Tales from the Trenches, stories forged in the fires of experience.
This episode brought to you by UEI Test Instruments and their wide range of high quality testing
tools.
Take a look at UEITest.com.
All right thank you everyone for joining Tales from the Trenches.
So we're walking up to this home and we're going to do an inspection on the furnace and
we get out our tools, we do an analysis of the system and our meter, our combustion analyzer,
is giving us some good readings on this particular piece of equipment.
Now how do we know that our combustion analyzer is actually performing the way it's supposed
to?
Well a lot of people think about the combustion analyzer and the maintenance that is required
on combustion analyzers.
So today we're hanging out with our good friend Louise Keller from UEITest Instruments and
we're going to talk a little bit about that misperception of the maintenance of combustion
analyzers.
Well thanks for having me today Clifton.
Love talking about this topic.
One of my favorite topics to talk about dangers of carbon monoxide, combustion analyzers and
how to properly service them.
So one of the interesting things about combustion analyzers is you know most of them have an
oxygen sensor, they have a CO sensor and maybe a CO2 sensor.
Years ago we actually got rid of the oxygen sensor because that was the sensor that would
die out on you pretty regularly.
But then there's still a maintenance that needs to happen because CO sensors they can
drift over time.
You know there's more to your analyzer than just that sensor though as well.
So when we're talking about an analyzer right because it's also taking your stack temperature.
It's taking ambient air temperature.
It has a pump that works on it.
And if you're just changing a sensor what are you really accomplishing?
Are you verifying that everything else out there is working properly?
So one of the things that we do at UEITest Instruments is that you know we've always
encouraged people to have those recertified to have somebody really take a full look at
the picture of your combustion analyzer.
Right because me as a technician I mean it's on and it's working or it's giving me an
error code or it's off right?
So I'm not completely aware of the condition of my test instrument when we're you know
we're doing a vital test on a piece of equipment.
Yeah one of the things I like to talk about in the classes that I teach happens to be
about a CO sensor.
So there's two things a CO sensor if you walk into a house and when you walk into the house
the ambient air should be zero on that CO.
We shouldn't be seeing any of it.
But there's a couple of possibilities that could happen.
Maybe there is CO present but if you haven't had your analyzer checked and tested to verify
that that CO sensor is working properly you could also get a zero reading when you walk
into that house which would be a false zero.
So by having it recertified it's actually checked and tested against gases.
And at the end of it you get a certificate that's going to allow you to see what your
instrument tested against in those an actual lab atmosphere.
Exactly exactly.
But one of the other things is that we've heard in the industry that getting your analyzer
recertified has been a little bit of a of a pain.
It has been because there's two components when you're really looking at a combustion
analyzer is your upfront cost and then you have your secondary cost.
And we heard what the struggles were and we have come out with a really great new service
program for our combustion analyzer which is UEI Service Plus.
So any of our brand new C160 combustion analyzers we offer some some promises for you when you
go online and use our website UEITest.com black backslash service.
But we wanted to encourage you to have your test instruments calibrated on the annual.
So one of the things that we did the first thing we did is every year you get it recertified
you get another year warranty on your combustion analyzer for up to 10 years.
The next thing that we heard is how long are we going to be out of that combustion analyzer
or if we have to send it in.
Absolutely that's a vital tool.
So we opened up many years ago we have our service facility in Indianapolis Indiana.
It's a NIST and ISO certified lab that we use.
We have actually gone through and we offer same day service.
So things that land in Indianapolis on a Wednesday morning are actually going out to back on
the UPS truck Wednesday afternoon.
So we redid our entire way that we do things in our facility to make it as efficient as
possible.
And then the next thing that we did is if you go through and you use our website to
go through it you're actually going to get shipping paid for by us to us and from us.
So we've taken all that danger out.
And it's really important though to have that analyzer recertified every single year.
And I use the term recertification instead of just calibration because it's a full comprehensive
program that we're doing on it.
So if it moves on that instrument we're checking it if it's reading if it's taking readings
we're going to verify that it's working because we want you to feel confident when you're
out there in the field that your instrument is working properly.
Some of the things that I've seen over my time here at UEI is that inevitably somebody
has had an older analyzer that maybe had that oxygen sensor.
And they'll turn it on and they'll be like oh no it still works fine.
I'm still getting a reading.
I'm still getting a are you zero or something.
But still it's not an error.
It's not that I have a dead sensor.
Exactly.
And you know I remember one of the first classes I taught a guy was like I've never used it.
It's still good to go.
Unfortunately the analyzer was about four or five years old at that point which one
begs the question why he hadn't used it.
But two he turned it on for me and I was like oh you're going to have to send that in for
service and he goes how do you know.
And I said well your oxygen is zero.
Right.
So nothing in here.
Absolutely.
You know one of the other stories since since we're doing some Tales from the Trenches I
used to do a little bit of our tech support and I remember a guy called me and he was
super angry and you know unfortunately as a manufacturer there's always somebody out
there that's going to be angry about something.
You can't make everybody happy.
You can't.
And he was really he was really upset and he was he was going through he was talking
to me about his analyzer and he said it's not reading anything.
I'm not getting any readings.
And I said oh I'm sorry.
He said it won't zero out.
And so I'm thinking there's a problem with some some carbon monoxide.
Maybe he spiked his sensor or something like that.
So you know I go through all the troubleshooting and he's like no it still won't zero out.
I said OK.
Well I you know what.
Can you just read me what's on your display screen.
Yeah.
And he goes oh two twenty point nine.
It won't zero for me.
And I had to stop for a moment and I had to really think about that one.
How do you respond.
We want twenty point nine oxygen in ambient air and it's do you enjoy breathing.
Yes.
OK.
Then your oxygen is fine.
What's your CEO.
Well it's zero.
That'll zero out.
But I can't get the two to zero out.
So I think unfortunately that was a little bit of a training fail.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Because as I as I teach classes across the country you know there's there's there's always
a story.
It may not be the contractor that's in the class but there there is somebody who had
a story or a buddy that had a story or something like that.
So how often do you get combustion analyzers that come in for routine maintenance just
to discover that they need significant maintenance and sensors replaced that are completely out
of calibration.
So I'll tell you I don't actually know what that exact number would be.
But the way is it a lot.
You know as far as people sending them in to be recertified that's a that's a pretty
regular regular thing for our contractors.
The ones with significant damage.
I really don't know that number.
But the good news is as long as it's not something that you know was obvious misuse like you
ran over it with your truck or threw it off you know threw it into a wall that whole service
program actually will cover those type of things as long as it's not from you know neglect.
That's why I was like all right.
You can see the details on our website and everything like that.
But it's it's covered under that.
So whether you know a sensor were if a sensor were to die within you know that warranty
period it's covered.
You don't have to think about it.
You don't have to worry about having extra charges.
We do flat rate pricing.
So everything that's in that handheld analyzer is going to be checked and tested for you.
Because it's important right.
We want to make sure that our test instruments are up to what the specs should be.
Because if something drifts over time.
You can wind up in some very dangerous situations out there.
Absolutely.
So I think about you know how many combustion analyzers are out there.
That's the whole reason for this discussion.
How many combustion analyzers in the field are reading incorrect readings that are you
know potentially have dangerous atmospheres only because we haven't had our tool maintained
properly.
Absolutely.
And I it's a little scary out there.
One I'd like to thank everybody who does have a combustion analyzer out there and to hopefully
this will encourage you to get one because it's it's not only a safety tool right.
It's a piece of mind for the homeowner.
It's a piece of mind for you.
By having those tools being able to show what those results are.
That's you know that's been one of our specialties for many many years.
Making those combustion analyzers and we heard the struggles and that's why we redesigned
our combustion analyzers to make them easier for you to use.
We redesigned our service program to encourage you to make sure that they're up to date.
To make sure that they're within spec.
Nice.
All right.
So moral the story is annually your combustion analyzer needs to be serviced to keep you
from dangerous situations so that you are not coming back with tales from the trenches
of your own.
Absolutely.
I don't want to have to tell a story about anybody that's listening out there today.
All right.
No we have plenty of stories to share on that.
We'll bring in probably Bob Dwyer sometime to share some of our deep tales from the trenches
on carbon monoxide.
Carbon monoxide is a deadly scenario in many many many instances and proper maintenance
of tools is the first step in assuring that we're doing a proper evaluation and inspection.
Absolutely.
All right.
Well sweet.
Thanks for joining us Louise.
Thanks for having me today Clifton.