unfortunate part of this is boiler sales comes down to boiler sales, and the a customer will not always get the proper boiler for what they want. Either it's the customer's fault or the rep's fault, because the customer may demand something and the rep says, Hey, this that's not what you need. And they just say, Well, just sell it anyways. Or the rep.
just sells what they rep and they secretly know that this is probably not the best for the application. And this goes into the second part of what is the best boiler. so to recap, the number one, the best boiler is one that is fit for the application. Number two, the best boiler is one that you can get parts and servers for.
And I have seen this time and time again. So what will happen is you will get a customer that gets a little over the tips of their skis and says, you know, we've had this boiler from 1960. It's got, you know, standard flame safeguard linkage, very old school. And they want to go to a very high tech boiler. And
Typically a high-tech boiler will involve a lot of electronic parts that the customer may not be familiar with, some transmitters, some draft things, and all this other fancy equipment that ends up being a very nice package. But if the customer is not ready to maintain and service that, or if they don't have a company in the local area that's not ready to maintain and service that.
They are going to have issues. So, where I will see this is you will get a a remote customer and say they have a outside firm that's maybe within the same state, but maybe it could be a couple states away. They do a big boiler project, they install this boiler plant, and they say, All right, great, we're all good to go. Everything's commissioned correctly and all that stuff. And now
For service, they either have to call that original provider and they are five to six hours of drive time away, or they try to call a local provider, and that local provider does not maintain service technicians with the knowledge that can fix the equipment that they have. So they're every time that they have an issue, it is minimum six hour drive time.
for a service technician show up, which can be fine for some situations and cannot be fine for some other situations. And if you want to try to find a more local company, and I know it's crazy to say this in 2026, but there are still boiler service companies out there and service technicians that only work on linkage burners.
And once they see a parallel positioning system, they say, I don't work with that. You have to call somebody else. And I know that is crazy to say in twenty twenty six, but it's out there. I've seen myself, I've heard the stories, and I've talked to service technicians who say, I don't know anything about an LMV5 or an autofame system or the Fireye systems because I only work with linkage. And they're typically some older service technicians, but
They are the ones that are leading the charge for their company and they will walk on site and say, Hey, I don't work on that fancy burner control system. You'll have to call somebody else. And the customer ends up stuck because now maybe they bought their their boiler from somebody else but they wanted to use their original provider who is who has been providing service for 10 to 15 years.
And now that original provider cannot service the boiler that they just installed, I would say that is a provider and service issue. However, the customer still is now saying, okay, well, who can service our boiler? And the more fancy you get on the boiler, the fewer and fewer people are going to be able to be able to service it properly. And if you get fancy enough, or if you get uni unique enough.
on the equipment, you may have to start flying people in. And if you have to start flying people in to service your boiler, that's fine as long as you don't have any major issues and that you have plenty of backup boiler and equipment. But now every service call is a minimum of of ten grand. So you have to understand that and you also have to understand that each service call is now going to take
a minimum of three days if you're flying people in. And yes, this happens. There are boilers in America where that are serviced by European providers and there are companies that fly people in from Europe every single year to service their boiler. Which seems ridiculous, but they if you buy a specialized boiler that is specialized to Europe and you install it in America, not
many people in America are gonna know how to work on it and you're gonna have to fly somebody in from Europe, which adds to your maintenance budget. You better be prepared for that. Another place where this can go wrong is schools. So when schools get built, they typically will have this wish list and this budget of hey, we're building this school, we have
thirty million dollars or whatever to build the school and they will check off every single box on the options for all the equipment and for the school in order to try to get some energy certifications for the building and to save costs on energy and you know maybe some lead stuff and all that stuff which is fine which is great but
If a school goes from a nineteen sixties building to a you know building built in twenty twenty five and they are now having to service the equipment, they are typically going from some very easy to maintain, very inexpensive equipment with not a lot of digital stuff on it, to equipment that is now very, very digital and
I don't want to say less quality, but it requires more maintenance and will typically not as last as long. And the budget to maintain all that equipment with all those extra options that increase all the efficiencies and do all that stuff will increase. If your air handlers are just go going from simple coils to a
fan that is steady state or maybe it had a VFD before and now you go to like ECM fans and fan walls and energy wheels and do all this stuff, that is going to increase the cost of maintenance. And a school system will typically not be prepared for that increase in cost of maintenance. Same thing with hydronic boilers. If they go from some cast iron
Atmospheric boilers that they've had for the last fifty years, and a service technician came in right at the start of heating season and cleaned off the flame rod with a hundred dollar bill and made sure combustion was correct and checked gas pressure and that everything was good to go. They are used to that. All their maintenance records show that. All their maintenance spending shows that. And now you install some high efficiency boilers that now require
at minimum in annual maintenance and that annual maintenance parts kit is now twelve hundred dollars and then you have to also add in labor on that. and by the way that's for each boiler and now water quality is super essential for your hydronic system. So you need to make sure you get a water treater in there who is treating all that. And then combustion is critical for that. And maybe these boilers will run year round. So now we have to have combustion checks
two times a year instead of once a year to make sure that everything is good to go. And on top of that we have neutralizers for all the condensate that we're hopefully making because we installed condensing hyd hydronic boilers in order to get the efficiency out of them you have to condense. That is how condensing boilers work. So now you have to change those neutralizer kits so that you're not rotting out your drain from the
low pH condensate that's going down your drain. So you have to that's another maintenance item that you have to worry about. And now you have to worry about every time you have a brownout or a power outage or something that hey maybe the boilers don't come on. Maybe we lost the touch screen. Maybe we lost this fancy controller and now we have these communication issues with the boilers. The boilers in their internal network are not communicating. The boilers are not communicating with the back net network
The rest of the building. The building sensors are are are off. The building and it just adds in all this complication that the schools are typically not prepared for, and they will easily blow out their maintenance budget because they think that a building is a building, and the maintenance budget of a new building is not going to be high because everything's new. You know, why why would it be high? Well, the higher efficiency equipment always adds in.
way more maintenance. And if you install a top of the line condensing hydronic boiler and you add in all the options and do all this stuff, that is going to require a lot more maintenance than a simple cast iron atmospheric boiler that they are typically used to. And that one was installed for fifty years and that's what the school's used to. But that's that's another example of matching
the
Boiler to the application. If a school is saying, hey, we're gonna heat the building with 180 degree water, there is no sense in selling them a condensing boiler because you're never gonna condense and you're only gonna get the 82% efficiency out of a standard boiler, even if the boiler says it is a condensing boiler. Go listen to other episodes or read online about how condensing boilers work.
And the sensible latent heat, and really it's the latent heat that makes the magic. But if your school system commissions a building and says, hey, we're only gonna run below 140 when it's this out, but it's mostly gonna be above 140. Most likely they're not gonna save a ton of money, but you're gonna increase costs because now you have a boiler that requires way more maintenance. On the steam side, same thing.
If you install a burner that is maybe let's say a European burner and it has parallel positioning or even like a PLC system and has all these gadgets on it, maybe O two trim and all this stuff, it is going to be more likely to start kicking out faults and kicking out alarms. And the customer has to be aware of that and ready to replace stuff like that and
hey, the touch screen for this burner went out. that's gonna be eight grand for a touch screen. you know, this O two sensor went out. It'll be fifteen hundred dollars for an O two sensor. by the way, since we're doing all this, we have to make sure we're checking combustion at least four times a year religiously to make sure that everything is correct. And you know, the building pressure has to be perfect in the boiler room, otherwise it's gonna throw off the O two.
And the you know, the draft and all this stuff. Like all that stuff adds into it. And if a customer cannot get parts, if you're waiting on parts for your your European burner to ship across the Atlantic Ocean, or if you are waiting on parts because no supply house in the area carries parts for your burner or boiler, or if you were
you know, if you have a direct relationship with the boiler manufacturer and you're under their maintenance program and the manufacturer's saying, like, whoops, we didn't stock that. It's gonna be four to six weeks for these parts and they're the only one who can supply the parts because maybe they're making the circuit boards for your boiler or something else like that. It's not like you can just go buy somewhere else. You have one source for those parts. And we all figured out in twenty twenty that
supply chain and having one source for parts and especially parts that come from overseas, it can break down pretty quick and things get a little bit crazy. So while there may be a valve actuator that is amazing and awesome and has all these features and stuff, if when you order it it has a six week lead time and you don't stock one because the valve actuator is so expensive
And you know, it comes from Europe and all this stuff. Yet you could choose another valve actuator that is stocked at your local supply house and a little bit more common and made in America, but it doesn't have like a fancy feature or the brand name or whatever. Why are you choosing the fancy valve actuator versus the more common one that may be a little bit less money and is more common?
You have to match the application to the parts you are buying. Same thing with a burner. If you are buying a burner and it is the fanciest of fancy and all this stuff, and the customer just wants, they're just like, we don't care. We just want to make steam. We don't care about efficiency. We don't care about tuning. We don't care about all this other stuff. This PLC's touch screen. We don't we're not hooking up a backnet system to it.
We have no outside controls hooking up to the boilers. We just come in, flip on the boilers, and they go. Well, all this extra equipment ends up going to waste and ends up being an extra cost for the customer that ends up on them not wanting to keep it up and keep it to the level that it needs to be, and you don't match the equipment to what the customer really wants, and now you can't get parts.
because you sold a very specialized burner or specialized systems and those parts are not available at your average supply house. Same thing with your local boiler reps and if you're a local boiler rep you will have a service area and hopefully you know you may have a service department if you don't and if you're sales only
Hopefully there's some other boiler companies around you that stock parts. But they should be able to stock a standard distribution of parts that will fix most issues. But if you are selling a boiler consistently and a lot in your area and you're not stocking parts for that boiler that are not commonly found at a local supply house and cannot be obtained within a day, you are doing a disservice to your customer because now
people cannot easily fix that. And that may seem crazy, but it it happens and customers will find out like, hey, why is our boiler down? well we can't get parts. Well we've always just gone down to the local supply house. They have everything. well this new burner that we bought do you know this part only comes from this manufacturer and this manufacturer, yeah they're
The they're European but they have a US base, but they said that they don't stock this in America and they have to ship it in from Europe and it's gonna be eight weeks in order to get this or twenty weeks and then they go like, Okay, so like all those efficiencies that you've now sold them on and all the fancy features that you sold them on are completely forgotten at this time and all they see is our boiler's gonna be down for eight weeks or twenty weeks because we have this burner.
Or boiler that we don't have parts for, and you will say, Well, they should stock all these parts. Well, not everything works with logic. And remember when I said in the beginning, when it's your fault, even if it's not your fault. So you have to be very careful when selling parts, when selling boilers, that you are matching the parts and boilers to the application, and that you can actually get parts and service for it. If you are a owner and user and you buy the super super fancy boiler.
And nobody in your local service area knows how to service it, or the manufacturer doesn't give people in your local service area the passwords to be able to service it. Now you are looking at a very limited service network and/or maybe one service provider in order to service your boiler. And that seems fine when everything's under warranty and you know they're still trying to make you happy.
But you get out of that warranty period and something happens and they know you're stuck with that boiler because you're not gonna just randomly replace it just because it's two years old. And then they go, well, we can't get out there for a week. And yeah, that's how it's gonna be. And then they get there and say, yeah, this part's bad, this part's bad, this part's bad, that'll be eight grand. And it'll be two weeks' wait time. Like this stuff happens all the time. But
If your customer's not expecting it, it's gonna be a shock. But where it makes sense is if the application matches the equipment. If you have a customer who is very, very big on efficiency and they see all the efficiency gains and they have a SCADA system that is outside of the boilers that is making sure that their plant is running at
Efficiency and they have control room operators and they have PM programs. Yes, a high tech burner and boiler are going to do them well because they're going to be able to see the paybacks. You are also going to be able to see, like, hey, if we stock these parts, these are the critical path parts that you cannot get in the local area andor have long lead times. So let's stock these parts. And they value all that stuff. Versus if you just have a customer that says
We just need a steam boiler and you install the boiler and the most outside controls that they want you to put on the boiler is a red light that flashes when the boiler's in alarm. They are probably not going to appreciate all this fancy stuff and what the boiler could do. They just care about is the boiler making steam? And when it's not making steam, they will blame you. And no matter how much your fault
is or isn't your fault, they will blame you and the fancier boiler, the fancier burner and all the fancy equipment, it always costs more. And if they're not using all that fancy controls and if they're not getting the full use out of all the expensive equipment, there's no reason to sell them all that fancy equipment. And you have to match the application for what the customer is using it. And then you have to make sure that you have service technicians
In the area, if you are owner, or even if you are a boiler service provider, if you are selling equipment that your service technicians don't know about, don't have training adequate for it, and a one day training class or seminar is not adequate training, then you will have customer issues when you sell them a piece of equipment that nobody can adequately service, and just changing parts on brand new equipment.
or just guessing or spending a week on brand new equipment or that's a couple years old because you don't know how to work on it is not gonna fly for a customer. So recap what is the best boiler? The best boiler is number one, the one that's fit for the application. There is no premiere boiler, no matter how much you read online of boiler reps the premiere boiler is always the one
That they sell, imagine that. Number two, it is the boiler, burner, or equipment that you can get parts and service for. That is how you determine what the best boiler is. Outside of that, it is all marketing, it is all feel and personal preference. There is no best boiler. Yes, there are certain manufacturers who price themselves and build boilers better than other manufacturers, but there is a market for everything, just as I said.
in the car market, there are people who want a high dollar car. There are people who want a car that takes them from point A to point B and they don't care how that happens. Same thing with boilers. There are people who want all the fancy stuff and they want to monitor it and they track all their gas usage and all the stuff and they care about that versus people who say we have a boiler and we just want steam to come out of it. And you have to determine
What is best for your customer, and if you oversell them on equipment, it is probably not gonna be a good time when it comes time for service and or replacement of parts because they are going to be shocked by the cost of everything. Versus a standard boiler, not tons of bells and whistles, and you keep the cost low, you keep the repairability high, and yeah, it may not be the fanciest of fancy, and it may not be the most efficient.
But if all they care about is, hey, does the boiler make steam? Hey, does the boiler make hot water? It's good enough.
So there are also other boiler manufacturers that they may have a boiler or boiler model that is good for a certain scenario, maybe like a brewery. there are some boilers out there that are really built for breweries, or there's boilers that are built out there for like, hey, these are really good for central plant, or this one's really good for corrugation because of the steam demand.
and the instantaneous steam demand and everything or this one's really good for like heating load because this is steady state or you know whatever but you have to investigate all that if you are an owner and I would talk to multiple reps of boilers and it's not about the name of the equipment that they they are selling it is all about what does that equipment
get you and every manufacturer is very prideful of we have the best this we have the best that but if your boiler rep cannot tell you any downsides of the equipment then they are not doing their job and they're not thinking hard enough because there's always pros and cons to every piece of equipment and if the con is just cost then they are overselling you typically on
the equipment you need unless you are demanding a that much equipment and efficiency and all the bells and whistles because basically the only downside is cost because of the high initial costs and the high lifetime cost of service. The other part of it is just training. it'll be high cost of training, but
In general, every boiler will have pros and cons. Hey, this is why you should choose this boiler. This is why you shouldn't choose this boiler. But when you are buying a boiler or replacing a boiler, when you go to do that, it is really stay away from the hey, this brand versus that brand. It should be okay, in our service area, what can we get? And okay, this is you know, this is the the strong companies, this is what they sell.
And then you talk to the companies and say, Okay, out of all these companies, each company, why does the equipment you sell, how does it match what we want? And this is what we want. And how does this match up? And what is important to us versus how does this equipment match that? And you really have to match, make sure you're matching the equipment that you are buying to what you actually need and then
Secondly, making sure that you can get parts and service for it because you do not want to be waiting weeks or have to fly people in or have people six hours away if you don't have to in order to service your equipment. But if you're in a more rural state, sometimes that's just how it is. Your your closest provider will be six hours, or you know, you could be in Texas and
our provider across the state is six hours away, like that's how it is. But if you're near a major city, you should be able to have a provider within an hour or two. And that should be good enough. And you just have to do the pros and cons and weigh everything out as far as what they can offer and what you are buying. So there is no best boiler out there as far as name brand. It is the one that you match to the application. And then secondly is the one you can get adequate parts and service for.
So I hope you learned something from this. Please listen to any other episode of Boiler Wild. If you have any feedback or comments, please let me know. You can DM me on LinkedIn or email me eric.jonsson at boilearn.com Please rate this podcast five stars if you haven't already. That really helps me and other people find this podcast on the podcast app. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you and stay wild.
