Everything Gas Engineers Should Know About Flue Analysers w/ Dan Tempest

If your van ever gets broken into and your tools get taken, the one thing that will— you will always be able to make money from is your analyzer. You could get by— you can get by with basic hand tools, even if they're your best tools. You could get by with basic hand tools as long as you have your analyzer. But if you don't have your analyzer, work's gone. Don't leave your analyzers in your van under any— you shouldn't really leave your analyzers in your van anyway.

Is it just because of the temperature or the moisture build-up?

Temperature, drop in temperature could cut contribute to moisture buildup, which then nukes all the internals of the analyzer. It's so bad, it's so bad for them, it's unbelievable.

This is the Field Rocket Podcast. I'm your host, Alec Priest, and today we're joined by Dan Tempest from ST Plumbing and Heating. He is also an ambassador for Anton, and today we're going to be talking about analyzers. Thank you for coming and welcome to the show.

Always a pleasure.

Yeah. How did you become an ambassador for Anton?

So I've worked with, I've used Anton Analyzers for a lot of years, and down to how, like, I've progressed with social media. I've used social media as a marketing tool for my business to kind of educate customers on how or what they should be expecting from jobs, and then that's kind of spiraled into what it is now from a social media perspective. So what you find then is that you get— because I was using Anton equipment in a lot of my posts and things like that, then you build up a rapport with these companies and then you kind of get brought into the fold and we've kind of moved from there. So what— with, especially with the Anton analyzers, it's something that I've used for a long time. I think that with ambassadorships and things like that, what's really, really, really important is that you can believe in the product that you're using. So when they're great products, it's very, very easy, and it was an obvious choice for me to get on board with.

And for analyzers, I'm not a gas engineer, and from a lay point of view, We do, we have analyzers and they integrate with our software, so I'm on the software side. I had the impression that they were all the same. Could you actually just tell us a little bit more about analyzers?

Right, so what you've got with analyzers, you've got, there's various manufacturers across the market and But what you've got to do is— what they do is the key, the key parts of what an analyzer is, it's flue gas analysis. So we're looking at air quality, we're looking at combustion readings, um, you see how when you CO2 relationship, uh, ratio, uh, relationship to make sure that the appliance is burning correctly, um Now if it's not, the analyzer will then tell us what's going on. But also, they— you've got analyzers because everybody, everybody has certain elements of the job that they need certain different things for, for measuring temperature, measuring pressure differentials, measuring burner pressures, measuring all sorts of different things. And so what you find is that you've— certain analyzers don't do this. Certain analyzers, you can get analyzers that just are straight up, they will read flue gases, that's it. Um, and then, but you get analyzers that will do a massive list of other things as well.

Okay, so, but if you look, if you're thinking about your straightforward flue analyzers, you know, you're— they all in theory should come up with the same numbers. Um, they should be the same readings.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, you will get tiny, tiny little variations, but I mean, that's, uh, there's got to be tolerance in anything that's electronic. But yeah, the— if you, if you add— if you had 5 analyzers and put them all into the same flue at the same time, they should in theory all gonna be somewhat close, very, very similar. Yeah.

So if you are like new, like let's say you've newly qualified, whatever, um, how do you actually choose which one?

Well, it's— you've got to do your research. First of all, you've got to, you've got to understand what your job is. What are you going to need?

If you're doing like domestic landlords, safety certificates, CP12s.

So if you're doing— if you're going out just doing, say, CP12s all day, every day, nothing more, you need something that's going to give you tightness testing Flue gas analysis. Yeah, I would always, always have something that measures temperature, um, temperature differential.

When do you actually use that? Because it's not on the CP12, is it?

It's not on the CP12, but what happens— what it's good for is it's very, very good for if you're in a scenario where, say, you're doing a CP12 on a house where there's vulnerable people and things like that. Or you've got anti-scald protection.

Sorry, what was that?

Anti-scald protection.

What is that?

It's basically, so if you turn the tap on, you can't get burnt.

Oh, it's good. Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So what happens then is you can just clamp— you clamp onto the— clamps on the— onto the, uh, onto the pipework leading, coming out of the tap or the outlet, and you can measure the temperature.

Okay.

So you can walk away from that property saying, I checked that, that's fine. That is a requirement on certain, not as a standard CP12, but if you get called in, like I say, into properties with vulnerable people, care homes, that kind of thing.

Okay, so is that a legal requirement from Health and Safety? Exactly.

On certain, it's a requirement if it's stated, if it's stipulated within the terms of what you're asked to do.

Okay.

So like I say, it can be, you can just say, okay, so there'll be a like contractual thing at the site of Health and Safety. Yeah, it steps beyond like a basic CP12, that's not part of a CP12. Uh, but also what it does, it allows you to— with the temperature clamps as well, you can measure temperature differential, which is, uh, its correct name is, is delta T, and that's temperature differential between flow and return.

So that's the delta between the two.

Yes. So what that means is that you can check that that boiler is exiting out at one temperature, returning back at another temperature, and then the rating condensing boilers, that should be roughly about 20 degrees. If it's working correctly.

So, and if it's outside of that range, does it, does it mean the boiler is not sized correctly, or—

not necessarily. What it just means is that it's not dispersing its heat correctly. Um, and what— this is a big thing that we get into, it's the, it's the non-condensing condensing boilers, because if you narrow that gap, it doesn't condense, meaning that it's—

you—

the boiler's not working efficiently. Which unfortunately accounts for the majority of boilers that's out there.

So is it— is the issue predominantly when that's— when it's less than the 20 degrees or higher?

The problem is when it's narrower than 20.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, because like I say, you can't condense because it's the temperature coming back is too close.

Okay.

You can't— you don't— you don't get the temperature differential, so it can't condense.

Okay. Anything else that you should kind of look for if you're—

I think if you just— I think if you're just doing basic gas work, that's, they're kind of your priority. They're kind of your main requirements, which is your flue gas analysis, your tightness testing, and your temperature sensing. Because like I say, they are really, really important. And by flue gas analysis, I'm kind of generalizing what that means. So it's got to be able to do clean air flue gas analysis. So you've got to be able to pick up your parts per million, your ratio, and your CO2 content.

Yeah, and we're talking predominantly domestic here or a bit of like commercial?

Yeah, predominantly domestic here. Like I say, commercial, when you start moving into commercial, you've got to change the analyzers, require a lot more. So there's a different version.

I'm kind of putting you on the spot this, like, but do you know actually how the analyzers work?

To a certain extent. I mean, I'm not going to pretend I know how they go into processing all the information. I know that basically it draws a continuous sample through the tube, and then that tube goes back, that then that goes back to a processor which calculates boiler efficiency, CO/CO2 ratio, oxygen content, that and a couple of other measurements like that. So that's it in a tiny little nutshell.

Okay, I won't push you too much. So when you're actually, do you kind of have any like practical tips on actually using the analyzers?

Um, what, from a, from an actual use or just, just in general?

Probably both. I don't really know what I'm asking because it's, uh, again, I'm not a gas engineer, but I, I just assumed that you would put it into the, into the flue and then off you go.

Yeah, you've got, I mean, you've always got to be vigilant, uh, with, um, with your analyzers. I mean, if you, I've seen a lot of people just literally turn it on, stick it in the flue and not pay that much attention to it. Now, if you see those readings spiking, you need to get your analyzer out, because the, the more, the, the, the more contaminated that those— the further outside of its working parameters that it's going, then that means that what you're— all the electronics and all the processor, it's— you can be damaging the processor. It's not, it's not really good for it, for— not for longevity anyway. That's, that's, that goes for any analyzer. It's not gonna— if you're poisoning it every day it's inevitably not gonna, not gonna do it any good. So you have to be, be aware of that. And I always try to, um, when I'm teaching my engineers, I always, always— and a lot of manufacturing instructions actually say it— that you should let the appliance run for a couple of minutes before even trying a flue gas analysis.

Okay, so just get it up and running, get it stable.

Yeah. And then do you take your readings? Because sometimes the initial fire up, you can get you can get really funny readings on an appliance. It's got these— but certain manufacturers do actually stipulate that they should be running for a certain amount of time before actually taking a flue gas analysis. And a lot is for this reason, that protects your analyzer. They are an expensive, delicate piece of kit. I know they come in very robust cases, and I think because of that people think that they're quite— but They're a delicate measuring instrument and they should always be put in a suitable storage bag, something that's purpose-made to keep that, to protect that item. Because like I say, probably as a toolkit for a gas engineer, it's probably your most important item that will be on your van. And that kind of goes back to what I try to get across. I do it every single winter. Don't leave your analyzers in your van under any— you shouldn't really leave your analyzers in your van anyway.

Is it just because of the temperature or the moisture buildup?

Temperature, drop in temperature could contribute to moisture buildup, which then nukes all the internals of the analyzer. It's so bad, it's so bad for them, it's unbelievable.

Um, what is it? What's the sensitive bit? Is it the actual sensors themselves, and the— or is it—

if I'm totally honest, I don't, I don't know exactly what it damages. All I know is that in anything electronic, yeah, it's the, the relationship with the cold and condensation, and you get moisture buildup, and that's what damages. In the same respect, you shouldn't ever leave lithium-ion batteries— all those lithium-ion batteries for all those tools, they shouldn't ever be left in the van overnight when it gets down to really cold temperatures. For exactly the same reason. Um, it's just not, it's just not good. But one of the main reasons I say about never leaving your analyzer in the van no matter what is because it's from a practical perspective. If your van ever gets broken into and your tools get taken, the one thing that will— you will always be able to make money from is your analyzer. That is the one tool you could get back. You can get by with basic hand tools, even if they're your best tools, you can get by with basic hand tools as long as you have your analyzer. Yeah, but if you don't have your analyzer, work's gone. Until you can replace that, work is gone. You can't, you can't work on your gas appliances. Yeah, and they're expensive, and they're very expensive. Not a lot of people have a grand knocking about just to be able to go out and buy one. So that's one of the main reasons why I say it's so important to always take your analyzer off your van. Because it is the most important part of your toolkit as a gas engineer.

And what, any other kind of tips that you kind of give your engineers?

Look, we don't work in a, we don't work in a trade where everything's perfect all day. We're not walking around and everything's treated with kid gloves. It's not, we, it's not that kind of trade. We sometimes do throw something into his van, or look, we're all guilty of it. But that, going back to the, what the analyzer is, it's the most important part of your toolkit. It should always be protected at all times.

Are you fed up with drowning in a pile of paperwork that comes with running your heating and plumbing business? Gas Engineer Software is an easy-to-use, all-in-one job management system made especially for UK heating and plumbing companies. From handling customer details to building quotes, issuing certificates, and sending invoices, Gas Engineer Software will help you save time, eliminate paperwork, and make running your business easy. Start a free trial by clicking in the link in the bio. You know, one of the founders, co-founders of Gas Engineer Software, and we link to analyzers. Anton is one of them. When do you, when you actually link the two together, it takes all of the readings, the calibration, everything. So it's kind of set in place. What's the kind of importance of doing that?

Well, me, I think it's, I think it's massively important. It's something that I try to I try to stress to everybody. Now, once you do that digital recording, you are legally covered that what you— what work you've carried out at that moment in time is 100% right. Now, that is a legally binding document. You can prove that your analyzer's in date for its calibration, the readings that you've taken are correct, and as per manufacturer instructions and no matter what, when you leave that property, you have left that property perfectly sound.

You can also prove that you were physically there as well.

And you can prove you were physically there. There's no arguments, there's no questioning. It's not like just ticking a sheet that you could have filled out down the street in your van and then posted through the door. There's none of that argument. It takes away any questioning. It's, this is the recordings that were done at that moment in time. And like I say, for me, I like the fact that I can tie it all up as well with my van GPS.

Okay, so you, you link it to your van GPS?

Well, not physically, but I, I can, I can say when— so when you get your timestamp on that electronic document—

oh, okay, your van, you've got a separate log.

So you could go— I've got a log that says my van was exactly what my van was at that exact same location as what that was taken at that time. And you can, you can prove beyond any doubt that what you are saying is correct.

Okay. Um, and this goes back to, um, like, when would this actually be challenged or kind of come up?

Oh well, um, say for example, trying to think of a scenario now, um, because fortunately I've never been in it, but it's, it's better to be prepared than, uh, it's better to have it and not need it, isn't it? Um, but so say for example, I don't know, uh, you you've done a CP12 and a week later a customer dies of carbon monoxide poisoning, right? Let's just take that as a, you know, as a worst-case scenario. A week— in a week, especially in rented properties, anything could have happened in that house. Literally anything. Someone could have done anything that you're completely unaware of. But if you've got a legally binding document that says, when I walked out of that house a week ago, That's the appliance, that's the readings, that's what it was when I left that property. There's my GPS to say I was at that location. I have done all the correct due diligence.

So you're basically saying, I did my job.

I did my job. What has happened here? I don't know. I can't speculate on what could have happened in that 7 days, but all I can say is when I left that property, yeah, at this point in time, it was perfectly safe. Yeah. And there's no arguing with that. You can't, that can't be questioned. It can't be argued with. That is, that is legally binding. I dare say that if that was just a handwritten sheet with ticks on it, who's to say when you filled it in? Who's to say where you filled it in?

Yeah, what device, etc.

Yeah, what analyzer did you use? Because you don't even know if an analyzer has even been used. Yes. Yeah, because if you're just handwriting figures in what you've— what you're reading off the screen, who's to say that you just don't know roughly what the figure should be?

And yeah, your last job was that one.

Yeah, yeah, last one with that. So And who's to say that? Now, as a business owner that has people working for me, this is how I protect my engineers.

Yeah, because your risk is greater.

Yeah, it's not me, it's not me keeping track on the engineers or anything like that. It's not, it's nothing to do with that, because at the end of the day, if I didn't trust them, they won't be working for me. What I'm saying is it's to protect them.

Yeah, well, and to protect yourself and to protect the business.

It's to protect them that they can, that no matter what, that paperwork, that digital document says that when they left that property, everything was fine. And that's the reason why the digital formatted stuff is so important. And that's one of the beauties of the Anton, when it can just relay that information straight to a digital document, a digital document that's completely legally binding and has got no—

Yeah, but it's not possible to change them.

Yeah, you can't. And you can't alter it, you can't adapt it, you can't You can't manipulate it in any way. So that's, that is one of the, that is one of the major, major benefits of the Anton.

And what about tightness tests? Again, leading, leading back to the same thing, like when do you do them and when? So because we were speaking earlier and unless I misremembered, you were saying that some people don't always do a tightness test, or is it a tightness test?

A tightness test has to be carried out at certain, certain scenarios. Basically, anytime you touch an ETV, then the tightness test has to be carried out. It's not a requirement from a basic service.

Do you do one on a basic service?

On a basic service? No, I don't do— I don't do a tightness test on a basic service because it's not a legal requirement. There's an inspection on the gas meter because you have to do with the gas rate, you have to check the bonding, all that kind of stuff. But a tightness test on a service is not a legal requirement. It's a very grey area as to even CP12s. I mean, I would never ever ever do a CP12 without a tightness test before and after. There's— I just wouldn't do it.

Why is that?

Morally, I wouldn't do it because at the end of the day, it's not the homeowner's— it doesn't really matter to the homeowner if there's a gas leak there, does it? Because they don't live there. It's simple as that. So morally, I believe that a tightness test should be on all CP12s.

For a layperson, what's the actual advantage of doing it before and after?

So you, first of all, you do it before because you need to check before you've done any work what the integrity of that property is.

Okay, so that you get a baseline.

Yeah. So, you know, then you do it. So then you're— and then, so you're going to that property then. So say you get a tight test to start with. Yeah, right. You're going to that property and you're doing something with some gas, all the— you're just checking all the gas appliances as you go along. Yeah, so you've done all your work, you've done all your local isolated, local tightness tests and things like that as you've, as you've gone around and done your appliances, done all your safety checks, all that kind of stuff. Then you do your final test and you've got a gas leak. You know that something you have done has caused that.

Yeah.

If you don't put that test on before, how do you know there was ever— how do you know there wasn't a leak before you even started?

Okay, it could be, yeah, it could be anywhere.

And it could be anywhere then. So then you've just opened a massive can of worms. You're questioning, is it something that I've touched? Is it something I haven't touched? Is it— and, and, and you're in that kind of scenario.

So how long does it take to do a tightness test?

Yeah, um, so you've got, first of all, you got your minute stabilization, uh, minute let-by, yeah, minute stabilization, your 2-minute test.

Okay, so about 5 minutes, 6 minutes, yeah, by the time you go there, muck around a little bit.

Because if you take into account some gas meters in audible places and all that kind of stuff, if you've got— if you're in that position, no more than 10 minutes to do it correctly. And again, this is another bonus of the Anton. This is something that Anton has way, way better than any other analyzer, and you cannot manipulate a tightness test. Now, I say manipulate in the sense of you cannot just put a tightness test on you can't just put your 2-minute test on to make sure it's right. You have to go through the process. You have to go through let-by, you have to go through stabilization, you have to go for it to even be able to get to tightness.

So it gives you some guide rails.

Yeah, so what it means is you can't— so if you would, I don't know, say for example you're using a manual manometer or something like that, you could just hook it up, put it up, put it up to your desired pressure um, and do your 2-minute test, say, oh, it's tight. You don't 100% know you're in that situation. So what happens if that ECV, your isolation, your isolator, what happens if that's letting by at exactly the same rate as something's leaking? It'd not show— it'd not show a leak, it'd show us it's tight. Yeah. And it's not. So that's the reason why your let-by is important. You let byes at a different pressure, so you can see if that gauge rises to tell you whether the, the ECV is passing.

So you can be 100% sure?

100% sure that that tightness test is 100% sound.

Do you come across many properties that fail?

Oh God, all the time. Gas leak, we— especially where I am, because we— I live in, I live in a mining community where we had multiple estates built to house alt miners. And so you've got— I mean, I still come to jobs that have got lead gas lines in. Okay, so plastered into walls that have been in there for 50 years, and I still come across lots of them. So gas leaks are a very, very common thing. We also have tolerances for gas leaks as well.

Okay, so you— a certain amount is—

you are allowed— you're allowed permissible tolerances. Provided there's no reported smell of gas and there is all appliances connected. It's not something that I personally, as my company policy is, a leak's a leak.

Does that— I know this is a bit of a tangent— does that come into immediately dangerous, a warning? Like, is it—

all depends on— well, there'll always, there'll always be an at-risk warning issued. That has to be. Okay, so there has to be an at-risk warning label attached to it, but you've got your permissible tolerances for your pressure losses, providing the certain criteria met, which is that there's been no reported smell of gas and all appliances are connected. Now, the second a customer says, oh, it's funny you should say that, I could smell gas the other day, all that's out the window, don't count it. Okay, you're not allowed any— in that scenario, you're not allowed any drop.

But it could be in the basement, cellar, somewhere you don't—

but it's a— if the customer, if the customer reports it, it's, it's— you're not allowed to, you're not allowed to kind of leave anything. It's got to be tight.

Is gas heavier than air? Like, does it kind of pull in places?

Natural gas? No, natural gas will always dissipate. LPG is denser than air, so it will it all sit. If you think of, if you think of LPG like water, okay, LPG, if it, even though you can't see it, it sits like water. So say you had a bucket of LPG and you tipped it into another bucket, it would fill it like you can just pour water. Yeah, okay.

Even though it is a gas because it's denser than air, so it kind of, I wouldn't say sticks together, but it is like if you actually pour it, you wouldn't lose like half of it kind of.

No, no, it kind of, it, it, because it just stay because it's denser, it just stays where it is. Yeah.

Okay.

So like I say, LPG, that's the reason you've got various locations where you're not allowed to fit LPG appliances, things like that, such as cellars. Because if you imagine LPG appliances down in a cellar, it would effectively— again, think of it as water— effectively would just fill up.

Yeah.

And so it's quite dangerous, is LPG.

But natural gas, it's lighter than air, so it will dissipate. Yeah. Okay, I was going to ask, like, what is this permissible kind of leak, um, in a kind of like a real terms?

It all depends on your gas meter. Uh, it's all to do with your gas meter sizing. There's, uh, so you've got, you've got, um, E6 meters, you've got U6 meters, you've got U16. So these are all in domestic, um, uh, properties, and they all have slightly different permissible tolerance.

Is it interesting you're allowed a bigger leak with a different, um, meter.

It's all because it's all, all dependent upon the capacity of that meter, because that's what can throw out your— that can give you a difference. It's like, it's like, so if you imagine moving up and moving up into commercial, a tightness test isn't as simple because of the capacity of the, the volume. Because the volume, a tightness test isn't as simple as— it's not like, it's not like our 5-minute test. It's a massive test, is, is commercial. It's huge.

So it's a bit like, it's a percentage of the capacity.

It's volume related.

Okay, okay, I see. Okay. Yeah, that makes a bit more sense. I was thinking like, well, you have this meter, you're allowed a big leak.

Yeah, no, it's all volume related, yeah.

Okay, fine. Any other kind of tips or thoughts about sort of using analyzers or anything that would be useful for sort of engineers either just starting or have been using it for—

One of the big things that you get with Anton analyzers, and it's one of the things that I really, really excited— I generally take my engineers from— I start them from apprentices and I take them all the way through and to coming out at the time. And one of the big things that's really, really good on Anton Analyzers is that when you complete an action, there's a prompt at the end of that action. So say, for example, complete a tightness test, press it's passed, then it will tell you in the screen reseal test point. It physically tells you.

Okay, so it tells you what the next action is.

Yeah, it's a little— just a little prompt. It's just like, just like that little teacher on your shoulders just, just saying, just remember you've done that. And then—

but you need a checklist. Pilots have checklists.

Yeah. And so, and those little prompts I think are massively, massively important. I mean, eventually we do stuff and it becomes habitual, but in the, in the starting days when you think that the minds are wandering, they're thinking, oh Have I got this done? Have I done that? Done it? And those just little guidances and little reassurances are massive. I think they're really, really, really good. Um, and I think, like I say, especially for the starting engineers. Um, and then, like I say, when you've completed your flue gas analysis, it tells you to put the, uh, inspection cap back on. All little things, because I'll tell you what, the one engineer there is not any gas engineer out there who has not gone back to a property because they can't remember whether they've put the flow gas analysis cap back on.

That's it. So sometimes I move away from— I like walk away from the car and I think, did I lock that thing?

And it's exactly the same.

You have to walk back every time.

And that's one of the reasons why— I mean, as within my job sheets, because my system's fully digital now, I don't have any paper at all. And so the part of the checklist for the appliances, the final picture, the final timestamped picture that goes on to that, gets connected to that job sheet, is a picture of the boiler, of the complete boiler with test point.

With the actual inspection point in place.

Yeah.

Okay.

So if there's ever any question in your head, you're driving away thinking, did I put that back on? Quick, let me go back to my pictures. There you go. That's— and so you know, you know that that's a And that's, again, that goes back to kind of drilling into apprentices good practices, things that are gonna help you. But in the Anton case, the Anton actually prompts you to do these kind of things, which is, which I think personally, I think is a massive, massive thing. I know it's only a tiny little thing, but I think it's massive, especially for people that are just starting.

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No, it's not the same with all devices. You can, again, you can manipulate them. I've seen people changing dates to get them around having to get them calibrated. But for me, it's absolute madness. It's why I do like, especially with the Antons, that the unit actually shuts down.

So you have no choice.

You've got no choice with an Anton. You've got absolutely no choice. But if you're of a mindset where you're wanting to manipulate calibration, I personally, I just think it's madness because you can have as many digital documents talking about what we've talked about before, about the how legally binding a digital document is and things like that. So you didn't— well, if it's out of calibration, it's completely void anyway. So why would you not want to protect yourself? I mean, it's—

well, you're leaving yourself, but also your customers.

Yeah, you're leaving yourself wide open. How do you know? You don't know whether— I mean, we're analyzing a clear gas, a clear odorless gas. How do we know that's burning correctly? We don't. And some, some, a lot of boilers, we can't even see the burner. We can't physically see what that flame pitch is like. We can't see the burner.

Is it common to, for the, um, the boilers to actually fail?

I find, I find one of, one of the, the biggest failures of, um, uh, uh, flue gas analysis is clean air. Um, it, and it's generally a flue issue that's causing What, what, sorry, what, what's clean air? Can you explain? So basically, before we start, before we start any flue gas analysis, we have to check that the air coming in for combustion, yes, is not contaminated. Because if you imagine there's an issue in the flue, you've got a concentric flue, you've got clean air on the outside and you've got flue gases going down the, down the central tube.

Yeah.

Now if those gases are mixing, right, your clean air coming in isn't clean, so therefore the combustion screw before Okay, so it even starts, it can't even burn. So you can't— so if you look at it and say, oh, if you don't take clean air and there's contaminants in that air, and you just see, oh, my flue gases are a bit out, right, I'll just adjust gas valve accordingly to bring it into manufacturer's— you're not fixing a problem, you're making a problem.

Okay, so you—

because you're compensating for the, for the, for the lack of contaminant air. Yeah, so, um, you find, you find that a lot. Especially, I'll go to boilers where burner seals have failed, and then the— but the gas valve's been adjusted previously just to compensate for—

okay, so they— so that's where the two gases are mixing. Yeah, it's contaminating the—

yeah, so where you can find that, you can find that you get clean air problems for a number of reasons. You can get, uh, clean air contamination, uh, from around the, um, from around the heat exchanger and burner. That means what, like burner seals have failed, flue gaskets have failed, that kind of thing. Or you could have a break, the physical breakdown within the flue, meaning that one of the flue seals is gone. But you also have to be very vigilant of other factors as well. I mean, I've been in areas where they— I've got like really low oxygen readings within the clean air, and it's like, wow, that's, that's not good. But there's no other contaminants within the air. So I've gone outside and I've physically taken a sample of the air outside, and the actual air that it's sucking in is actually low in oxygen. So you find it working near— I mean, we've got a lot of power stations near us and all that kind of— there's a lot of— okay, so the outside external factors sometimes can— I'm not talking a massive— I'm not talking it'll give massive, massive problem, but it would give you enough to— it sometimes does give you enough to question. Now, if you can't— if the air outside coming in it, right? Yeah, I mean, we're good, but we can't alter that.

You can't move that power station.

I can't change that.

Give them a call, ask them to turn the boiler down.

Uh, so you find you've got these, these factors to take into account. This is real life. This, this— these are the real life problems that we, that we face. And so stuff like that you can't alter, and you have to, you have to adjust and set the boiler accordingly.

But if you don't have that calibration, you don't know whether it's right.

Yeah, that's it, simple as that. You, you can't honestly say this is reading correctly. I've been in situations where I've had weird readings and I've not trusted what it said, and I've even got one of my other engineers to come with another analyser to test, just to double check. Literally every time it's always the same. It's just a funny figure. This is what happens in real life, but without calibration you can't definitively say.

You have that extra element of doubt, so you can't rule out analyzer, you can't rule out the boiler. You've got a few more variables.

And so like I say, that's what the importance of calibration is. And I hear a lot, especially when I work at the shows, there are a lot of people, oh, and we haven't been analyzing for however many days and things like that, and it's just inconvenient, isn't it? Well, there's always got to be a time in your life— we don't work 365 days a year, we all have a little bit of time off. And what I do is I generally tie up my analyzer calibration with when I'm going to be going on holiday.

So you send it off before you go?

I send it off before I go and then it's ready for when I come back, and that's it. So I've not lost anything, I was going to be off anyway. And that's the reason why I personally— it's probably the most expensive way of doing it, but it's by far the easiest. And I take it into my local merchants and then they send it off for me, and then I just pick it back up from them. So I've got no postage, no nothing to worry about. I just literally drop it off behind the counter and it's waiting for you.

You don't have to— when you're on holiday, you don't have to open the door.

That's it. Sometimes I might— worst case scenario, I'll get an email to say, oh, it needs X amount of stuff doing to it. Shall we go ahead, yes or no? That's, that's worst case scenario. There's calibration centers all the way around the country, they're all over. I mean, we actually, we do actually have one in Leeds, but like I say, for me it's the inconvenience of I have to take it, I have to mess it, I have to pick it up, that. And I've, I've just found a need, I found the way which works for me. Everybody works in slightly different ways, so people might have different there's a wealth of options there for ways of doing it, and you've just got to pick whichever way works for you. Like I say, for me personally, it's much easier for me just before I go on holiday, drop it off behind the counter, and then I come back and pick it up.

Any other kind of tips or anything else to kind of keep yourself or your colleagues safe?

A big thing that's not really— I don't believe gets enough exposure, and especially with Gas Safety Week coming up Personal CO alarms, they're clip-on alarms that you wear on your person.

Are they electronic or are they just like a—

They're electronic, yeah. So like I say, you just clip it onto your person. It generally wants to be a decent height, roughly about—

Well, close to your mouth.

Yeah, close to your mouth, literally where you're going to be breathing in is the ideal, especially for people that are going in and doing regular service work, that kind of stuff. I mean, because you can walk into a property and you don't know, like I say, Carbon monoxide is, it's a clear odourless gas, very, very poisonous gas. You don't know whether it's there, and a lot of time you don't know until it's too late. The CO alarm is there to do it, and like I say, should really be worn on your person at all times.

So this is just for like domestic services?

Yeah, anybody that's dealing with gas appliances, it should, this should be worn at all times. And it's a really good habit to get into, especially if you're a service engineer. We get into scenarios where we're working down in cellars, we're working up in lofts, areas where not— non— like non-habitable areas, confined spaces, that kind of stuff. And so it is always good to have that extra little bit of protection to know that, because carbon monoxide is a clear, odourless gas We— you don't know.

How do you actually know if you've been affected by it?

Yeah, there's, there's signs of nausea, dizziness, all that, the thing, things like that. They're, they're always the, the first telltale signs.

Okay, so then, and then it just— I'm assuming it just does a loud beep or something like that?

Yeah, it goes off, you can't mistake it. It's, uh, when they go off, they go off, right? So you definitely know it's time to, uh, get out of the area. But they're very, very sensitive as well, so that will operate before you start feeling the signs of carbon monoxide poisoning, so you know to get out of the area. But also you get with certain analyzers as well, certain models of the Anton, they've got a built-in CO alarm into the actual unit itself as well.

Okay, so it just senses the environment around it and it'll go off.

Yeah, so that's quite a good touch on some of them. Well, like I say, it's really important because there's not many analyzers that actually you normally need a refrigerant tester.

Is it like a separate thing?

Yeah, refrigerant testers are actually a separate thing, whereas the SprintPro has it built into the two— between the two and six, in the two and six, it actually has refrigerant leak detection into it. So it's, uh, it's a really good thing, especially like I say, especially heat pumps.

Yeah. Are you gonna do heat pumps, or are you looking at them?

Um, I've, I've done a couple of heat pumps. Um, I've done a couple of hybrids, couple of heat pumps. Um, They are— they're brilliant at heat pumps. So there's no— look, end of day, if you get an heat pump working correctly, you can probably get anything between 400% and 2,500% efficiency out of them.

Okay, so in practical terms, that would be half of your bill.

Well, it's hard to put a figure on it, but that transferred into— so say you've got it working at 420% efficient, for every 1 kilowatt of energy you use, you get 4.2 kilowatts out. Yeah, that you can't argue with them figures. That's— but it's just a question of where that 4.2 kilowatts goes and how it's distributed. That comes down to the installation. Now that's a different animal altogether, is that, um, just because the unit will do it doesn't necessarily mean the house will work correctly. You've got so many factors. You've got insulation, you've got heat loss, you've got all these factors to take into account, um, pipe sizing. Flow rates, all that kind of stuff. So it's, uh, it's a whole new topic.

We could be here for a while.

Oh God, yeah, we could be here.

Well, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Not a problem. Dan from TS Plumbing and Heating and also an ambassador for Entron, so I really appreciate it.

Not a problem. Cheers.

Thank you.