Curious about the latest innovations in hot water transmission? Join our Insights podcast as industry expert Garry Bouvet sheds light on the game-changing technology of PE-RT piping systems.
PE-RT pipes offer a durable, leak-free, and long-lasting solution for hot water transmission, with the added benefit to withstand higher temperatures up to 180 degrees. In this episode, we explore the core advantages of traditional high-density polyethylene and how PE-RT is transforming hot water transmission with improved performance and reliability.
Discover how this innovative technology is reshaping industries such as district energy, college campuses, mining, and oil and gas sectors. From improved efficiency to cost savings, PE-RT piping systems are a cutting-edge alternative to legacy piping systems.
Don't miss out on this informative episode. Tune in to our Insights podcast to learn more about how PE-RT piping systems are revolutionizing hot water transmission.
Curious about the latest innovations in hot water transmission? Join our Insights podcast as industry expert Garry Bouvet sheds light on the game-changing technology of PE-RT piping systems.
PE-RT pipes offer a durable, leak-free, and long-lasting solution for hot water transmission, with the added benefit to withstand higher temperatures up to 180 degrees. In this episode, we explore the core advantages of traditional high-density polyethylene and how PE-RT is transforming hot water transmission with improved performance and reliability.
Discover how this innovative technology is reshaping industries such as district energy, college campuses, mining, and oil and gas sectors. From improved efficiency to cost savings, PE-RT piping systems are a cutting-edge alternative to legacy piping systems.
Don't miss out on this informative episode. Tune in to our Insights podcast to learn more about how PE-RT piping systems are revolutionizing hot water transmission.
Hello again and welcome to our Insights podcast here at ISCO. We talked fusion equipment with Curtis Durbin and Andy Niblett, our last outing. Now we are here to talk about piping systems for transmission of heated liquids with the well-respected, the infamous, if not famous, Garry Bouvet. Garry, thank you so much for joining us. Sean, Great to be here. Let's give everybody just a hint of a background with you. I know you have years of experience in the industry, but give us your title and give us just a little bit of background project manager here, Disco. Currently, I've been in the DP World for about 30 years. I've got experience at McElroy Manufacturing prior to my stint here at Cisco, which is now hit 26 years. Wow. And a lot of variety of roles from outside sales to rental equipment to I mean, you name it. I've been around with the with the HDPE World. Yeah. So yeah. So when we look at this this from the genesis, so to speak, you know, there was a time where homes were sold because they had hot and cold running water like events. It became a big deal to have hot water in the home. Let's go back to what what the, what were the preferred means of transmitting the water when it was initially a new technology. It was, you know, pipes, metal pipes. Copper is still, you know, still prominent. You had lead pipes way, way back in the day. Right. Which we all know the difficulties with those, Right? Yeah. But, you know, the things that were associated with when we're talking about hot water for us are really not in the domestic domestic side. Sure. We're now seeing hot water used for heat generation inside buildings. And that's really kind of where the sweet spot is for this product. And that gets into the carbon steel and maybe the Duct Alliance in terms of more industrial or district energy type output. Exactly. Steel has been had been the primary usage in the hot water for those what we call district energy applications. I never want to turn these into a political podcast, but you almost have to to understand why is the United States so stubborn about introducing these technologies that Europe had years ago? Because in general, and then and then hot water transmitting pipe with the part kind of came along later and we were just kind of late to the party. Is there a reason for that? I really think, Sean, that it strictly comes down to this is the way we've done things. Yeah, I don't think it's, you know, we're adverse to the, the ideas of change and improvements. Obviously we drive vehicles that, you know where we still do in horse and buggy. No, but I think that's what we get caught up in. This is what our system is. We know how to deal with it. Not wanting to. That's a big decision, you know, for an engineer or for a a site superintendent to have to deal with. Right. And if it goes wrong for whatever reason. Right. It's it's a mark against them. And I think that's what really puts in the reservations that people have about changing. I kind of I almost liken it to investing like you don't want to invest money in something that's unproven, but you might be putting $10,000 in the apple at the ground level. So sometimes it's worth that risk. Builders now kind of seeking safer, more efficient, eco friendly, long lasting, leak free ways to convey hot water that don't lean on those outdated legacy piping systems. Polyethylene of raised temperature resistance, we call it PERT. Basically, we've had some additives added HTP maybe you can talk us through that just a little bit to allow that jump from 142 to 180 degrees. Yeah, and it's you hit it right on the head. There is an additive in the HTP. The base product is still the latest current resin in the marketplace, which is referenced as a 4710 and this PERT is 4710 resin with an additive. Now I'm not privy to know what the additive is. I think it's like the 11 herbs and spices, you know, the KFC, you know, has on a shake and nobody knows what that is. But, you know, the pipe has proven and and working very well. The resin is a resin supplied by Dow Chemical very you know prominent I'm sure you know company in the in the in the chemical world for all types of products. And this is when we refer to the temperatures this is at a kind of a regulated 100 PCI pressure in general. Is that accurate? No. It all you know, the pressure is dictated by the pipe. Okay. The thickness of the pipe. Yeah. So, you know, within those scope, the, you know, the resin has its, has its make up and then the dealer will actually will dictate the working pressure. So that range of pressure, you know, again is a variable of the temperature as that temperature increases, the rating drops decreases, it's still a thermoplastic and like any safety guidance, I guess there's probably some leeway there from pressure and temperature regards. But one eighties the the calculated restricted plateaus, so to speak. That's right. That's exactly where we kind of went to the sandbox that we want to stay in. Yeah, absolutely. As we talk about applications, you should stand with sandbox that it's kind of a narrow window but it's it's very useful. It's very valuable. It's that 140 to 180 degrees, you know, again, small but but a powerful window in terms of what the applications are. Talk me through some of those. Yeah. How there's we're seeing more and more applications for this product. You know we we first got working with the product. We were really focused on district energy, places that are moving, getting away from steam, which is very expensive to to to run to process the equipment associated with it. Sure. You know, people are moving, finding better ways, more efficient ways that carbon neutral that we hear so much about is this is a great, great segway into that with the switching from steam to hot water and that's where we primarily see it. But now we're seeing things like processed waste on pulp and paper. We're seeing bio gas, you know, we're seeing, you know, methane extraction. Right. Or dairy farms. Right. Those those microorganisms thrive as that temperature increases. Their activity of breaking down those waste solids is more pronounced. And so now we're seeing people looking at polyethylene as a great, you know, with all the other benefits that it brings. This part is a great product for that. Sure. I also I understand maybe even with mining in oil and gas, there's some opportunity there as well. You have oil and gas. You know, you're extracting hot, hot fluids out of the ground at elevated temperatures. Landfills dealing with high temperature liquids or, you know, methane coming out at higher temperatures. Again, all great places for the part. And it feels like, as we talked about, I think it was right around 2003 or so, that part came over to the U.S. and in really consistent use that I don't want to say they're yet to be discovered applications, but it's kind of like every day, every month, every week or whatever people say, you know, I think it might be valuable to use it for this. Like you talked about the methane in the ranching and farming. It's kind of like a a light goes on with what we use it in landfill. And if there's temperature range, you know, maybe this will work here. Do you feel like there's kind of a forward progression of of continued discoveries, of uses, so to speak? I do. I think people, you know, are looking for alternatives, are looking for options. And if they can improve their system, be more efficient and save money better for the environment, a very smaller carbon footprint, everybody's looking for that. All of these are these are great ways for the PERT to to help. I understand too, that there's a pre installation process that can be utilized if need be. Maybe explain to me a little bit what that is, but more importantly, why you would utilize that. Well, in a lot of the district energy applications, they want to maintain that temperature from starting point A to in termination point B, the less temperature reduction you have, the less your system has to work to keep that, you know, temperature elevated. Sure. So pre installation has been around on the on the metal pipes for decades and it is also available on the HDPE, on the PERT. And we'll see it in in certain areas, particularly, you know, above the Mason-Dixon line or in the colder areas, their colder ground temperatures, they want that temperature to be maintained. And that's that's one method of of ensuring that with insulating the pipe. The other method they can do there's a an insulation that can be poured around the pipe after it's laid in the ground. Okay. It's like a powder foam that gets applied. So two different ways to achieve the same thing. I want to go back to the term district energy, because I know for me as a newcomer to this industry, it it was a little confusing. It's not necessarily clarification, but one of the more prominent district energy uses happens to be college campuses. And I'm not sure there's a more sustainability aware entity than college campuses, which is something I know we all really appreciate. But. But tell me about just in general the uses on campuses, because it seems like that's something that's really just getting a lot of momentum with PERT, right? And The Help was that a lot of them were already using HTP for the chilled water. Sure. Standard, standard, basic polyethylene. And when PERT became available about seven, eight years ago, to them it was it was an easy transition because they were already using chilled water. They were already using polyethylene in geothermal fields. So they had some acceptance of it and some work with it. So it was easier for that acceptance in into the hot water side of things. And, you know, one of the biggest Texas A&M, I mean, that that's all they put in. HTP pe for chilled and PERT for the for the hot water and massive footprints on the campus. It's a that's a campus of over 60,000 students. I mean, it's a it's a small city, you know, It's a small city. Yeah, no question about it. When we talk about installation, basically talking all the same things, but fusion electric fusion fittings up to 24 inches mechanical fusion methods. There's just there's not a lot of differences between PERT and standard HDPE when it comes to installation fusion of fittings, correct? Yeah, there isn't. I mean we, we do that the fittings can be manufactured now. You know some differences are there is a limitation on how thick this pipe can be produced because the resin variation limits, you know, the thickness of htp that it can, they can be produced. So we may have some fittings occasionally that we run into that have to be over wrapped something that we don't normally deal with on the standard HTP side. But as far as joining and assembling the system, it's exactly the same that they've been doing in standard polyethylene for years. I'm assuming there's a there's a standard range of pipe size that's used, but what is the range in terms of the high end? Well, again, it's really more based. The limitation is really the thickness, John. We have, you know, recently supplied pipe upwards of 42 inch, 42 inch d r 21 keeping around that two inch wall thickness is really the the defining factor for that. Interesting. And as we mentioned, fittings, I guess molded fittings from 2 to 8 inches and then you start to get a ten and ten inches in polar that's gets into more fabrication, everything becomes fabricated. Oboes are measured sections of the pipe. Same with the TS, you know, your flange adapters are still there all the all the necessary components for. But in terms of equipment and training, if you confuse FDB you can fuze but same exact procedure as far as benefits, I know they've got the gray stripe on the PERT that allows you to distinguish, you know, blue for water, green for, for sewer and that and it's gray. The stripes that are put on the manufacturing process, it seems obvious. We feel like we need to point out the obvious, but the benefits of PERT are the same benefits that we have with HTP. And in terms of those benefits, flexibility, lightweight, easy to transport installation. What's the most crucial for PERT in terms of that hot water transmission? I think it really comes down to being league free. I mean, I think in all systems, right, if we can eliminate leaks, that's a major headache for any of the utility folks having to to maintain their system. I mean, they want to put it in and forget about it and spend their time doing something else. So to me, that is the biggest benefit of polyethylene in general. The second one in the particularly in this hot water is the corrosion resistance, right? That's steel in any metal pipes. That is a natural occurrence that is going to happen. Yeah. When you have this pipes. Right. You can't you can't eliminate it. It's it's going to occur and we're talking things like tuberculous and we're talking about external surface corrosion, right. You get condensation on metal pipes and eventually, especially if you've got them insulated, all of that condensation is sitting on that on that metal pipe. Eventually it's going to eat away over time and to and building up where your flows continually get reduced. You just can't avoid it with metal pipes. Those are the two big ones that I think polyethylene brings. And I would imagine the non toxicity obviously for drinking water in that is kind of a no brainer. Yeah. It has got to have that right. Yeah. How about the, the installation life. I have to assume that that's another one because a lot of these legacy piping systems that have been installed that you run into the tuberculosis and the corrosion, the leaking repairing is great, but is instead of Band-Aids, you know, you'd kind of like to get into solutions. And I imagine that's where part falls in. Right. Polyethylene, You know, standard polyethylene has a 100 year design life. We know that now elevated temperatures, obviously with thermoplastics are going to have a negative impact on life expectancy. Right. That just just happens. Right now, PERT stands at a 50 year design life that may change over time, just like polyethylene used to be a 50 year design life. Now it's 100. I think. I think PERT will probably end up being in that in that same realm. And there's always improvements and changes in resin quality and make up that always impact these life cycle characteristics. Sure, I probably should have pointed this out earlier, but if you're madly googling PERT and and struggling, it is the polyethylene of race temperature resistance Capital P capital E dash Capital R, Capital T in terms of finding that the and no, there's another factor with PERT versus legacy material right now, and that is some supply chain frustration in terms of some of those other materials. What kind of an advantage is that and how is that influencing contractors, engineers, builders? It's definitely had an impact in our world. We've, you know, we've seen projects that were specified with a whole different material that we may not even have known about have come to us looking for an option because of that lead time that you referenced being extended so long that they just can't they can't wait. And we've been able to to make that flip because we can get them materials in a in a very timely fashion that can keep their project on track. Let's say you are someone who oversees utilities on the campus. You're hearing this podcast, you're thinking, well, they've got a leak in this area, we've got some problems in this area. We do need to maybe make a move. How impactful is an overhaul or installing part or HDPE to a system in terms of its relation to the problems and the frustrations that it's going to alleviate? I mean, there there's always challenges, right? No, and no two projects are ever the same. You know, you're typically dealing with a lot of, you know, existing utilities if you're particularly if you're looking at a campus, if it's a new installation, obviously much easier new space. You lay the trench and you put the pipe in and and be done with it. But when you're replacing a system, there, there's a lot of involved. I mean, we've had in everything, you know, from certain animals that, you know, found that there was something there. We had trees with tree roots that had extended in and those couldn't be damaged in remove. So the pipe suddenly the whole pipe layout that you think was straight has to has to make this significant curve around around that obstruction. So all of those things come into play. But there is a lot of flexibility. And I mean that literally to us, right? Yeah. With that, with the purpose, with the per product that can be done. And I would imagine, even though it probably seems really intimidating to to, to jump into something like that, like we talked before in an investment, there are enough examples like Texas A&M that it's easy to go talk to somebody like that and say, What's your experience been? Because I know ExCo in particular puts their reputation on the line and says, Hey, feel free. Let's we'll help you contact them and and find out how beneficial it is. Absolutely. And you know, people like Ron Jones there at Texas A&M, great proponents of of HDPE in general. And, you know, he's he's a straight shooter. He's going to tell you exactly what he thinks. And and he's been fantastic. We've done that on a couple of occasions of have brought potential clients to visit with him and get his take. What things worked? What things would you do different all and have all proven to be very, very beneficial. We we kind of touched on a lot of those advantages of HDPE. But of course the website can give you more details on the pressure resistant, the easy to transport install lightweight, the flexibility which we just mentioned. As you look into your crystal ball, which I know you're so good at, I'm assuming that scientifically speaking, as we look at the electro fusion field in the Highlands Supercell now allowing us to do this battery operated fusion, that may be some new additives, some new resins, some new processes might lead to 180 being nudged up to one 9202 ten D Do you foresee that? Yeah, I, I do, Sean. I think, you know, people are always looking to, you know, push it needle. They sometimes it just takes additional testing right. Or different abilities to do that but I do we've seen that evolve on standard HTP over the more than 30 years that I've been involved with polyethylene, we've seen that that change at increased pressures without any changing anything in the pipe dimension. We're you know, we've seen the extra 100 years that I talked about. We went from 50 to 100. I think the same thing will happen in PERT and people are looking for constant improvements. I'm guessing that you maybe you didn't really see PERT happening when you first got into this industry. Maybe that was something that was going to be. Well, that's beneficial. Yeah. Never, never thought about it. We know, you know, Thermoplastics I'm not a scientist by any stretch, but you know, when you take thermal plastics and you add heat, it can change the physical characteristics. So it, it made sense that, you know, pipe would be susceptible to, to higher temperatures. But yeah, being able to even get to 180 in a pressure application was was was quite a big step I thought Yeah no question. Any other advances you foresee or maybe anticipate or even hope for? I you know, it never ceases to amaze me where where things go to and what we're doing. But you know, I think the polyethylene, I think we'll see continued changes in pressure capacity on polyethylene pipe. And there's a huge safety factor now associated with the pipe. You know, so we it is much more robust than even what we rate it for. Yeah. And I think those those kind of things will change as more and more people continue to use it in their systems. They'll be looking for other avenues and that'll that'll force other, you know, manufacturers of the materials to, to find new and better ways. Competition does a lot of great things, doesn't it? Sure does, Gary. We can't thank you enough for your time and your exPERTise. I know that your time is valuable and we certainly thank you for joining us. Sean, Thanks as always. A pleasure being with you. But fantastic if you still have questions about PERT, you can visit our website is go dash pipe dot com and you can also contact us on that same website on the contact page. Look out for our blog post, our insights webinars coming up. You can register on the website as well for that webinar and it will be housed and live there just like the podcast. So if you can't be there live when it happens on Thursday, then you can certainly go back and take a peek at it. But hopefully we've been able to give you some more information. We certainly appreciate you joining us. My name is John Moth. Look forward to talking to you next time on our Insights podcast.