Dan Roberge:
In our continuing series on energy-saving solutions, we're talking to Neil Horne from Gold Leaf Energy about water scaling in your pipes. Let's check it out.
Welcome to our second episode podcast of our series on energy savings. I'd like to welcome back Neil Horne from Gold Leaf Energy. Neil, welcome back. Today, we're going to talk about a new technology. Last time, if you haven't watched our previous podcast on the energy collars for gas and saving costs on these collars that you put on fuel for energy consumption, for heating a building and so on, you should go check it out. Today, we're going to talk about something different. But before we get into that, maybe you can, Neil, give a summary of who you are and how you got into this, and why you're an expert in energy savings.
Neil Horne: Well, thanks, Dan. Great to be back here on the Witness Care podcast. My name is Neil Horne; Gold Leaf Energy Systems is our company. I don't claim to be an expert in anything other than meeting people and trying to help with bottom-line costs and energy efficiency. I think the two are linked tightly together: you can do well by doing right. How can you find sustainable savings? That can relate to a lot of things. That's where Gold Leaf has really focused its company: what can we do to lower maintenance costs, extend the life of equipment, or create savings? All these relate to the environment and to bottom-line costs.
We know in a lot of businesses, you only need $1 of bottom-line savings to equal $5 of new sales. So, hey, let's take that low-hanging fruit and be really efficient with it. We've even gone to the next level and asked, "How can we create very low or non-invasive solutions that have a really good ROI and don't need ongoing maintenance?" We've tried to focus all of our products on how we can deliver them as a one-hit wonder for someone who then enjoys that benefit for the lifetime of their building, factory, or operation, whether they're leasing long-term or owning the building and needing to provide power to it.
We've focused our areas on gas savings, water scaling—which we're going to talk about here today—as well as water bill savings and refrigeration savings, which we'll get to. But today, we're going to talk to the people who have real problems with scaling in their pipes. We've got a product that we call Aqua Magna, which we market for others. This is a really innovative way of harnessing the power of magnets to deal with hard water and scaling.
Dan Roberge: So, let me ask you first, how do you describe scaling? What typically causes this, and what does it look like?
Neil Horne: Well, it can be caused by a number of things. You have hard water, that's the first one. Some chemical operations generate hard water. But for a lot of people, it's just the area of the country you're in, or the specific municipality has higher calcium and other buildup within your pipes, which can cause rust decay and the need for chemicals in the pipes to keep them clean. Some people certainly worry about what's getting into our bodies.
This is a solution that not only helps remove the need for salt and chemicals in the pipe but also helps remove the need for replacing pipes. You're dealing with a solution here, and I'll just show you here quickly. Dan, all water pipes move water through, and there's particulate in them. That buildup can gradually start settling as sediment in the pipes. It can also start to settle in boilers. We know people are replacing boilers annually and saying, "Look at the buildup in the bottom of my boiler, it's rusting out."
Dan Roberge: I've seen that.
Neil Horne: You've seen that, you hear about that. I know even on the software that you guys deal with, with Maintenance Care, it's trying to track how much maintenance we're putting into these boilers and when it's time to replace them. So here's a way to help your boilers last, let's say, 20% longer because you're not constantly filling them up with junk. Here's a way to break that down and help keep those pipes in good shape because we know the cost. I think we can all understand infrastructure costs, whether it be a factory, a high-rise apartment building, or the things that really break down and can almost break a building. If you have to re-pipe an entire high-rise apartment building, the sheer breaking of walls and getting into every pipe is so significant that anything you can do on the front end to extend the life is worth it.
We try to add that as a non-invasive, long-lasting solution. So this is magnet technology, and I'm just going to try and push it together here to kind of show you. I'm not doing a trick on TV here. This is using magnet technology again, but for water. So you're better oxygenating the water and the oxygen within the water to lower the amount of scale buildup, which causes rust, decay, and lower performance in your boilers. We're just thinking in heating water. Anything you can do, there are no moving parts once we install them. It works for the life of those pipes. The only thing we can't do is basically take an entire rusted pipe and make it 100% better. We can slow the decay. We're not perfect, we're not magicians.
But this is a solution that could, let's just say, improve the life of your equipment by 20%, significantly lower the need for any chemicals going into your water treatment, or salt to change that pH balance.
Dan Roberge: That's incredible. As we mentioned before, the cost of your equipment and replacing equipment, like boilers, is the single most expensive cost you have in the lifespan of a building. If you can extend not replacing that piece of equipment as often as you have to, then your overall cost will obviously be less. So you're saying this actually could make it last longer just because you don't have this buildup? Can it reverse a little bit of the damage that's been done? I know you said it can't fully take a rusted pipe and make it better, but how much fixing of the pipe can it do?
Neil Horne: That certainly is always up for general debate on the pipe. But yes, by slowly breaking down the scale that is already in the pipe, you are improving that ability. Once you get scale and buildup in a pipe, that's what's causing the breakdown of the actual pipe wall. So the more you're doing to break that up and move it through, the less buildup, the less breakdown of your pipe. So I'm going to say yes, we'll use a general term of, say, 20% improvement in your pipe health.
Dan Roberge: Wow, that's incredible. How does it get installed? The energy collars for the fuel and so on were right before combustion. So here, where do you put the collars to get maximum effectiveness?
Neil Horne: In a very similar way, you would do some collars right at the source pipe, but you could also do some collars closest to the boiler, where it's going into another application. So whether it's going into a filter system, it's going into a boiler—you name it, wherever water goes, taps, we can treat. What we would do is a quick assessment of, "Okay, where's all the water going, and how can we best ensure effectiveness?" Because what you're trying to do here is not only affect the pipes but also the equipment. So you try and create a balance depending on the application.
For example, in a food environment or a food preparation environment where they do a full cleanup every night and clean out the pipes, then okay, where are we going to install those to specifically give the maximum benefit so there isn't buildup or need for chemicals? We use the high-rise example again: Where's the best spot? Okay, we certainly want to put them before they get into the boiler and break up that sediment and scale before it's getting into the equipment and extending the life of that equipment, because that's the big asset, that's the cost center. So we always like to think, how can we be environmentally conscious but also cost-conscious?
Dan Roberge: Yeah, exactly. So the technology is making the water realign its particles. Maybe you can explain a little bit about how, later on down the pipe, it just kind of gets jumbled up again, so you might need another collar. Obviously, the more collars you have, the better your entire system is going to be. But there comes a point where maybe it doesn't become worth it for the overall system to have collars everywhere. So how do you help that determination?
Neil Horne: That's experience in the business, and that is working with the client or across a portfolio of buildings, and you start to say, "Okay, what are your biggest concerns?" So, "Our first concern is we want to save money. If these last forever, we don't really care about the payback. Could you make it under five years?" Just, "We can finance it, it's okay." And you say, "Okay, well, then we can be a little more creative with the solution. Let's make sure we're treating every pipe, maybe at the source, but also particularly before it goes into any combustion and making sure we're breaking up any of that scale right before. Maybe we're installing a few right after the main pipe to say, 'Hey, let's break that up as it comes in.'"
But again, that's the experience of the business: starting to say, "Hey, where is the most effective solution for the long-term savings?" Because to us, there is an environmental cost of brand-new pipe: all the trucks that need to come to that building to replace it, all the labor, all the tools—you name it, it adds up so fast if you start to really put all the environmental costs of replacing any piece of equipment into your building. So there's that environmental cost, and there's that bottom-line cost of all the staffing it takes. The amount it would cost to, say, a 200-unit apartment building if you had to re-pipe it because of hard water every 15 years.
That's a really significant inconvenience to your tenants, as well as a huge cost to the bottom line and an environmental cost. So how can we be really mindful of those three and deliver a solution that can help with all of those? We do realize that in all sorts of jurisdictions, some have spectacular water. You couldn't find better. The water runs, there's no need for any chemical. In other jurisdictions across North America, you're like, the amount of money we spend on chemicals alone, if we could eliminate 20%, 30% of the amount of chemicals we use, this would more than pay for itself. Forget the savings, forget the pipe extension of life—just get us rid of chemical use.
So each person is a unique case. In some cases, you're saying, "Hey, when we install on your gas pipes, let's do some of the water that's going into your devices as well, just to make sure it'll fit into the payback model that you've got." But let's at least treat that so they do work and complement each other.
Dan Roberge: Yeah. So I was just going to ask you about the part that I was really interested in: when you mentioned the salt. Can you repeat that a little bit and maybe expand on it, because that seems like a huge advantage there, especially for some? I've known some jurisdictions where they have to have huge systems in place to help treat the water. How does it impact the salt usage in a facility related to the water and the hardness of the water?
Neil Horne: Well, salt is used to affect the pH. Where you have hard water, you're adding salt to soften the water. So this essentially acts as a water softener without salt needed. Even some municipalities in Ontario have taken this on at their government buildings, which I can direct people to, but we'll leave it there. But on that piece, you certainly start to realize the benefit of that. If you can, hey, even just the trucking of the salt to everybody's facility starts to add up, right? I don't like to harp on it as much, and I know I do, but it's that environmental cost of all the little pieces.
So here, you install once, you've got 99 years of way less salt use. We're not mining the salt, we're not transporting the salt, we're not delivering the salt, you know, all of those things. And then the salt actually sits in the bottom of boilers. What does salt usually do? It corrodes. So then you're replacing a boiler sooner than you need to, and you're not getting as efficient use of that boiler because it's full of salt and not just water.
Dan Roberge: So, are you saying, would you recommend a building, like if they get a collar there, they wouldn't need a water softening system, or would they reduce it by a certain percentage? What's the impact?
Neil Horne: I would say in some cases, you would eliminate it altogether. In some cases, yes, you still might want to run the system coinciding with each other for at least a while and see your result.
Dan Roberge: That's incredible. That is a huge cost of maintenance and constant upkeep and replacing the salt and the time spent into it. All of those things are a huge ROI you almost want that for. I know we had it in our house, in our previous home, because the hard water was significant there. I know as a homeowner how hard it was to maintain, and in a large building, it'd be ten times worse. So that's incredible.
Neil Horne: If I had the sales force to go and walk this door to door, I would. But just that benefit of going to larger buildings where, hey, we can treat 7 to 12 different pipes, and we affect 200 units and maybe a thousand residents all at once is a really great benefit because of the sheer amount of salt in those boilers. The cost of an industrial boiler, as you know, Dan, for being in the business, it's so significant. It can just crush a project. Even if you think about condo projects where the individual condo owners are getting assessed, if you can make your equipment last that much longer, those assessments change, and you're not going back to those condo owners.
So for condo boards, this is a great idea. One of the biggest and best uses we've ever seen through our district, through our manufacturers, was commercial and industrial laundries, because they're using so much gas to dry the clothes, but they're also using so much water to wash the clothes. And then, the burnout rate of those huge boilers to keep everything running.
Dan Roberge: That's incredible. How do you talk about the installation and the process of purchasing and evaluating where you need all of those collars? How does that happen typically?
Neil Horne: Well, that happens with a call to us at Gold Leaf Energy: info@goldleafenergy.com. We have a discussion about your building and your operation to start with. So, what are you struggling with first? Are you big salt users? Do you have to use a ton of chemicals to maintain the pH in your water? Are your pipes rusting out? Let's talk about what your worries are to start with. Let's level set there, and then let's find a solution that works. When it does come to actually installing a solution, this again, like our gas collars, is installed while pipes are in operation. There's no turn-off of your water, no inconveniencing a tenant or a production line.
We are basically taking these collars and, after deciding the number, lining them up along your waterline, screwing them into place, and letting them do their thing. So, yes, it's a specific magnet formulation to align that oxygen. Yes, it is a technical piece, but the installation is what makes this an easy thing to do. We can talk it through with you on Zoom, or a platform like this. We can arrange for your plumbers. We did that recently at West, where we got online with their large apartment building. They were doing this and said, "Hey, we'd be more comfortable if our plumbers did this work for us." They have a contract plumbing service; we hopped on the line with them. It was a really easy conversation because they're so technically minded. They know exactly what pipes we're talking about when we mention it. Easy installation. We even said, "Hey, listen, we're not going to add anything to the install cost. Just let your plumbers bill you for the hours." So we've done it that way too. We actually try to meet the client where they're at. If they have a really experienced property management team, they could actually install these with our help and a phone call.
Dan Roberge: That sounds incredible. I think this should be bigger news, honestly. As we've been going through all your energy solutions, they seem like, as we said, on the ROI, a no-brainer. But on top of that, this really changes the game, I think, on how people manage their equipment and the longevity of their equipment, adding life to it and keeping their systems running at a lower cost. This is another great example of one of your energy-saving solutions. So I appreciate you sharing that with us. Again, where can they find more information about this product and all your other products?
Neil Horne: They can head to GoldLeafEnergy.com, or they can just send us an email at info@goldleafenergy.com. We're happy to get back to them within 24 hours. But more importantly, Dan, we really appreciate you exposing this to your large group of clients. We know they are all large users of energy, but also, they're not always sales organizations that are bringing in more income. They're dealing with tenant-based organizations, so bottom-line cost is so important. I know that's the focus of your business, and I think that's how it ties to us: your clients are worried about the same issues we're worried about for them.
Dan Roberge: Excellent. Well, I appreciate you sharing that with us. Hopefully, in our next episode, we'll share some more information on new energy solutions from Gold Leaf Energy. Thanks for joining.
Neil Horne: Thanks very much, Dan. Have a great day.
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