74. Mastering Boiler Inspection with Marty Toth

June 04, 2026

Marty Toth talks with Eric Johnson about his extensive knowledge on boiler inspections, the role of the National Board, and how jurisdictional differences impact boiler safety and regulation. Perfect for industry professionals seeking clarity on inspection processes, certifications, and best practices.

Episode Transcript

Marty Toth (00:00)
I do have quite a bit of experience in the industry on different

aspects inspection definitely being one of them. as a former chief inspector of Tennessee, I learned a lot that jurisdictions all operate differently, even though we may operate under the NBIC as we know and some of your listeners may know, is a National Board Inspection Code it has four parts in it.

Inspection is one of them. The other is installation. And then you have repair and alteration, which I'm the the vice chair of that that committee. We got a meeting coming up in Salt Lake City in July. So I'm looking forward to getting together with my my colleagues there. And then the fourth part is gonna be pressure relief devices, safety valves, so on and so forth. And even though

most jurisdictions, when I say jurisdictions instead of just saying states, because you have some municipalities that have their own individual laws. Detroit is one of them. Milwaukee, I know is another. New York City is another.

they can all operate a little bit differently based on the rules and regulations that they have. state of Tennessee, one of the one of the things that really I don't want to say shocked me, may surprise me a little bit, but it it more than that, it opened my eyes is when I did become chief inspector and going and sitting in the chiefs meeting.

where Mother's Day weekend they have the National Board Convention, which just recently was held in Denver. Six months from that, they have the Chiefs meeting

In Columbus, Ohio, where the it's really just the chief inspectors and advisory get together and sitting in that meeting, it really opened my eyes to to recognize that jurisdictions operate a little bit differently. it may be safe, but you may require two inspections a year on high pressure boiler versus another jurisdiction only requiring one.

And it's that's where the NBIC kind of allows for those jurisdictions to make up their own decisions. So you'll see throughout the NBIC, it'll say the requirements as required by the jurisdiction or something like that. And so it's gonna it's gonna say things like, hey, you need to do this, but only if their jurisdiction requires it.

Eric Johnson (02:41)
the common catch-all is hey th this is what we suggest but always refer to the authority having jurisdiction and so the authority having jurisdiction if so if you're in Detroit does the state have ultimate jurisdiction over Detroit or can Detroit just say like hey this boiler's illegal in our city and we don't care what the state says

Marty Toth (02:47)
That's right.

You know, that's a that's a very valid point. I don't want to speak directly to Detroit. I can speak to my experience with the city of Memphis back when I was working for the state of Tennessee. And it was very interesting. but I was a deputy inspector stationed out of Jackson, Tennessee. And for those that

Don't know where that is. It's it's roughly about halfway in between Nashville and Memphis, a little bit closer on the Memphis side. And so what that meant at that particular time when I was there, and that was more the early, early to mid-90s, was that I would go all the way down to Shelby County. And even though

Shelby, Memphis, Shelby County was treated like a a metro area, no different than Nashville Davidson County was is one government. The requirement of the National Board at that particular time was that it was really only the city of Memphis that could have

Their own membership to the National Board. And there was an individual by the name of Max Lovelay, who was the chief inspector of Memphis. Well, as a deputy, I would go down to Shelby County outside of the city limits and go to locations. And while I was there, I would see that there would be a boiler certificate for.

the city of Memphis on the boiler. And that kind of raised an attention. And I kind of brought it to the chief inspector at the time, Don Tanner, and said, hey, you know, they're they're kind of crossing over the city line here. And so what ended up happening, because it wasn't metro ran government, is Shelby County code enforcement would require a permit to be

issues for the installation of a boiler, a water heater, so on and so forth. And they really wouldn't come back out and reinspect it. What they would do, especially on the water heaters, is they would issue that certificate. The certificate would be issued for water heater number one. And then over the course of the years,

every couple of years they would get an invoice for said operating certificate, but that water heater had been replaced two or three times. And so that's what we kind of found. And so that's when the state of Tennessee got involved, reached out to Memphis, and we said, Hey, look, you guys are not adhering to the the laws, rules and regulations of the state of Tennessee. So to go back to your question,

And I would assume Detroit would be the same way, is that the rules and regulations for the individual municipality have to equate or exceed those requirements of the state. And if they don't, then the state has every opportunity to come in and take over. And so that's in essence what we did. Shelby County was obviously not very happy with the state about that.

let's just say if you could imagine I've seen it in in movies where one lawyer asks for evidentiary disclosure, and next thing you know, this this big truck pulls up with like cartons and curtains of papers. Well, that's kind of what happened with us in Shelby County. It's like, well, here you go, go figure it out. And that's when we really started figuring out that what they were doing is just sending an invoice over the years.

and not really coming out and inspecting. And so ever since then, we obviously had to hire additional inspectors to cover Shelby County. I just that area I think has three inspectors in it now. So for the state of Tennessee. So that's kind of how that works, Eric.

Eric Johnson (06:58)
Okay. And what is the role of if a jurisdiction has one, a chief boiler inspector?

Marty Toth (07:06)
Yeah, you know, and that kind of goes back to your initial question when we scheduled this was, you know, what is the National Board? the full name is the National Board of Boiler and Pressure Vessel Inspectors. The thing is, is it has it has grown significantly over the history of of the National Board to where when you have certain

accidents that occurred in history that really shot the rocket off if you would to say hey we need some regulatory oversight and so that's where we look into the ASME American Society of Mechanical Engineers and also the National Board history could probably take you back

To the boiler accident in Brockton, Massachusetts, where boiler exploded, not only devastated the factory, a lot of the homes that were around the factory, number of people died from that. And that really kind of set off of why we needed to have a uniform code. That's where the ASME started from 1919.

The National Board was created. let's bring that together. Let's control how we inspect these boilers, how we install these boilers, how we repair these boilers. That's really where a lot of that came from. And the National Board does a lot more than that. Right now, Joel Amato

Is the current executive director of the National Board. He and I, we could say that we, in essence, grew up in the National Board together. We were both members at the same time. And he, you know, I respect all former executive directors tremendously. I just have a great passion for Joel and the job he's done with the National Board. he's done an amazing job and

He's the best person I could have thought whenever Dave Dewan decided he was going to retire. Dave Dewan took over for Don Tanner when Don Tanner passed. And both of those guys did it did a terrific job. Dave really did a great job bringing the National Board together and now Joel is is doing a magnificent job in his role there. And it's really a team effort up there.

They have a lot of different things that they do.

If you've never been to the the National Board in Columbus, Ohio, to be able to visit that location. The the training facility up there is second to none. they have a valve shop.

That is critically important to the certification of all pressure relief devices. That's an amazing operation. during my time there, Joel Ball was was over that. He since has retired and he was tremendous and his replacements is doing a wonderful job up there now too. as we talked about the inspectors being certified.

There is a certification exam for that. That has changed tremendously over the decades that I was I've been involved with it. they do a tremendous job with training as you and I are both in, you know, have our our toes in that industry. I know good training when I see it, and I know bad training when I hear it. And National Board is really good.

with their training department up there is is second to none. They really care about getting the word out there. you know, I've talked with Joel many times about, you know, where I could I can assist in that area. You know, Kimberly is their director up there of training and she is I I I've known her for decades and she has been tremendous up there.

and so they do the training, they do certification, they're the caretaker of the National Board Inspection Code. and so when people think, hey, it's it's named National Board of Boiler and Pressure Vessel Inspectors, the assumption is all they're all it is is some, hey, we're gonna send you a a bill and you pay for a a a license. It's it's more than just that. It's tremendously more than

just that.

Eric Johnson (11:28)
that's good. So to clarify and wrap up the last question, so the chief boiler inspector is gonna be somebody that is essentially leading a jurisdiction and saying, like I would say that like they would be like the president of the the jurisdiction, saying like, hey, this is what we're gonna do, this is what's important, and really driving the initiatives and making sure that all the

Marty Toth (11:50)
Mm.

Eric Johnson (11:55)
local codes and regulations in their jurisdiction are being followed and that all the deputy inspectors are doing what they need to do. Is that essentially what the job is?

Marty Toth (12:04)
Ye

Yeah, I would say I would say more specifically, the chief inspector is the representative of the jurisdiction.

In that case, they are going to be the highest ranking commissioned inspector for that jurisdiction. So in most cases, not all, but in most cases, that individual is going to be a highly ranked civil servant. And I use that term loosely because I know some jurisdictions have gone away from that.

using the term civil servant or got rid of that. But really, that's what it is. It's not really a political appointee. Okay. they have to have a commission. All right. It doesn't it it doesn't mean that they have to have all the endorsements that come along with that commission, but they do have to have a commission to be considered a chief inspector.

They are gonna represent. And the National Board brings them, sends them to meetings, sponsors those chief inspectors in the way of replenishing any expenses to to go to meetings. some jurisdictions don't allow that. Some jurisdictions say, well, that's a conflict, so we're gonna pay for your way or don't let them go at all. And that's kind of a shame.

Because what happens is is when you have 50, 60, I don't know what the the number is right now, how many chief inspectors in North America, including the United States and and provinces of Canada. it's a shame because you really a lot of times you only see a handful of the same chiefs representing and doing the volunteer work.

So as we discussed before, me serving on the NBIC comes out of out of my pocket. My company, ECS Consulting and the Boisco training group, pays for for me to go to these meetings. So the the week that I'm gonna be in in Salt Lake City, I'm I'm losing money. You know this, you've been there, you know. It's like I've I

Eric Johnson (14:20)
Yeah, put just put it on the company

Marty Toth (14:21)
It's yeah, you know, it's like so yeah, it's

Eric Johnson (14:22)
card. Yeah. Wait, I am the company.

Marty Toth (14:24)
it's like my accountants going, good grief. But but yeah, and so to get these inspectors, these chief inspectors to be able to participate, it's written in the bylaws for the NBIC that allows for the NBIC to reimburse for these expenses and pay for the hotel rooms and pay for the flights. And the

These chiefs aren't getting getting paid by the National Board. And that was a misconception for for lots of argue argued that you know, all the time. What what the states do is they allow for them to go. Obviously, they're getting paid for the state. They're doing state business because they're representing their state at these code meetings and being a voice at these code meetings and and having the

the eyes and nays when things are being voted. If they feel like that, it's not beneficial to the code, beneficial to the rules and regulations, they have representation there because the other people that are in these code meetings are going to be repair companies, manufacturing companies, insurance companies. And we're going to talk a lot more about the difference between state and insurance. and so what you end up getting is.

is if representation of the inspection side of it is just the insurance entities or the authorized inspection agencies as they're called, you're not really getting the enforcement side being represented if we don't have chief inspectors being sent to these meetings. And it's something that when I was when I was a member of the state of Tennessee,

always supported the chief inspectors. all the way back to you know the days of you know Lynn Peel whenever the state law was enacted in 1949 up through Charlie Allison was there. his grandson is actually of Fred Allison is actually a boiler inspector. So you see a lot of these kind of going down the family tree and

more snow up to Don Tanner to me. I was the fifth chief inspector of the state of Tennessee. And every one of us have been we're supporting and they still support. A lot of jurisdictions don't do that. and and that's a shame.

Eric Johnson (16:41)
Yes. I know 'cause I gathered some data on all the boilers in the United States. a state like Idaho doesn't have a boiler division and or even like New Mexico. I called the state of Idaho and I got some guy from the HVAC or something, he's like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Like we don't really do that around here.

Marty Toth (16:51)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Eric Johnson (17:03)
which was shocking because I was like, man, this is like normal in all these other states and you guys don't do this. And he's like, no. that's the importance of understanding what goes on in the United States and getting together with other chief inspectors and understanding what other jurisdictions are doing

Marty Toth (17:18)
Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (17:23)
Because you don't even though you know we have the internet and instant communication, it's always best to like get together in person at a certain point and to share ideas, what's happening, trends, and like, hey, we really should be looking out for this and all that stuff versus just living in your own jurisdiction and ignoring the outside world.

Marty Toth (17:43)
Yeah, that's I mean that's true. And that's kind of what I was talking about whenever I said my eyes were opened is when I realized every not everybody is enforces our their laws the way we do. Not everybody holds

accountable and it's it was very shocking because you know as a young early 30 something year old man I just thought we talked about this I just thought I knew everything. my gosh, I was I was so naive. And you know I would stand up in those meetings is as you can see I'm not very shy and

I would stand up in those meetings, not just blowing hard, but actually almost asking the question and say, you know, I don't understand why, you know, you've got the code. Why don't you just enforce this? And they would just look and they would shake their head and say, you know, young buck, you'll learn, you learn. And then I realize the politics that are involved in a lot of this. you know, not speaking harshly or anything like that, but you know, there's talk like Texas.

Texas is an example when I look at it and I say, okay, Texas has a boiler law, but they don't have the pressure vessel side of that, the unfired pressure vessel law. And so they have the the law that says, okay, if you have a boiler, we're gonna regulate that. But if you have an unfired pressure vessel, like air storage or chemical or whatever, we're not gonna regulate that. Okay. And in essence,

Why? You say, well, well, because what do they have in Texas? What kind of industry is in Texas? It's your refineries, right? A lot of refineries. And so you get they start writing that and they say, okay, well, what do refineries have a lot of? They have a lot of pressure vessels. Okay. And and you start looking at them saying, I see where that can come from. The the

the lobbyist part of that saying, hey, well let's not we'll regulate ourselves. We don't need the state regulating. We'll we'll take care of ourselves. Now that doesn't mean that they they aren't safe. they follow things like API five ten and things of that nature whenever they're looking at repairing those vessels and things of that nature. But there's no cost for certifications and

operating permits and things of that nature. So that's a little different. I mean a great example of governmental interference if you would, or outside forces interfering with the government is state of Tennessee a couple of years ago, had a strong lobby group come in and did not like the fact that

Steam generators on autoclave units. came in and pressured legislature to exempt them. So, what what does that mean? It's if you have an autoclave in the hospital used for sterilizing purposes.

And it had an integral. Now we know the name, what that means. it's part of the sterilizer is a steam generator. Underneath it, it's now exempt from inspection requirements in the state of Tennessee.

Eric Johnson (20:52)
what's the difference between

a boiler and a steam generator?

Marty Toth (20:55)
Well, it's just the water level. you you you have steam generator. When when we talk about a steam generator, we're we're generating steam in both units, but you don't have a fixed water level.

Eric Johnson (21:07)
Got it. Yeah. So it it would be just a very, very small

Marty Toth (21:12)
Relatively. Relatively, yeah.

Eric Johnson (21:12)
integral unit that is yeah, but you can also like the larger steam generators are made something like by vapor power or Clayton Thermogenics where the where it's where it's hot water getting pumped through a coil and then it expands in a tank which then makes steam.

Marty Toth (21:17)
And

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you can yeah.

Mm-hmm.

That's right. Yeah. It's it's really released where that tank does not have a water level. You're you're sensing your water level inside of the tube bundle. And then it's gonna have a separator that will then separate a unit that will then separate the steam from from the coil itself. And then in some cases, a lot of cases, everybody has different designs, but

It's going to capture that steam to give it more volume. The issue that you have with steam generators of their that are very safe. Don't get me wrong. They're they're a very safe unit. Has has all the bells and whistles in it. It's it's got a lot quicker startup. But does not have the volume of some of your your larger units. That's the volume of steam.

kind of a very layman way of putting it. both have their place in industry, that's for sure.

Eric Johnson (22:27)
So you've mentioned commission. What is the National Board Commission? Who would get one and how do you get it?

Marty Toth (22:30)
Mm-hmm.

Great question. I'm gonna speak to you of somebody that I received my commission in 1993. I think 93 is when I received it. I'm going to totally block you now from my phone. Thank you very much. I appreciate that, Eric.

Eric Johnson (22:50)
The year I was born.

Marty Toth (22:59)
but yes, the year you were born, I got my commission anyway. So at that time, who is getting the commission? Well, here's the thing: is that you have to be employed by a jurisdiction/slash authorized inspection agency to be able to get a commission. So now who is that? Well

When I got my commission, there was only two avenues of that. You were working for a state or province or a municipality. That's one, or you were working for an insurance company. Your Hartford Steam Boiler, your Traveler, your Factory Mutual, your Chubb Insurance, your Ace Property and Casualty goes on and on and on, right?

Some of those are debunked now. Some of those got out of the industry. Your Hartford steam boiler is your your oldest, most prominent. Now I'll hear it from somebody who listens this that works for Factory Mutual at one of these meetings and give me a hard time. And it's like just they just have a cooler logo. Let's move on. And so and so that's how it was. And that has since changed in a way.

Because when you look at a lot of the rules that are out there, it says that that rights insurance. Well, that's not really how it works. And you'd be better suited probably to get one of these insurance guys up here to tell you the the different levels of how they underwrite and write insurance. But may mostly if we think about it as boiler machinery, inspection services.

And so what we're looking at is somebody that has been authorized through the National Board. to provide inspection services can have commission inspectors. And there you have a list of those. You can go on to the National Board website, be able to look in and who are those

individual companies. And so you have a few of those that have have popped up that that don't really write an insurance, but they provide those inspection services. And as long as you're accredited, okay, with the National Board and you work for one of those companies, you can get a commission. I no longer have a commission. The minute that

I resigned from the National Board and the boiler trustees. based on the fact of me leaving the state of Tennessee, I gave up my commission. you know, I can still tell you it's eleven, five, nine, four. And if ever I decided, you know, at the ripe ol age of 58 years old that I want to go back, you know, kicking water heaters and boilers, and I

went to work for somebody or started my own inspection services company, which that ain't gonna happen either. I could get my commission back. And it would be this you know 11594. so now how did that go how do you go about getting a commission? Number one, you've you you you put in the request to take the test. Now you don't have to work

For an inspection agency to be able to sit for the National Board. You can be a civilian out here. you can be Eric Johnson that says, Hey, you know what? I would like to sit for the National Board Commission exam.

Eric Johnson (26:33)
Is there a

requirement to sit or can I just pay a fee and say, Hey, I just wanna sit in this test and see how I do?

Marty Toth (26:39)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah. You could you that's exactly it. You don't have to have X amount of experience to sit for it. Now being issued a commission.

It used to be a lot harder. I think it's become more lenient. And we'll go into that, why that is. because the test has completely changed from when I took it. When I took that the test, it was a day and a half long. The first day was all mathematical calculations.

To inspect boilers, right? And so what you had to do is I I'll give you an example. There is a compensation problem. They'll give you the makeup of the nozzle to be in to be installed into the shell. in the question, it'll give you understanding of which code you have to use.

And you have to figure out the calculation for compensating the fact that you're removing metal to put this nozzle in. I remember this and I thought I thought I was a pretty smart dude, right? And we talked about that. Arrogance is not bliss. Arrogance would kick you in the teeth. And

I'm walking around and they're calling because I'm the young guy and they're calling me the golden child. And I'm, you know, strutting around there. Yeah, I sat for that exam and I felt like somebody beat me with a bat by the time I was done. And that compensation problem took me five pages to answer because you had to write out all your answers. It was not your little, you know, your little scantron bubble. Yeah, they didn't do that.

Back then. It was you got blank pieces of paper and you had to show your work. Bob Schuler, we've talked about Bob. Love Bob to death. he was a great man, very knowledgeable. but boy, he would be the the the thorn in your side. but he really cared about the codes.

Well, Bob was the one who wrote those questions. Bob was the one who sat and graded those exams. And if you didn't show your work, you would get parts of it. You you may come and get a a quarter point instead of a whole point. However, they grade it. You know, it's like you would get a half point because you you missed this step or you did it in your head and didn't show your work. and so that was the first day. You got five questions.

In the in the morning, math problems. And then you got five in the afternoon. Okay. And it took you all day to do them. then the next day you came in, and I want to say it was 50 problems, and they were all essay types. Don't write yes or no. Okay, you write yes or no, you you may get a partial credit for it.

Very humbling test. I I would say that the the skin of my teeth type of thing, right? When I when I got that result, I was like, my gosh. And I remember vividly Don Tanner, because I was so frustrated because I'm in there taking the test and you got three experienced inspectors sitting over there monitoring the exam.

And Don would come in and they're just yapping back and forth. And I'm this young guy with zero concentration. And I'm like, guys, can you please my gosh, I thought Don Tanner was going to hit me with a chair. And when we got done, we walked out and I was so frustrated. And he says, You thought it was gonna be easy, didn't you, kid? You know? And he he's like, You're not as smart as you thought you were. And I was like, You're right.

You know, that was my first humbling, you know, smack me down. So that was how those tests were back then. But, you know, as the years went by, okay, I would be the one that would be monitoring that test. They would bring me into town. I would sit there and mine and I would watch these guys just tearing their hair out. They were just so and I was like, I was there. I know what they're going through. then I left.

West Tennessee and and came back to Nashville became a team leader and I was sent to got my A endorsement, B endorsement. those are shop, okay, a shop inspector where they're manufacturing boilers. and then got a B endorsements, shop inspector supervisor. And then they actually sent me to N school, nuclear inspector school.

Didn't need it. It was great. Okay. All those continually were very hard, hard courses. But I started hearing these rumblings of we can't find candidates. Because when I left the Navy, they were starting to get away from conventional boilers, propulsion for the ships. They were going to, you know, you had nuclear, which most people

know that nuclear is it it's it's really a fancy boiler, still producing steam and propulsion and and everything like that. But they were going to gas turbines and they were getting rid of the conventional. So to the point where after I left the navy in nineteen ninety, way before you were born, smart alec, they

They actually took the boiler technician rating, and made all boiler technicians choose to go to a different engineering rate, or I think other militaries are like calling it the MOSs, I believe is the terminology. We just call it rating. and so they became machinist mates.

Well, I was a machinist mate. And you say, well, how does that have to do with the boiler? Well, the machinist mate we were all in the same work environment. We lived in the same birthing compartments. I was cross rate qualified on the BT side, top watch qualified on the MM side, but didn't stand the watch, right?

But when they decided to get rid of the conventional boilers, they didn't need BTs anymore. So they made them a lot of them became machinist mates. I know one that that I served with that he retired a couple years ago and and it showed his retirement photo and all his glory with this. He was a I can't remember if he retired as a master or a senior chief, but he looked great.

You know, and he's all decked out. But then you look on his insignia and you got the screw, the propeller. The propeller was the the insignia for machinist mate. Whereas Nero's boiler, I believe it's Nero's boiler, is the symbol for a boiler technician. And so I gave him so much crap because he was always one of the BTs are better than machinist mates.

But then he had to retire as a machinist mate because there was no other thing, you know, it's like, you know, the running joke. that's the difference between a a a BT sh and machinist mates with his brains bashed and you know, kind of some smart out response like that. But but we were all brothers and we all dealt with steam And so we started losing those guys. They started retiring out. Military is the big source of

future inspectors. And so things had to change. And some of that was, do we really need the commission exam to be as engineering focused as it is? And a lot of these guys, especially going to work for the state, we used to make the joke, it's like, man, why why are we taking this test to go around and kick water heaters? I mean, that's kind of the thought. It's like,

do we really need to know a compensation problem to see if a water heater is leaking or not? Or if, a control is is not working properly. And so it started getting away from that. it's gone even farther. A lot of people say they dummed down the test. you know, they did initially.

They did initially, and that drove Bob Schuler crazy, by the way. I think that was one of the reasons he wanted to retire. but then they got smart and they then separated a commission inspector and required them to get a R endorsement to be able to do any type of repair inspections.

So your commission inspector was an in service inspections, really. And so they were able to do the in service to make sure that the the boiler pressure vessel is operating safely, no adverse conditions to it, so on so forth. So that was your entry level inspector. Then if they were able to do

repair inspections because now you're starting to get into the code. Now you're going to have to start verifying that the repair company is performing the repairs or alterations to the code. that took you to a next level. And then you still had your levels of your A endorsement for a shop inspector for manufacturing, B endorsement for supervisor. And they have a few more that I really haven't kept up with over the years.

because that's that's not the genre that I I live in per se. But I do know they've gotten better about it because there was a time there where it was like, hey, we're these are pretty simple questions. And are we gonna let this person, you know, we're not really covering repair inspections. They're gonna be the one that's gonna be able to sign off on this. And so they changed that.

And so a person can go and as I was telling you about Kimberly, the director of the National board's training department, they've really developed some good courses to prepare. it's kind of like I want to call it a boot camp if you would, but

I I guess that you could compare it to you know, somebody going to SEAL training. It used to be they would ship you off to BUDS, right, during my time. Now they you can come in a fresh eighteen year old and they'll ship you up to Great Lakes, Illinois and have you go through a pre-BUDS. it's kinda like that. they're they're send you up and send you for a few weeks and take you through what it's gonna take to to take the commission exam and at the end of the

the commission course, pre-commission course, then you can sit for the commission exam and get your commission. And I think that that's a a very good way to do it because when I was chief inspector, we would hire newer inspectors and I would be their teacher. Kinda I I guess it should have I guess it should have kind of gave me a

a thought of man, I I I'm not bad at this, 'cause that's what we do a lot now is training. And we get the the guys in there and pull out the books and find old questions, make up new questions and, sit in a classroom environment and and teach for well, that's what the National Board is doing now. And it's great because the jurisdictions are able to send their people up to the National Board

And be be able to be prepared and once they they get their commission, they're able to come back. state of Tennessee has done a great job with an apprenticeship program where they bring in people and you get old guys like me to sit there and go, man, that guy don't know anything about a boiler. Well, if you put in an apprenticeship program and you put with qualified people and you send them to classes.

I allow for jurisdictions to send their their people to any of my classes free of charge. Why? Because jurisdictions are scrapped for training budgets, and if I can help them in any way, they call me up and we'll hold back a few seats.

every time and say, hey, if a jurisdiction wants to send somebody, give me a call. If you work for, you know, the Commonwealth of Kentucky or the state of Georgia, and you want to send somebody up to a basic boiler operator class or a water treatment and testing class or something like that, well, come on. I think it helps. And that's where the National Board has done a great job with that, is that

They want to bring people in. They do not want to give commissions to people that don't know what they're doing. Because, like you said, that people say, well, somebody comes in and inspects your boiler and then something happens to it, right? Well, we all know

That boiler was in a safe condition and or perceived to be in a safe condition the minute that inspector was there. We don't know what happens after that. Now, you take that inspector and that inspector is deposed or put on the stand and you know that inspector really doesn't know the difference between a fire tube or a water tube boiler. Now what does that do?

or it goes the same thing with the technician, Eric. Somebody that was that that you've trained or or somebody that's one of your clients or you and they get you up there and they start talking about a control or something like that, and you can't answer that question, then there's that they're they're gonna fall on the side of, well, he was negligent. Well, same thing with the inspector, the inspector is negligent. So

National Board doesn't wanna put somebody out there that doesn't understand their basics. And National Board did a really good thing about requiring annual training now. When when I was chief inspector, they would come in and they would say, Okay, now you gotta show all this inspector before we issue them an a a new commission card this year. We gotta show that

they've been receiving continual education. And so we always did that. And that's why it's it's great if we can, you know, provide a a free seat or something to a a state whenever they have new people. We do it all the time in Nashville. Georgia hasn't really taken me up on it because we do them in Georgia, the classes in Georgia too. But hopefully one of those chiefs will hear this and and say, you know what, let me reach out to Marty and get one of these seats before they fill up

Eric Johnson (41:08)
So at the National Board level, a person working for a local jurisdiction like a state and somebody look working for a insurance company, they're gonna have the same level of training if they just get the first commission. Like there's gonna be no difference between a commission for an insurance person versus an commission for a state, right?

Marty Toth (41:32)
Yeah, I can't say yes to that, Eric. And the reason why I say their commission level is the same. Okay, no different than an owner user. So you have, and I failed to mention that too, is another entity that is authorized, or those entities that are certified and authorized by the National Board to be an owner user. Great example would be Eastman Chemical Company.

Okay, Eastman Chemical Company used to be Kodak Eastman out of East Tennessee. And chemical industry. obviously, thousands of pressure vessels and a great number of boilers. And so they have their own commission as well. Okay, well, it's it's an owner-user commission. They cannot go.

do inspections for somebody outside of their company. So now when you say the question, they have a commission, they've got a commission. It's the same commission. The training to get there, insurance companies tend to do a little bit more. they will have internal departments. Some of them have actually approached me about about being their

resource. I don't have a problem with that. to put something together for them or to be the the actual instructor itself, or to supplement what they already have. because they know, especially if it's ones that have the insurance or part of the underwriting on that, they know that it's all about money for them.

Right. It's it's either gonna be money or liability and and they're gonna make sure their people are are very well trained. Not saying the state people aren't, it's just I tend to see a little bit more emphasis on the inspection side of it.

Eric Johnson (43:22)
Okay, yeah. So the level of training is different, but the actual like when somebody says I'm a National Board commission inspector and just like the first level of it, that is the same test whether you work for a jurisdiction or an insurance company or a private inspection company. There's

no like, hey, if you're gonna be an insurance, this is this, like essentially

The National Board commission inspector, the first level of it, not the other endorsements. Everybody takes the same test. for a boiler owner or an operator, they have insurance company come out for their inspector. How do they determine?

Marty Toth (43:50)
Yes.

Eric Johnson (44:01)
Is it typically gonna be their insurance company? How do you determine whether it's gonna be the state coming out or your insurance company coming out?

Marty Toth (44:08)
Yeah, great question. So jurisdictions. I'm gonna step out on a limb here and say jurisdictions all work the same in this case. Somebody will probably pop back and say, no, we don't do that here in this state. But if they have insurance representation, okay, inspection representation, they are going to notify.

the jurisdiction that hey we're Hartford Steam Boiler, we have the in in service inspection responsibility for ABC company. if they don't notify the jurisdiction, it automatically goes on the role for the state inspector or the municipal inspector to do those inspections.

One of the biggest issues that we had, and this really kind of flew in the face of

where I was a little naive early on was I want to say it was thirty one percent delinquent rate in the state of Tennessee when I took over as chief. And yeah that kind of put a black eye on Don Tanner because he was he was the chief inspector before me. But it really was a an issue with notification. It was a system problem that we had

And so one of the things that that I took on as a I wouldn't call me a senior deputy, but I was given a lot more responsibility was I worked with in-house IT department to create the first fully integrated electronic entry program for boiler inspections in North America. and what I mean by fully integrated, it it meant that

Any insurance company could use it. The system, they could use their own system, develop their own fixed line text file, send that information in. We were able to run it through our system and got rid of the paper. Okay. And so it wasn't just the insurance companies can do it, it wasn't just the state could do it. It's everybody could do it. Well, then of course now the National Board has their own system in place, which is which is

Pretty amazing. there were some third parties out there that had them for years that are still in in operation, but we were kind of one of the first ones to do it. And the reason why we were was we noticed that there was a a backlog or a bottleneck, if you would, of paper reports coming in and being manually processed by the office staff.

And those that did not generate revenue were pushed off to the side. And so what was happening was there were a lot of boilers and pressure vessels that weren't getting inspected or were getting inspected and the documentation wasn't being put in, or that were put out of service, but there was no notification.

And so what we what we created was an ad drop program. And so what that meant was the insurance provider every month would send a document. And if on their system they removed that jurisdiction number, because just like a National Board number on the boiler pressure vessel, they received a jurisdiction, a Tennessee number, registration number.

And in that file, if they omitted that number from their electronic file, it would then fall back to state responsibility until somebody added it to their file. And so every once in a while you would get like a month or two that it would be a little, you know, it'd bounce back or forth, or it would go to the state

but most of the time it was fine unless there was an incident that occurred. It was fine because the new insurance company would pick it back up. So that was a way for us to get from, you know, thirty one percent delinquent rate to below two percent in in probably about a year. That and knowing who's responsible for inspecting this boiler.

So what if it wasn't an insurance company telling us they were s responsible and it sat their delinquent and somebody saying, Hey, insurance company number one, you've got this vessel that's delinquent, and they'd come back and say, Well, it's not ours anyway. You know? So it'd sit there. Well, then it goes to the state, and the state picks it up. Well, then what we found was, okay, got all the insurance companies in there together. And I sat there and I I I you know, I showed them, I said, Look, guys.

We're doing a lot your work for you. And if we find that you're, you know, you're not telling us that you dropped insurance on this and we find a delinquent and it's over 90 days delinquent. We're gonna go out and do the inspection. Then we're gonna send you an inspection bill. And that inspection bill is not gonna be small. It's gonna be a special inspection fee of $250. Boom. It all like sat back in their seats and they're started doing the math. And it was like, well, we better get on top of this.

And it it wasn't, you know, being harsh. It was saying, look, you guys are writing insurance for your client and you're not providing the services that you're writing insurance for.

So they got on Board with it. Then they started notifying and they started letting us know that, hey, we don't have insurance on this anymore. And we were like, fine, no problem. We'll take it until somebody else picks it up. So that's how the owner or user knows who's gonna come out there is do they have in their insurance, do they have a boiling machinery policy built into that?

If they have a boiler machinery policy built into that in states like the state of Tennessee, that insurance company has to provide the boiler machinery insurance or services for that policy. So it's their responsibility to pick up that insurance. And that's why when they go and somebody goes and visits the plant.

To do an assessment, they say, okay, we've got these pieces of equipment here. they have boilers, they have pressure vessels. Okay, we've got to add that to the list. And so that's where that comes about. and there were situations I can remember where there were owner users of of boilers that would prefer to have me come do their inspection. And so they pay a little bit extra.

and they were fine with that.

Eric Johnson (50:39)
I would want you inspecting my boiler.

Marty Toth (50:41)
well thank you very

much. See that you're just trying to make up for the old man joke earlier. But yeah, it's it it really is kind of one of those things that it's it's all about the communication and it's all about understanding the owner user, not an owner user like an owner-user inspection agency, but the owner or user has to recognize that they are ultimately responsible.

They say, yeah, but we did know. And it's a phrase that comes across so crass. It's ignorance is no excuse of the law. And that it comes across just so harsh, but it's true. It's you know, not understanding what the speed limit is and going too fast, and you know, you get pulled over, you should know.

That's kind of one of those things. You should be paying attention to the signs or what have you. It's kind of one of those things. And so anybody that you speak to, Eric, just let them know it's it's a responsibility of the boiler operator to to keep a safe and efficiently operating boiler. It's the responsibility of the owner or the user to ensure that it's all being done. And that's really what it comes down to.

when we talk about who's responsible for the inspection. Number one, it's the owner or user.

Eric Johnson (52:01)
I get a letter in the mail that says, Hey, your high pressure steam boiler is due for an internal inspection. and I schedule the internal inspection, the state is gonna come out. What do I have to do in order to pass or get ready for that internal inspection?

Marty Toth (52:21)
Great question. Great question. Number one is it all depends on your knowledge. It all it then secondly, it all depends on the type of boiler you have. A smart

Owner and user will err on the side of getting somebody else in there to help me with it if they don't do it on a regular basis. what do they need to do? Well, here's the thing: a lot of places aren't gonna send yeah, a lot of jurisdictions, and they that may have changed over the past couple decades, but a lot of jurisdictions don't

send a letter necessarily. What they'll do is they leave it up to the responsibility of the inspector to reach out. Or at least that's what we used to do. we would call up, introduce ourselves, we'd say, we need you to do an internal inspection. I'm going to be in your area a week out. You know, you have to give a set amount of time.

usually seven days that I'm gonna be in your area and I'm gonna come by. Now it matters how you've your experience with that particular company is, you're gonna try to help them as much as you can. It's like dry cleaner. I'm trying to think of what the it used to be the busiest day. And you may know this if you've worked with any Eric, it's I think it it's usually Monday, Monday mornings.

I don't know why, but Wednesday sticks in my mind too. But let's go with Monday morning. that's the busiest time. Is that you don't want to show up at 11 o'clock in the morning at a dry cleaner that's that's servicing all the stuff that was turned in over the weekend and on Friday, what have you, right? So you work with them and you say, Hey, I may be there on Monday, but I'm gonna get there at seven o'clock in the morning. Now

As an inspector, I I'm I maybe had to drive a hundred miles to get there. So I'm up super early. Okay. You get there, maybe it's a not a Clayton, maybe it's a Hurst boiler, maybe it's a Fulton vertical tubeless unit. Geez, what does it take to to make steam? You've got steam coming out of the thing within fifteen minutes or less.

Right. So it's not going to take you long to have that boiler up and going. Now, what do you need to do as the owner user to prepare for me to walk in? Well, in the industry, a lot of times, Eric, and you've probably heard this is called the annual inspection. You'll hear people call it the annual inspection. And the the misunderstanding of that term makes you think, well, that boiler's only inspected once a year.

The annual part of that usually has to do with the certificate being issued. It's an annual certificate. So to get that certificate, it's smart for the jurisdiction to require an internal inspection before they will issue a certificate. That's good for one year. The reason being

Is if you issued it on an external inspection while the boiler is operating, then you call up said dry cleaner and say, Hey, look, we need to shut down your boiler. yes, we know you've got six months left on your certificate. And what's that owner gonna do? .

Yeah, I can't do it that day. Yeah, can we do it this day? Hey, I still got six months. I'm good.

So the jurisdiction says, no, no, no. If you want a good you want an operating certificate, you're going to open this boiler. So, so let's say you get that notification, and let's say it's a simple boiler like a a Fulton vertical tubeless. for those not familiar, if you can imagine you know, the the burner comes into the side, comes into the top, matters which type you got.

Flame goes into the furnace chamber, you have combustion, you got baffling inside of it that causes the flue gases to find its path the least resistance, which is the nice pole on the side of the boiler that's got the stack connected to it. What those flue gases are going to do is they're they are going to pass through that boiler that's directed and heat the boiler up. So really the only thing that you're looking at.

On these type of units, is you can pull the burner out, if you really think it's necessary, in that case. But really, what we're taking out is we're taking the hand holes off, the inspection hand holes. And these hand holes on these type of units, maybe at the bottom. Why is it important to have them on the bottom? Well, that's where you're gonna clean them out as well. Eric, you're smiling because you've been there, brother. You know what I'm talking about.

Is you remove these handhold plates and you look in and you see if you've got corrosion, you see one I you know, these boilers have a water line. So you're gonna have one that's in the proximity of the water line you can get some oxygen corrosion and pitting occurring in that area. but that's not the only thing you're gonna take off. You're going to also take and

Take your low water cutoffs off. It matters what you got. Do you have a probe? Let's remove that. Let's look at that probe. If we have a float chamber for like a McDonnell Miller or McDonnell and Miller, but McDonald Miller and MM, you're gonna remove that. You maybe from time to time you need to remove the burner. Okay. Does it have to be every year? No, not necessarily.

But if we're talking about bigger units like a a Cleaver Brooks fire tube boiler, we remove the integral burner out of that. if we see signs that you could have a crack diffuser, all right, yeah, we want to take that out. we see issues with the refractory, we want to take that out.

But on a boiler like that Cleaver Brooks, you're opening doors, both ends of it. You want to be able to see the tube sheet. You want to remove all the hand holes and if it has a manway to remove the manway off the top of the boiler, along with detaching things like your low water controls. These are all things

In the Navy we call it taking it down to parade rest or taking it down in cold iron when the boiler's off. Okay. And it's critically important not to skip any of these steps during this inspection. Don't let an inspector come in there when they when you get on the phone with them and says, Hey, what do you need me you know, what do you need me to do, Mr. Inspector? Just just remove one handhole over here and

Don't worry about the front door. Let's remove the back. You know, just open up the back door. we'll get the rest of that next time. Negatory. No, sir. He's not doing you any favors or she's not doing you any favors because there's a lot of females out there and they are excellent inspectors. Let me just tell you that. I've had a number of them go through my class and they are they're fabulous.

they're not doing you a favor, Eric, by saying, you don't need to remove those hand holes on the bottom of the boiler. What they're doing is they don't want to get their lazy butts down underneath it. They don't want to get dirty. They don't want to, you know, crawl under the boiler.

Any inspector want to give me a call and dispute that with me, I'd be more than happy to have that conversation with you. I've been around, I've done that, and I've got the t-shirt. Okay. Remove those hand holes, replace all those gaskets. You don't reuse gaskets on the fire side or the water side. You make sure those tubes are clean inside and out.

Just the the issue. This is where I start talking about it's not just safe operating. Safety's number one, but it's also an efficiently operating boiler, a safe and efficiently operating boiler. Efficiency always number two in that order. Okay. But we want to make sure that our client, when we're doing this inspection, understands that they may have issues going on that are costing them money.

Or could potentially over the course of time disable that boiler for a time or two and keep them down. And you're trying to do them a favor by not opening up a handhole, you're not doing them any favors. If they want to gripe and complain about it, you just I can show you, you know, what it says in the NBIC guidelines for it if you'd like.

And that's that's really what I think about that. What they should do is make sure if they don't understand what that is, bring somebody in who does. You can use it as on-the-job training if you have the staff. But then when we start buttoning this boiler back up after the inspection is done.

There's a lot to that. And I see a lot of issues. I've seen issues from service companies, Eric, that are supposed to be the quote unquote experts that aren't connecting certain things or putting bolts on a certain way. you got to tune that boiler. You open that boiler up. It doesn't matter what size that boiler is. If it's a combustion boiler.

It's using fuel. That boiler needs to be tuned once it's put back together. That's critically important to make sure that boiler's tuned. Not and just anybody can do that. It takes a lot of skill and experience. If not, next thing you know, you're replacing that boiler because you're going to have a furnace explosion. It may or may not.

rupture that vessel, but it's gonna do some damage to it. I used to call it taking a s taking a square and turning it into a circle. When you'd see furnace explosions of people not understanding the proper way to tune a a huge water tube boiler and

it's got this casing around the boiler that's not really built for pressure. it's some thick metal, but it's not really built for the pressure that you have. And next thing you have a a furnace explosion and this this cube turns into a sphere because it's it's blown everything out. Well, guess what? You're not firing that boiler for a long time. so make sure you have qualified people doing it.

or get your people qualified. Bring somebody in, somebody like you, Eric, somebody like me, somebody like another service company, and bring them in and and have them go through the process of it, of of how to properly tear that boiler down. if they want to learn how to set combustion, by all means spend the money, send them to schools that teach.

We don't do that. We stay, I stay away from that. but there are there are some service companies out there that that may do it. but maybe some schools out there that also do it to show setting combustion. I would say find you a good service company would be more efficient for you to find a service company that is really good at it.

And just pay them to do it. And and I I tell people all the time, you know, they say, Well, how often you should you do it? I'm a little bit more conservative. I say every three months. but I I go into it at least seasonally, as your seasons change. you should perform combustion. And and I sound like somebody that's, well, you're just marketing to the service companies and try. No, I'm not. I don't

I don't have a dog in that hunt. I'm giving you consulting advice and the consulting advice is seasonally checking that combustion, making sure your boiler is operating as safely and efficiently as possible, and it's gonna pay for itself

Eric Johnson (1:04:43)
So the inspector is looking at the overall condition of the boiler, not just the condition of the pressure vessel.

Marty Toth (1:04:50)
That's right. That's right. I I used to get very frustrated, Eric, when

I would hear inspectors say things like, we're not control inspectors. And I would say, well, you're not just you're not just a pressure boundary inspector either. And when you you look at things like the code, okay, so you ask the question, so what codes you work in? okay, I work in ASME, section one.

Section four, section eight, for those that aren't familiar, that's you know, power boilers, heating boilers, and unfired pressure vessels, right? Section eight Div one. okay, well, nothing in there says anything about this about, you know, what this control or this that or whatever. And I'm like, okay, what else do you reference in your in the rules and regulations of the state? Okay, well, you got

CSD one, controls and safety devices one. Okay, what does that cover? controls. safety devices. So if you are an in-service inspector that is also responsible to a reference code like CSD one or NFPA eighty-five for any boiler.

over 12.5 million BTUs of fuel input. then you're an inspector for that as well. You're not just a pressure boundary inspector. You need to learn the controls and safety devices because when you go in to do your inspection, you're not just looking to see if this thing is leaking. You're not just looking to see if

You see a an overheated spot on the side of the refractory, you should be going in there and making sure those controls and safety devices are working. That includes, you know, water level. Most inspectors, they understand, hey, we got a steam boiler. Does the low water cutoff work? Yes. Okay, great. What about the auxiliary low water cutoff? What about the flame scanner?

What about the high gas pressure switch? What about the low gas pressure switch? What about the combustion airproving switch? What about all these things that you have? Are they alarming? Are they giving indication that they're working properly or not? I think I shocked you maybe the last time we spoke when you've seen the the Dana Corporation boiler explosion years ago and and and

You just realized that I was the the chief inspector that wrote that?

Eric Johnson (1:07:34)
That's still my favorite report. Probably 'cause

it's one of the best reports out there, but it is so nicely done.

Marty Toth (1:07:42)
Well, thanks, brother.

Well, here's the thing with that and people say, and I say when I sit in code meetings and I'll ask questions and I'll say stuff, they say, Wow, you really speak up and you the I said, dude, a lot of this stuff's out of ignorance. I mean, I'm honest, I'm a sponge. I want to learn all the time. And a lot of what took me down that road is I mean, let's let's realize that was in two thousand seven.

so I was still in my 30s. And so I'm still learning. You know, I had my teeth kicked in for a few years as Chief inspector, so I'm still learning. And I came across that one and said, my gosh, this is the most obvious example of how I can crap the bed and operate in a boiler. And it was just like it just it just flowed, right? To say, my gosh, let's not.

Let's not do this. We need to, I need to make sure that this report is so thoroughly documented. And I learned so much just writing that report because it was so blatantly irresponsible. of from management all the way down. And so, you know, kind of going on that line, when you look at that, you understand.

That the inspectors that were involved in that were just as culpable as the operators and as the management because they did not document, that they did a thorough job of your quote unquote external inspection. We call it the operation inspection.

Well, what's the purpose of the operation inspection? But to make sure that while it's operating, those devices that will secure that boiler are working properly. Well, if you don't do an external inspection, you only do an internal inspection, you're missing half of it. And then when you do that internal inspection, you do not do a complete internal inspection.

You don't remove low water cutoffs, you don't remove probes, you don't open all the manways hand holes, anything like that, you're doing a disservice. So by that inspector's over the course of time and that listed in that report, just you know, they they were delinquent. The operators had no idea what they were doing.

They didn't know how to test those. So anytime we BTG does a custom class, we're the custom class is going to be on your equipment. It's not like you're, you know, BBO classes are great. We we identify equipment, but with the custom classes, we go into that particular location and we go through their equipment on their controls and their safety devices and you show them the the

proper processes and procedures. And it's so funny, Eric, how many times we'll we'll have a class and walk through and and we start doing these tests during the the demo time we're now the and and the control is not working. And you go, well that's great. I didn't set that up. You know, it just happened to happen. And you say, okay, well great. So now what do you need to do? And so now you have a real

real world situation of how you can solve that problem. And had that happen a number of times. And it's very eye-opening for everybody involved. So so yeah, so doing those inspections and making sure you understand the the operation of the controls and safety devices. And it's not just during that inspection, because let's remember a lot of jurisdictions, the low pressure boilers,

Steam or or or hot water low are only inspected once every two years. Unfired pressure vessels, same thing. Once every two years in a lot of cases. And some not at all. So just because a jurisdiction doesn't require for those pressure vessels being fired or unfired to be regulated doesn't mean

You should not inspect them. Doesn't mean you as an owner or a user should not take responsibility and bring in companies because not only is it your livelihood to keep your your operation going, but if something happens, now it's on you because somebody got killed. Do you want to be that person? You want to be that person that says, you know, I had the authority to to get a

a company in here every year or every six months or every quarter to to look at our equipment and I didn't do it because I wanted to save a little bit of money and then something happened or I didn't train my people properly and they flipped a switch the wrong direction and now they're not going home to their family. You know, I I don't want to be that person. So

Eric Johnson (1:12:57)
Yes, that's kinda what happened with less details at the Loy Lang box company in St. Louis. the even though it was required there was a lapse in inspection and the pressure vessel bottom blew out. But going back, I got a couple of thoughts. So I was always and have been unclear about what is the role of an inspector, 'cause I had an inspector one time, had a fire tube.

Marty Toth (1:13:05)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:13:24)
Boiler and had the refractory kind of looked like a let a rock slide into the Morrison tube on the rear door. And he said that I was like, you know, I was it was still partially there, but I was very concerned. it really needed a new rear door, but the customer was said, no, close it up. And I was like, Hey, can you like say anything with this? And he was like, Well, I'll recommend that they get it looked at, but I'm I'm

that's not my jurisdiction to tell them that the refractory 'cause I was concerned that the rear door was gonna start turning red. That was how much refractory was missing. And I was like, you know, well if this rear door metal starts turning red, like, you know, that's obviously a safety issue. So and but he was like, that's not my jurisdiction. I'm here to just look at the pressure vessel.

Marty Toth (1:14:12)
yeah, no, that's I I hate the fact that they take that approach. And and I don't want to speak for Ohio. I mean, obviously the National Board is in in Ohio, you know, so it's in Columbus. I I don't want to speak for Ohio and say, you know, what their rules say. I've it's been probably

Seven years since I've looked at their rules and regulations and nothing stood out to me that would say it's only the pressure boundary. but I think that inspector's completely wrong. the reason why I say that is what's to say, in it hypothetical here, if that particular inspector is saying refractory is not his jurisdiction, what about the donut ring going around the burner?

if it were to crumble, collapse, fall, impinge upon the flame, that causes an overheated condition that can cause a bulge in the morison tube, that then can cause a leak, that then c you see where I'm going with that, that then can cause disruption of the flow of the fuel, that then could lead to a fuel error.

ratio disruption that can cause a furnace explosion that and I can keep going on and on and on. Now what's gonna happen when they go back and they say, well, the inspector saw that there was a refractory that had fallen off that impinged, but he said it wasn't his jurisdiction he could only recommend. But that furnace explosion caused a rear door to blow off that just happened to be

in line with the boiler operator's workstation that then smashed them up against the cinder block wall. well that's just not my jurisdiction so I don't have to worry about that. That's that's baloney. That that is an inspector not wanting to step up and and again let me ask this question. You'll be going out on limb here. Was that inspector you spoke to was it the jurisdiction or an insurance inspector?

Eric Johnson (1:16:15)
Insurance.

Marty Toth (1:16:16)
All I need to say right there, or all you need to say right there. That is one of the bad raps that you get because there are so many excellent, excellent insurance inspectors out there, tremendous insurance inspectors that have a lot of care about the code. some of them have to be kind of like reined back a little bit and say, okay, let's not overstep that line of what the code allows you to do.

Okay, but I love your enthusiasm. But then there are some that are like, well, I don't want to make them mad. Because if I make them mad, and this is a big account, what are they gonna do? They're gonna go find somebody else. Okay, that's not gonna make them do it. And that's that's the concern that that I always had about that. Is the the jurisdictional inspectors.

sometimes

you know, could could could go overboard a little bit and and lean on the side of the bad versus the good or the black versus the white. Hey, we're gonna be understanding and give you an opportunity to correct this issue. it's harmful to the boiler. It can extend. I'm gonna give you okay, so let's schedule a shutdown. we got a little leaking tube down here. It's nothing dramatic.

But let's shut down in two weeks. Let's get this thing repaired and let's open it back up. That's acceptable. Some that say, hey, you know what? I'm not gonna worry about it. Let's just, you know, let's just plug these three fire tubes down here at around the the Morrison tube and let's let's keep trucking along because it's allowed. But that that's doesn't make any sense. So

Yeah, I I'm concerned. I I'm concerned when I hear somebody say it's not their jurisdiction. Their jurisdiction is the boiler. It's not just the pressure boundary. It's the whole boiler.

Eric Johnson (1:18:19)
Going back to your female inspector comment, I've I've only met one. She worked for an insurance company, and

backstory for those listening. I used to work for a service company and I would do a lot of these annual inspections as far as opening up the boiler and then have the other the inspector of the state come in and inspect it. So I would watch them and a lot of them would be

15 ish minutes f per boiler. And then this lady got hired. She came in and it was an hour and a half. And I was like, what is going on here? Like is what do you w what like what do you see in here? And she was just very, very thorough. And one of the jobs she found

Marty Toth (1:18:47)
Mm-hmm.

Why she making us stay here so long? Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:19:05)
improperly replaced stay rods on a fire tube boiler where and I don't know how they did it but they had replaced the stay rods and I'm not a stay rod expert but it needs to go all the way through the tube sheet and then get welded. Well they had cut them off

on the inside of the tube sheet and replaced the stay rods and made the weld on the back side of the tube sheet so the weld

Marty Toth (1:19:29)
Mm-hmm. Little fillet world.

Eric Johnson (1:19:33)
the yeah, the weld and the rod that you saw coming through the tube sheet was just a little plug from the old stay rod. And she only knew that because she like spent the time to like stick her head in the manway and like inspected every single stay rod and was like, hey, those do not look like factory

Marty Toth (1:19:51)
Mm.

For her

Eric Johnson (1:19:55)
And then looked up all the documentation, said, Hey, you guys don't have any stay rod documentation that they were replaced, and then like kept looking into it, looked into it, and an author an authoriz unauthorized company had gone in and replaced all the stay rods on the boiler. And if you don't know, stay rods are to hold basically it'll hold the b the tube sheet together.

And if you don't have those stay rods, the the tube sheet is gonna wanna bend or blow out essentially in the middle and kind of curve on a fire tube boiler. on a very simple explanation. But yeah, it's kind of stuff like that that

Marty Toth (1:20:47)
No, that's true. That's absolutely true. yeah, you see a lot of that, and that's very thorough of her. That's that's pretty darn impressive. a lot of the inspectors don't want to go through the issue of confined space.

I'm just gonna stick my head in there and look around. Well, you just broke the barrier. Okay. So you just broke the barrier. So you technically just entered confined space. And you know, so they they just half heartedly just, you know, flash a light around and and everything else. So that's pretty impressive that she picked up on that. And you know, there are a lot of like I said, there's a lot of good inspectors out there. It just seems like

when I I meet these female inspectors, they're they're I don't know what it is. I mean, it could be just the meticulous side of it. It could it could have something to do with the the hard track that they they've had in an industry that's dominated by males that they're like, you know

I'm not half stepping on this. I'm taking a lot of pride in this and I love that. And I'm gonna tell you, my clients probably don't want to hear it, but I'll see a I'll I'll go to some client location and there will be some fr female technicians in there that work for them that are just rock stars. And I'm like, if you ever decide that you want

to do something different, you let me know and I'll put you on a path because the industry needs very good inspectors. And it doesn't matter if you're male or female. you need good inspectors. And when I see these people, I I say all the time, and fortunately there's a lot of inspectors out there that are inspectors now or that have since retired that I met

during my time, you know, that I I talked to and maybe they were somebody had a plant or something like that. And they sat down and say, what's it like being an inspector? And I and I would sit there and I would help them on the side, you know, before they had the training that they had. And and there's quite a few of right now that I could name name off that are, you know, that are still or recently retired inspectors that

left what they're doing just because, you know, I saw something in them and I I encouraged them. And they they took the the route and they became inspectors just because I knew that for the betterment of the industry. And it's, you know, I'm not trying to rob people to come work for me. That's not what I'm doing my clients. I'm just seeing, you know, I like to see people better themselves with more experience and opportunities.

Eric Johnson (1:23:36)
So if somebody is listening to this and says, Hey, this inspector thing sounds interesting, how do they go about inquiring about being an inspector, either with an insurance company or a local jurisdiction?

Marty Toth (1:23:53)
Yeah, first things first is if you walk into a an interview with an insurance company or a jurisdiction already have passed the commission exam, unless you just completely blew the interview, okay, and walked in there and and and a pair of

you know, Tommy Bahama, you know, shirt and and shorts. they're probably gonna hire ya. so I would say if you have a position that you're at right now that that you can on the side invest in yourself to get the National Board Commission exam behind you, do that first.

Second, go to the National board.org website and look up the the jurisdictional chiefs and then also the list of authorized inspection agencies and reach out to them if they're in your area.

And reach out to that chief inspector. That information should be there. when you're when you're thinking about fee, you salaries have changed dramatically, but historically they're they're relatively the same. Insurance companies tend to pay a lot more than jurisdictional companies. obviously the insurance companies have a lot more pressure on them.

for production results. It's it's a for-profit organization, whereas the jurisdiction is not. However, you're still required to serve your territory. So you got to think about that. Are you willing to travel a lot to a lot more windshield time to go to different locations if you're willing to do that?

Probably insurance is good for you. If you want to be home every night, jurisdiction is good for you. if if you have a retirement, that was the biggest thing. And that's why I think salaries are so low for so long, is that you would get somebody that was ex military and retired. So they're already they're already getting a a pension from the military. some people that

y you know, I know now that one of my dearest friends retired from the military as a Vietnam veteran, served in the Navy, he retired, went to work for a company, worked there twenty years, retired from there, and then became a boiler inspector. And again now he's obviously since retired from all of it, but

He was able to supplement the lower salary working for the state because he had a pension somewhere else. So I would say if you've got somebody that has years in service working in the industry, and they say, you know, I want something that's that's meaningful but less stressful, but they have a pension somewhere else.

Becoming a boiler inspector is great, you know, because it allows you that freedom to continue to work, continue to get benefits, and have a meaningful job and bring your experiences from other jobs to it. I mean, that's a lot more attractive to an employer.

Eric Johnson (1:27:22)
The other part of an inspection is and probably the most important part of a pressure vessel other than its construction is the safety relief valves. What is an inspector looking for on the safety relief valves as far as condition wise and how often should they be tested if it is a steam one, maybe high pressure steam and or hot water?

For a relief valve. Technically a safety valve is for vapor service, a relief valve, liquid. but I see very conflicting information and of like, hey, they need to be ins tested every six months, they need to be changed every year, they need to be rebuilt. D what does the National Board say about that and what is inspectors are typically looking for?

Marty Toth (1:28:10)
You

know, that's a that's a really a great question because what what you'll see a lot of is misunderstanding, just like you said. And and you'll you'll see that sometimes in things like the National Board Inspection Code, of understanding the difference between a safety valve and a relief valve, and you'll hear

the term safety relief valve. And I teach people that this the term safety relief valve is a catch-all because it determines what its operation is, determines if it's a safety valve or a leaf valve. You you hit the nail on the head when you said steam or vapor service or gas or vapor service to be technical, because if we have

an air storage tank okay it has a safety valve on it the term that most people want to use is pop valve right and that's easy to say or to call it that because a pop valve is the action of that particular

device it's going to pop rapidly opening action. It's it's gonna pop open, makes a loud noise, and it goes from completely closed to completely opened. All right. A relief valve used for liquid service. Okay. So a lot of people when I say I use the word fluid, most of them think wet, most of them think water, most of them think liquid or whatever.

But a fluid is anything that takes the shape of his container. And you know, I often when I teach people, I'll hold up like I'm doing right now, I'm you know, hold up a water bottle that's that's half empty. All right. Well, is it half empty or half full, matters how positive you are. and say, well, well, what shape, what what's in there? Well, it's fluid. Well, it's not just the water, it's also the air, the gas on top.

And both of them are taking the shape of the container it's in. And so their their mind kind of blows a little bit. And then I bring them back down to the lesson plan, which is when it's a liquid service, okay, it's gonna have a gradual opening in relationship to the pressure on the seat or the disc of that valve. So it's gonna gradually open. And I give

The mental image of if I were to take this relief valve and I were to put it on a test stand and I were to inject water into the bottom of it at a pressure, as that pressure starts to increase to the lifting point of that valve, you would see water start to trickle initially out of the outlet of that valve. The more pressure I put to it, the more that.

disc is gonna lift and the more water is gonna come out to the point where it's fully opened and you get a gusher of water coming out. That's how they operate. Now to ask the question how how often they should be tested, okay you really could go back to the National Board recommendations.

Okay. And so the National Board recommendations have have gotten very precise over the years. It used to be it would say that you used to for steam boilers, for instance, used to manually lift, not not a pop test. Okay, that's different, but a manual test using the test lever.

Okay, or the tri lever, is that you would want to do it once a once every three months, once a quarter. Well, that's no longer the case. So when you start looking at boilers that operate up to 400 psi,

What the recommendation is is a manual test of once every every six months. That's that's a good test point. when you start getting over 400 psi, that's that's when it gets a little worrisome about doing testing.

manual testing. And for various reasons, obviously. Mostly because of the the actual pressure, the dangers of the pressure being released, also the temperatures that are associated being released. But really the physical part of it is when you lift those valves, the potential for damage to the seat and disc of that

device increases as the pressure increases. And it can develop with the just the velocity of the steam going past that seat can actually cut into that seat and into that disc and causes damage to it. So when you look at what what should be done in the way of testing, you're going to look at the code that's going to point you

to a steam valve should be replaced, overhauled, or tested annually. Okay. And you say you could say you say, well what is that? What do you mean? You just said you shouldn't test it. Well, this is what this is what the code is going to allow you to do.

It's that if we're going to take it off, okay, we can then take that to a valve repair company or a valve manufacturer to have that valve overhauled. Okay, they're gonna take apart that valve. They're going to replace certain components that may or may not need to be replaced.

They then are going to put that valve back together and then they're going to put it on a test table and make sure that it lifts to the at the appropriate pressure. And it also relieves

the appropriate capacity. I mean I can go into detail about what you know what capacity is, but I mean it may take a minute. but mainly when we when we think about that, we want to make sure that we're doing one of those three things. The other is obviously we can go out and and buy a new one. But that could get pretty darn expensive. Some of the smaller units,

Yeah, you're talking, you know, f four or five, six hundred dollars to replace, or you can spend tens of thousands of dollars on safety valves. I had a situation I think I may or may not have told you about this in in the past, where I had a client that that did pop tests. This is where we come to either

overhaul, replace, or test. And what we did for every year, because these valves replacing these valves on the top of this boiler, I want to say was somewhere between twelve and fifteen thousand dollars. Okay. And so every year, what

would happen is you do a pop test. So what does that entail? That entails actually closing down the steam outlet.

Putting that boiler into manual, which is going to bypass the controls, right? The automatic controls. And we're going to bring that boiler up, the pressure up. So it's still got water coming in it. Pressure's going to start building, right? And eventually, what's going to happen? It's going to come to a point where it's going to lift the safeties. And so it lifts the safeties.

We're verifying that obviously want to verify that the gauge is accurate, right? And then we're verifying that it's actually lifting at the pressure, at least one of the valves, because you could have staggered valves. We won't get into great detail about that. You could have, but you gotta have one at or below the maximum allowable working pressure of the actual the the boiler.

And so then you verify that it actually lifts at the set point. But then while you're doing that in the presence of the inspector, he's satisfied that it's lifting. But then you go on to check the capacity. It's called an accumulation test. And so as the steam pressure continues to rise.

And it goes past that set point, the code allows for it in the case of a steam boiler, it's six percent. Okay, above the set point. In the case of a water boiler, it's 10%. So an example would be: I have a a safety valve that has a set point of 100 psi.

That safety valve opens at 100 psi. The pressure continues to rise. As long as that pressure on that boiler does not exceed 106 PSI, the capacity of that safety valve is sufficient. so now what we've done is we've done a pop test.

And we performed an accumulation test. that should be satisfactory to the inspector that those valves are sufficient. Well, this particular client had a new inspector come in. Same company, new insurance inspector. And he comes in and he says, Nope, we haven't changed these valves out in a while. I want these valves changed.

And they did it. You know, they got their so they call it. Well, the next time I'm in there, because I've worked a lot of consulting services for them and Lightnus I'm in there says, Yeah, I said we we got two new valves coming in. I was like, something something happened to it. No, the inspector just made a change. I said, Hold on, but you told them annually you do a pop test and they keep mail, yeah, but he said

Said we haven't changed these in a long time, so we need to change them.

And I got on the phone because you know I'm not the chief inspector anymore, but they knew they knew who I was. And I didn't have any authority to tell me anything. I just very politely just told them, I said, you you realize not only did you cost them and I can't remember what it was 'cause I saw the invoices like twelve to fifteen thousand or twelve thousand five hundred, I can't remember. I said, but now they have to not only do that, now they're they're going to

have to pay the cost to get somebody to come in, take these down, take these out. And what do you want me want them to do with them? Well they can throw those, you know, they throw those other ones out or get them rebuilt. Let's say, okay, so now they got to take them and and cost them 12, 12, 5, whatever. And now you want them to send them off and now they're going to get rebuilt. Now don't get me wrong. There's there's a point where you say,

are these things gonna wear out and they need to be replaced? But do they really? Are they are they are they operating properly? Do we do a manual pull of them every six months? Yeah. So they lift, yes. Did they lift during the pop test? Yes. Did they leave the capacity? Yes. Then why are we replacing them? Now I could get somebody on this somebody commenting, and I'd love it. Call me and tell me like.

Hey, you know, you should do this. I may have a s a safety valve expert that that chimes in and says, Well, they have a a shelf life on the boiler. I know they have a shelf life on the shelf. Do they have a shelf life on the boiler? I've never heard of that. So with that being said, how often you should you do it? you can go to hot water boilers where

it matters what style type. It can be anywhere from a three-year. Usually you see a three-year cycle or a two-year cycle. manual testing. I stay away from manually testing, full-on manually testing temperature and pressure valves because of the components that they're made of. I like to call it whispering the valve a little bit where you just

You you make sure that you hear the little whisper of it it lifting because it's not getting the full force of of and not reseating There's nothing worse than pulling the TMP valve on the side of a water heater and it doesn't close back and now you're the bad guy in the room. I told you one time before, I said, man, it's a little sneaky. I'd say, Hey, come here made in a sec, crawl up on that ladder and go ahead and pull the pull that trilever on that.

That valve is like it it doesn't seek back and they say, Well, you told me to pull it. I said, Well, it's it's pretty much telling you it's time to be replaced anyway.

Eric Johnson (1:41:45)
So I've and you talked about it and I was gonna ask you about this. So it's officially called an accumulation test. So when you say put the boiler in manual, and I've I I've never witnessed this, but essentially you just have to jump out all the safeties 'cause there's no switch that says

on a typical package boiler that you just switch over and will automatically jump out all the safeties. Like you have to physically jump out the high limit and the operator in order to get the boiler to fire

Marty Toth (1:42:15)
No, actually is. If you if you look, so let's take, and it really matters about the controls you've got. So if you have you have a hawk system on on a boiler, it's gonna be on your HMI screen. You switch that over to manual, it will bypass.

have you the experienced the where it won't when you put it into manual?

Eric Johnson (1:42:38)
Okay, so yes, so when you have a a little higher like control system, but I was just I was just talking about hey, I have a Honeywell seventy eight hundred with manual controls. There's there's no way you can flip the burner into manual, but there's no way to manually bypass the high limit other than with a wire.

Marty Toth (1:42:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eric Johnson (1:43:06)
to get the 'cause the operator and high limit are always gonna be in the circuit with like a standard seventy eight hundred with like linkage control on a very simple boiler.

Marty Toth (1:43:19)
Are you saying on your operating control? On your operating control or on your high limit control?

Eric Johnson (1:43:25)
Both. They're always gonna

be there's gonna be never a switch that's gonna bypass those. You would have to make a wiring change.

Marty Toth (1:43:31)
Okay.

That it all depends on how the system is wired. What what type of boiler did you did you experience this on in regards to a seventy eight hundred? What boiler manufacture? Any of

Eric Johnson (1:43:52)
yeah, Cleaver Brooks, Kewanee Hurst. if you just have like a boiler from the seventies that has a seventy eight hundred and has all standard controls, no parallel positioning system, it's they're all gonna be wired slightly different, but when I read about an accumulation test

Marty Toth (1:43:58)
Mm.

Eric Johnson (1:44:12)
Basically the only way unless you have a special control system, the only way to get the boiler to fire past at and past the safety valve set points are to remove the electronic operator and electronic high limit from well I yeah, I guess if they well, wouldn't they can only be set up to the

Marty Toth (1:44:31)
Or reset them.

Eric Johnson (1:44:41)
safety valve set point. But so if you're trying to do an accumulation test and you want six percent, wouldn't they shut down the boiler say like at a hundred psi and you wouldn't be able to see if it gets up to a hundred and six.

Marty Toth (1:44:56)
Well, because your controller, if we're talking about a simple pressure troll, okay. We're talking about a simple pressure troll, that that pressure troll is going to in most cases is going to be set be can be set beyond the set beyond the safety valve. It's it's whatever the range of that controller is.

every scenario is going to be a little bit different in that case there. But I know that with the RM 7800, it's going to have obviously RM stands for relay module. That's what it is. And it's going to be going off of whatever.

input and output signals that that come into it. So if I were to take and set my control no different than let's say I'm gonna test my high limit control. How do I test my high limit control? I would dial it down to within the the range of my boiler operating to trip it right and then I'll dial it back up.

Eric Johnson (1:46:05)
if you have a hundred and fifty pound set pressure on your safety valve

you'll s typically if you have a honeywell pressure troll, you'll have 150 psi range on the pressure troll. So even if you set them at 150, the boiler is gonna be shutting down at 150 psi and you're not gonna be able to witness that the pressure doesn't rise six percent above the safety valve pressure set point.

So the only way to truly witness an accumulation test is to remove all the steam pressure safeties from the control and you're essentially putting a hundred percent of the operation of the of the steam pressure into the people watching the boiler run. The flame safeguard is still gonna make sure there's gonna be a flame in the chamber, but but

Marty Toth (1:46:56)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Eric Johnson (1:46:59)
you are watching the gauge and saying, you know, if it rises above a hundred and six and like keeps going, we're the ones that are shutting it down versus an electronic control.

Marty Toth (1:47:10)
No, and you're you're right on that. It's it's it all depends on the controls you have, the controls you have in place. so let's say for instance, you'll run into this. If I look at a high limit control, okay, my boiler, has an MAWP of 150.

Let's just use that as an example. And I'm using a pressure troll that has a range that goes up to 150, right? And my safety valves are set at 150. So this is very common of what you see. Because you're right. If I put it in manual, what I'm in essence doing is I'm overriding any modulating control I have.

Right, which I'm I'm the modulating control. The operating control, if I have a control that's set higher than that point, which you shouldn't, but you can, I can take it up to 150. Right? Let's say I take them both up to 150. If my safety valves are set at 150, you're absolutely right. I have no room to go.

Without bypassing. But I'm doing that, and that's why it has you do that in the presence of an inspector. Does that make sense? So when they talk about doing an accumulation test, it's always done in the presence of the inspector because you're able to verify that if in this case here, if I'm going up and above 150, okay, I'm going to 159.

Right? If I'm bypassing those safety controls, because let's be honest, the operating pressure control is the on off, but in our industry, we really call it the the high limit. What do we call the the true high limit pressure control? We call it the high high, right? Have you ever heard that term? Yeah.

Eric Johnson (1:49:19)
I've no, I've always

operating pressure control and high limit pressure control.

Marty Toth (1:49:26)
so so some in the industry, when you hear it, you will hear the term, and this is a good one. You can check that one off. Hey, I learned that. Is that they will call it the high set point, okay, on the operating pressure control. That's why most do not, even though it's an operating pressure control, it's the first line of safety. Okay. Because there's nothing in the code that tells you when the boiler has to turn on.

It only says when it turns off, when steam is satisfied, right? And so the high limit control is the high high. So you've got a high set point, the highest we want to go, and then you have a high high. so I teach that to people because I said, you may hear this term. I'm going to teach you it's called a high limit pressure control, and it's an operating pressure control, right? Right. We're all good. We're all good.

But then if I have a big boil, like I have a client in Georgia that has a huge boiler system, right? They're they have a a high limit control and then they have a high, high limit control. And you're like, well, where's my operating pressure control? Well, you don't have one because this control is what the code requires, is I'm going to turn it off when my operating pressure has been met.

That's your high. Then it's I've got to have another one that has a manual reset attached to it just in case this first one fails. Now let's go back to our initial discussion, which you brought up a very valid point. It's how am I going to get past when I'm doing an accumulation test? Because if I do have a control set point, which I'm probably not going to.

Because codes probably gets in the way of this one, I can adjust it beyond that point. So if I have an operating pressure control at 150, a high limit control that goes up to 150, and MAWP that's 150, but I have a safety valve that's set at 100 PSI. So when I do my accumulation test, what am I going to take it to? 106.

Okay, that valve has a capacity limit of that boiler at that psi. So that that valve is going to lift at 100 and 100 psi. It is going to continue to rise because I'm going to continue to accumulate. I'm continuing to increase the capacity to verify that.

I'm relieved of the capacity of that safety valve. And that is determined by the pressure.

So now your questi yeah, your question about is right spot on about the operating pressure control and the high limit control if they're all at that same level. Do you know how many I've seen where the high limit control and the safety valve are set at the same?

They'll have they'll

have a safety valve set at 150. They only operate up to 100 psi, but they'll have a safety valve set at 150 and they'll have their high limit limit set at 150 as well. Doesn't make a lot of sense. That's a situation there that the inspector has to be involved because the inspector's got to be able to say, Hey, I cannot have my high limit more than my MAWP.

Right? Can't have that by code. And so therefore, what is my operating pressure? And my operating pressures is 100. My safety valve is set at 100. My high limits set I can I can manipulate that without doing any bypass, manual bypass. because then I can lift up my operating pressure control up.

As long as I can. But if I if they're all the same, they're all 150, operating pressure control max is one fifty, safety valves one fifty, and your high limits one fifty. Yeah, you're absolutely you you absolutely have to do some wiring and bypass of that system. So I'm sorry if that kind of confused you there. I was my brain was thinking I'm not gonna have everything set at the same up here. I've got some wiggle room in between.

And that's where I didn't understand.

Eric Johnson (1:53:54)
Yeah, I understand I just in my learning desire am kinda disappointed that I've never done an accumulation test.

Marty Toth (1:54:02)
Go

do one, man. They're fun.

Eric Johnson (1:54:04)
Yeah, I've never had an inspector that said, Hey, jump out all the safeties and let's see what this bad boy makes.

question. in the McDonnell Miller manuals for the for the floats, it says replace the control every five years. Is that a marketing and CYA 'cause I've had customers and or people reach out, say like, Hey, it says this in the manual that we need to replace every five years.

Marty Toth (1:54:34)
Are you talking about the head? Replace the head? Okay.

Eric Johnson (1:54:36)
Yeah, like a one like a one fifty head

Marty Toth (1:54:53)
Yeah, I think it I think it is. It's like anything else that's out there that if it's mechanical, it has the potential to break. The issue all comes around the two different types of well, I would say it's more like three. it's the people don't that don't care about operation, they're gonna flip a switch and leave the boiler.

Then you have the people that think they're really safe with operating their boiler and half step it. You know, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. And then you go, you got people that are religiously every single day, they're doing what they've been taught to do by somebody that kind of knows what they're talking about. They're trained properly and they're documenting.

If I had the operation, some some people, you if you're not testing it every single day, your McDonnell Miller or whatever low water cutoff advice you have at a bare bones minimum, Eric, should be tested at least once a day, once every 24 hours. Okay. Auxiliaries.

Auxiliaries, bare bones minimum, should be tested once a week. Okay. Auxiliary low water cutoff. the reason I usually say once a week is that for those units that have a probe type auxiliary low water cutoff that's installed, let's say it's installed on the top of the a fire tube boiler per se, to get that.

To actually do a real world test, I'm going to have to drain the water level down. that's why we've talked about this. I highly recommend my clients that have a boiler with a top-mounted probe especially on your fire tube boilers, is to go off the opposite side of the main low water cutoff.

And put in a column. You can keep it as a probe. That's fine. They make them. And use like a warrick control or something like that. And put a separate water column for that probe to be mounted in. So that you can test it the same way you do your main. The only difference is is once it the boiler shuts off. Now we have to test the manual reset and make sure it starts back.

in that case, you know, you you you s you do them on a regular basis. You can do them both and boiler be back up and running in five minutes. Right. if I'm that type of company, I'm not worried about it. Where the manufacturer's gonna come in is say,

You're it's almost an insurance policy type thing. It's like if I if I tell you to change this out every five years, you're not gonna have a nuisance breakdown. Okay. Now I know that in in some jurisdictions, holding parts on the shelf, and I'm not a tax person, but I you know, I understand that you get taxed on some of that stuff that's sitting on your shelf.

somebody smarter than me about that can answer better. But you keep those parts and pieces and controls handy, right? I'm not worried about the column itself. I'm worried more about the head. Right. So if I have that component there or if I have a service company that's right down the road that I can send Eric the expert over to to go grab me a grab me a head and come wired it on.

Just maintain your stuff, man. You maintain it. It's gonna last for years. I've seen them out there where, you know, you go for a decade without seeing a new head. And then you'll walk in one day and you see this, you know, sparkling black head with no dust and dirt and grime on it. Say, what happened it went out on us. okay. So that was ten years, not five. But

Eric Johnson (1:59:04)
Or the new health and safety manager came into the boiler room and they found out that they had mercury in their boiler room and they're like, We can't have mercury on our site. We need to replace all those switches.

Marty Toth (1:59:14)
I well yeah. Okay. Yeah. Mercury switches were were

the rock stars, man. I'm gonna tell you, yeah, I get it. we've talked about this where in a at a service company you see this tin can and you look in there and you see all these little bulbs of mercury where when they discarded the old, they would clip those so they'd have disposal, proper disposal.

I get that, but those Mercury switches, they they they were very reliable back in their day. Snap switches, they gotten better, but yeah, Mercury is pretty pretty good stuff to have.

Eric Johnson (1:59:54)
Last thing I want to mention before we wrap up is the you and you touched on it, bringing an outside company. for the sake of that poor person that is coming in for that outside company and the sake of the inspector, how soon should s an a owner shut down their boiler? Because when I was doing this, I had a well meaning intentioned operator.

Marty Toth (2:00:13)
Yeah.

Eric Johnson (2:00:19)
When I would show up at 7 a.m. and the inspections at ten a.m. And they said, Hey, I came in early at five AM to shut down this boiler that's operating at 120 Psi for you to give it time to cool down. I'm like, thank you. It still has eighty pounds of pressure on it, and I'm supposed to be opening this thing. How soon should we be shutting down our boiler before an inspection?

Marty Toth (2:00:39)
Yeah.

Great question. Twenty-four hours is my answer at a minimum, but that is a knee-jerk response. Here's the thing. Let me kind of get a little bit more background information. what was their per s his procedure for quote unquote cooling off the boiler?

Eric Johnson (2:01:02)
I've had people do some wild things, but most in my experience it's just hey, sh sh turn off the burner switch and and let the boiler sit.

In the case that there's multiple boilers, you're gonna isolate the the header valve so that as we all know, non returns leak back. I think that's a scam, non returns none of ever hold past two weeks old.

Marty Toth (2:01:26)
I've I've heard yeah,

I've heard I've heard that for years. non returns and the the problem is is nobody do they really open their their bleed valve in between. You know, do they even have one? Yeah, I get ya. I'm with you.

Eric Johnson (2:01:38)
Yeah. But

ice isolate the boiler, isolate the feed water like and just allow it to naturally cool is the typical instruction. But I've had people power cool where they'll set the fan into purge and that will work. And I've but I've also had people drain the boiler hot, which is not good.

Marty Toth (2:01:55)
Mm-hmm.

No, ever, never, never.

Eric Johnson (2:02:05)
And then

try to refill it, which

Marty Toth (2:02:08)
shoot me now. Yeah. Let me start a service company and make money retubing boilers.

Eric Johnson (2:02:10)
Yeah. Well

Tell tell tell the listeners why you should never drain a hot boiler.

Marty Toth (2:02:18)
Well, yeah, here here we go. And and I I love this because this is a good good last question to to have. number one, let's talk about your s your scenario that that you had. You said that that you had a client that came in, they run in the b I think you said one twenty five, a hundred and twenty five PSI at five in the morning.

you show up at 10 five hours later and it's roughly yeah five. you show up at seven. the inspect you show up at seven, inspector's coming at ten, it still has eighty pounds. Okay. So here's the issue is let's talk about about temperature. So if I'm at a hundred psi, I'm three hundred and thirty-eight degrees.

Eric Johnson (2:02:48)
Well yeah, so the they shut down the boiler at five, I show up at seven, inspectors come in at ten.

Marty Toth (2:03:11)
150s, 366. So that makes 125, I think somewhere around 350, 353, something like that, right? 353. That's hot, man. That's hot. So how are we gonna get rid of that energy? Because that's what it is. Okay, is we're talking about the energy. Energy, we do not create it or destroy it, it's just transferred.

Right. We all know that. well, we don't all know that, but you and I know that. so what does that mean? So that means we get the energy from a boiler, from the fuel that's in in the gas that we're putting in the boiler, then we transfer it over to the water. I think we've talked in the past about the the camp the campfire paper cup trick.

where where you take a a Dixie cup, little paper Dixie cup or whatever, you you poke a stick or a rod through it, fill it up, you know, so you can hold it over the fire, over the fire, right? And it's got water in it, and you're holding it over the fire, and the paper cup burns or doesn't. No, it does not burn. Why does it not burn? Because it has water in it.

And the energy from the fire is transferring through the paper cup over to the water that is going to start to boil and evaporate, right? Until the point that the water is gone. At that point, the paper cup will catch on fire. So now let's talk about what happens.

When we have a boiler that's running. And one of the reasons why we want to get away from excessive cycling of a boiler. What does that mean? That means a boiler turns on and turns off a lot, goes through its cycle, right? Why do we want to get away from excessive cycling? We want our boiler to come up and stay up, right? Every time that boiler goes down, what continues to run for an ex

A period of time. The blower motor. Okay. So if heat transfers from hot to cold, transfers from the flame gases to the water, whenever that boiler turns off and we start blowing air through it, now which direction is the heat transferring? It's transferring from the hot water.

Over to the cooler air. Now, if we drain off the water from that boiler, we have nothing to be able to transfer the energy of those hot tubes to. So if we have nowhere for that hot gases that got shut off by that boiler being turned off.

Those tubes are still hot. There's still energy in those tubes. We're not blowing any air through that boiler. And we decide we want to drain that boiler down. First off, if we were at 125 PSI, 353-ish degrees, where are we dumping that water to?

Okay, we're gonna dump it to the drain. What do you think's gonna happen? Hopefully your blow blow down separator, the aftercooler is working properly. Okay, because if it's not, we're sending very, very, very hot water to a drain system that is going to cause some damage.

Drains, you cannot send water over 140 degrees Fahrenheit to your drain system. Okay, that's one. Then somebody's gonna be smart and say, Hey, I know how to cool this down. Same way I cool down my hot soda, I'm gonna put ice in it. Have you ever poured a warm soda over cold ice? What immediately happens to that ice?

Eric Johnson (2:07:40)
It cracks, yeah.

Marty Toth (2:07:41)
It starts to crack. You hear it cracking. It's is thermal shock one way or the other. Well, now what we have is is we've got the opposite of that. We still have these hot tubes that we are going to inject cooler water into. No different than the possibility of a dry fire condition that happened at Dana, right?

Where we had hot tubes.

the burner still operating. And then we injected cool DA water, feed water into the boiler that caused a thermoshock.

Furnace or dry fire explosion. Well, we're my we may not have the same force, but what's gonna happen is, and I say that, you might have the same force if it's still hot enough and you drain that water down, what's gonna happen is.

Is these hot tubes are going to start to try to release their energy and they are going to start trying to pull away from the tube sheet. Then when I put cool water into it, you're going to have a rapid flash that then is going to completely pull these tube sheets, these tubes away from the tube sheet. And the majority of those tubes.

are probably roll rolled into place and not welded in place. All right. So how to cool that boiler down properly? Well, just like you said, you said that somebody would get into a purge position and mechanically cool it down. Absolutely. Okay. So what are we gonna do? Let's say we have the

RM Honeywell RM 7800 series. Well, we turn the boiler off, get it to cycle down, goes to cycle back on. Once it gets into the purge cycle, we are going to reach up and we're going to flip the switch that's on the top of the blue cube from run to test. What that does is that will hold.

That particular boiler, we could do it at any stage. We can if I wanted to check to see if I'm getting a spark, right? Before I do anything else, I can switch it in and to switch it into test, and it will sit there and spark, spark, spark for me to go back and look to see if I'm actually getting a spark, if I'm by myself, right? So I can do that when it's during purge.

And so I flip that switch, I hold it in to purge, and I just sit it sit there and let it. And so now what we've done is we've then reversed heat transfer, haven't we? And so now the air that's being sucked in from the boiler room is going to be substantially cooler than the water that's in the boiler. And so what's going to happen is is so now I am going to start.

blow in the air, the air is going to get warmer, it's going to leave the boiler. And now we have heat exchange occurring and that boiler will s water will start cooling down. the steam inside of the boiler, this is why we still shut our valve, even though Eric, like you said, non returns are are just what they are.

And so then the water will start to condense or the steam will start to condense in the boiler. Your water level, yes, will start increasing. You will get if it's only one boiler in the system, you're gonna you need to start opening up your opening up your drain valves for your your steam traps, or you're gonna start flooding that system again and

Eventually that boiler's gonna cool down.

So don't wait to the last minute.

Eric Johnson (2:11:58)
The best plan is one that is written down and followed and I understand there's situations that are not ideal, but boiler safety is your safety and p off putting boiler safety or not doing a proper inspection, to try to maintain production or all that stuff is

a short term vision. I wanna thank you for sharing your insights. If if you all haven't listened, go back to listen to episode fifty five where he told a little bit more of his backstory and also dropped two more hours of knowledge. he Marty is a very knowledgeable person and I appreciate having him on. How how can people find you?

Marty Toth (2:12:21)
Yeah.

Well, you can go look our training page. We got a training page, Boisco training group, B-O-I-S-C-O training group dot com. And we can go there, you know, you can go there and find information on training. and then if

If you just need my assistance, by all means, you can you can always give me a call. The numbers are on that page for any consulting work and stuff like that. But we just really have the one training page website and get all my information there.

Eric Johnson (2:13:16)
Thank you. That was great. I learned a lot and hopefully the listeners learned too and appreciate having you on again.

Marty Toth (2:13:23)
Anytime, brother. I appreciate you and the work you do, Eric. And got a l a lot of years of of you in this industry, brother. it's good to know that when I decide to go on to play golf full time, which my wife never gonna let happen, but we I know that we have guys like you that are that are out there going have picked up the reins and gonna troop on.

Eric Johnson (2:13:51)
Absolutely. It's never too late to start learning. You can you can do it when you're twenty, you can do it when you're thirty. Don't don't I try to tell young people all the time

Marty Toth (2:13:56)
Right.

Eric Johnson (2:14:03)
Don't wait till you're fifty to be an expert. You can be very knowledgeable at twenty-five. Yes, understand that you don't have experience, but if if you put in the work, you can be knowledgeable at twenty-five and thirty. This belief that y you can't know anything till you're fifty years old is probably propagated by the people who are in their sixties and seventies and who are the people who had hundred question written tests.

Marty Toth (2:14:09)
Absolutely.

Eric Johnson (2:14:28)
that were all long form math and said this is the only way to do it. so

Marty Toth (2:14:31)
Yeah. No way, brother. No

way. That's the one thing. The last thing I'll leave you with is people out there that that are the younger. You guys are the future. You guys and gals are the future. And be open to those that do have the knowledge because those people, you'll learn a lot of good. You'll learn some bad. Just know how to filter through it and keep learning.

Eric Johnson (2:14:58)
Always be learning. Absolutely.

74. Mastering Boiler Inspection with Marty Toth

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