In this episode, we honor the life and work of Derek A. Ingram, one of the few architects of the technology used to clear out chloramine pollution in indoor swimming pools. Without Derek's work, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of swimmers would still be exposed to harmful chloramines. Tragically, Derek recently passed away after a 20-month battle with ALS. In this episode, we are joined by Derek's father, Dennis Ingram, a veteran commercial pool builder and service professional. joins us.
00:00 - Long introduction
02:23 - Remembering Derek Ingram
10:47 - Introducing Dennis Ingram
13:33 - Origins of the Paddock Evacuator
17:08 - Indoor pool chemistry
19:36 - Developing the Evacuator into the standard of care
23:53 - A paradigm shift in natatorium HVAC design
28:15 - Derek's legacy
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125. Indoor Air Quality: Remembering Derek Ingram (w/ Dennis Ingram)
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[00:00:00] Eric Knight: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the rule your pool podcast. I'm your host, Eric Knight, this is episode 125. And this one is going to be different. Normally on the rule your pool podcast, we talk about tangible things like water chemistry advice, or physics, and how to actually dilute chemicals. And things like that that are directly affecting how you treat water.
[00:00:21] Our mission at Orenda and with this podcast and our website is to purify water by empowering people who treat it. Whether you're the pool owner or a pool professional. And so we try to make this podcast as informative as possible.
[00:00:34] This one's a little bit different because we do have a growing audience in commercial pools. Thank you for listening, by the way. If you have ever used an indoor pool and smelled it. You know, that pool smell, that's not actually chlorine. That is chloramine, and we use the term chloramine, or chloramines, to generically describe all of the off gassing byproducts of chlorine oxidizing things, primarily nitrogen compounds.
[00:01:02] When people pee in the pool, for instance, urea is organic nitrogen. So you have a lot more complexity when it comes to chlorine getting rid of this stuff, and it off gases a whole bunch of things like hundreds of variations of byproducts. That makes up the pool smell. And that smell is a symptom of pollution and it's not healthy. That rasp in my voice is from permanent lung scarring from swimming almost a decade of my life indoors.
[00:01:28] It's the reason why I'm in the industry. I know we talk about a lot of different things in pool chemistry, but the reason I'm here, originally, is because I got very sick swimming indoors. And it's deeply personal to me to fix this problem. This episode we're going to talk about indoor air quality.
[00:01:44] In particular, this is a special episode because... my guest, who I recorded with earlier today outside on my deck, has been on the forefront of fixing indoor air quality problems since the beginning of the emerging technology that we're going to talk about.
[00:02:00] In particular, we're speaking about ventilation in indoor pools to handle the pollution that I just described. And the reason this is a special episode is because you would not know the name of the gentleman that we're going to be honoring in this episode. There's a high probability you've never heard of him. His name is Derek Ingram.
Remembering Derek Ingram
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[00:02:23] Eric Knight: Derek was my coworker for many years where it was just he and I for several years, trying to develop this new technology called The Evacuator. To get chloramines out. We ate lunch every day. We spent, you know, the entire working day together for three years.
[00:02:40] Derek was never a swimmer. It started out as a job and he didn't know swimmers personally. Didn't know coaches, but it became more than a job. It became a vocation. This man was unbelievably dedicated and devoted to the mission of fixing indoor air quality problems for pools.
[00:02:57] And without the level of detail that Derek put into everything he did, the technology that fixes the indoor air quality problem would not be nearly as far along today as it is. It is now becoming widely accepted as the standard for new commercial pools to put this ventilation system in every time. As it should be. Because the pollution is going to happen every time there should always be a way to suck that pollution out of the room effectively while it's married up to the pool dehumidification system, etc.
[00:03:24] I know we don't talk about dehumidification much, and we may talk a little bit about that in this podcast but that's a different topic for a different place. But the point is all of us have probably been in an indoor pool. And if you are lucky enough to go into a facility that has one of these systems in there and you're breathing fresh air, there are a lot of people to thank. But probably number one on that list is Derek Ingram.
[00:03:47] Derek took a concept that had a lot of people involved. We're gonna drop some names here. Don Baker, Jeff Gaeckle, Chris Adams, Tom Lee, Randy Baxter, Dennis Ingram, my guest today, and a lot of other people that I can't name everybody, but a lot of people took this concept and made it into something that is becoming standard. And I couldn't be happier about it.
[00:04:10] It makes a huge difference. And it's my mission, personally, to fix as many natatoriums as possible so that people can breathe freely. That mission would not exist to the level that it does today without Derek and his work.
[00:04:25] Derek was an architecture student out of Clemson and... he was a hell of an engineer for an architect, I'll tell you that. He took designs and calculations and really brought this system up to being at a professional standard so that engineers would look at and say, okay. I get it. This is up to my standards. And then they would be able to put it into their drawings.
[00:04:45] Whereas before, without the level of CAD drawings and details and specs and cut sheets and all the stuff that Derek created, most people wouldn't even give it the time of day. But because of Derek, it has become the standard of care. And for that, we should all be grateful. Whether you use indoor pools or not. If you know people who do, as this technology takes over, as it should, it should become a required thing for indoor pools. It's just common sense. You have to address the pollution. It's going to happen. What do you do about it?
[00:05:17] That technology is only possible because of what Derek did. The reason this episode is so special, not only to me, but to anybody else who knew Derek, is because we just lost Derek. Derek just tragically passed away about two weeks ago after almost two years battling ALS.
[00:05:40] And if you've never seen that disease, it is horrifying. It's really hard to watch somebody, especially Derek. I mean, I'll just give him a little bit of a tribute here. He was a great man, young man, 39 years old. I watched that guy start with what he thought was Crohn's and turned out to be ulcerative colitis. And he had so much pain. And this was in 2014. Long story short, after multiple hospital visits and multiple infections and multiple issues here, there, everywhere, he just kept going back into the hospital. They found out his liver was dying. And it was a genetic defect.
[00:06:27] Had nothing to do with behaviors. He wasn't an alcoholic. He never did drugs. He didn't smoke. And yet his liver was failing on him. Fast forward over the next four years and just tremendous pain and agony throughout those four years. He's going to die if he doesn't get a liver transplant. And a miracle happened in 2018. He got one. Eventually he was the sickest person in the Carolinas and with maybe a few more days left to live, he got a liver. And it was a miracle, and he recovered. Recovered fully.
[00:07:06] It's amazing. He's on immunosuppressants and then boom, ,COVID happened. Here's a guy who has to take immunosuppressants so that his liver works and a pandemic happens. And then he got COVID and amazingly he survived COVID as well. And all the while after getting this liver, he had two more children. And three days after his second daughter was born, his third child, he got diagnosed with ALS.
[00:07:35] This could not have happened to a less deserving father. To a less deserving person. And what's so cruel about this disease, it's really hard to talk about, but every time I would visit him, he was still in there. And his body was failing around him. I last saw him about three weeks before he passed.
[00:07:59] And at that point. I mean, he can't talk anymore, so he's using his eyes to speak on a computer. I had this running joke with him, he was a devout Clemson fan. I mean, every, like every day he wore Clemson stuff and had Clemson stuff all over the walls. And I always just act surprised, like, wait, wait, what, when, since when are you a Clemson fan? Or their big rival is the USC South Carolina Gamecocks.
[00:08:22] And I'd say, man, that's just really good work for a Gamecock. Um, you know, he's a Gamecocks fan and anyways, this joke never died. I just, I regret nothing. If you're listening, Derek, I regret nothing. Um, and, and I showed up and he's wearing a Clemson sweatshirt and he's got his nurse there helping him. I was like, gosh, why does Amber keep putting you in Clemson gear?
[00:08:44] You know, it doesn't, it doesn't make sense. It's got to drive you nuts, Derek. And he writes out on his computer screen. It's still not funny, Eric. He was still in there.
[00:08:58] Derek leaves behind an unbelievably loyal and faithful wife, Amber, who has stuck with him through everything. And I mean, it's a lot. She's been there the whole time. Through a failing liver, through all the infections, through the myriad hospital visits, and pain and agony. And then the entire battle with ALS. Where she was not only having to raise three young kids, but also being his primary caretaker. I don't know how she does it. But God put her in his life for a reason. And Amber, if you're listening. You are a Saint.
[00:09:40] Derek also leaves behind three beautiful children, Beau, Kate, and Elle. And hopefully they remember enough of their father to cherish just how good of a man he was.
[00:09:51] And we are honored today to have his dad. He has a depth of knowledge, I would put him up against anybody in the country that I know of being more knowledgeable in a commercial pump room. Doesn't do anything with residential. But in a commercial pump room, this guy can build them and he's built hundreds. He can fix them, he's fixed thousands. He knows commercial pools better than just about anyone I know. Dennis Ingram is our guest today.
[00:10:19] It's a particularly hard episode. It's so soon after the loss of Derek, but for what Derek did for the commercial pool industry, and for not having his name ever put out there. People didn't know he was the guy behind the scenes doing it. I think anyone who uses indoor pools should be saying thank you.
[00:10:41] And with that, this is episode 125 of the Rule Your Pool podcast.
Introducing Dennis Ingram
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[00:10:47] Eric Knight: Welcome back to the Rule Your Pool podcast. If you can hear it, we are outside and I have a very special guest with me sitting here next to my fixer upper pool. Dennis Ingram. Thank you for being with me.
[00:11:21] Dennis Ingram: Alright.
[00:11:23] Eric Knight: So, for those of you who don't know Dennis, Dennis is a commercial pool operator, but kind of a service technician, repair guy. You've built out a ton of pump rooms on commercial pools. You probably know more about a commercial pump room than anyone I know. And I got to know you years ago with my years at Paddock Evacuator. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Commercial pools, indoor air quality, and sort of the origins of how you've been at the forefront of fixing that problem.
[00:11:50] So welcome to the show. Thank you.
[00:11:52] Dennis Ingram: Thank you. I've done a few pump rooms here and there, but a few years,
[00:11:57] Eric Knight: a few hundred.
[00:11:57] Dennis Ingram: Yeah. My background is actually, plumbing, HVAC work. And that's one of the reasons that Don felt I would be good with the whole indoor air quality issue. And he brought me on board for that, and we um, took off, but it was an interesting journey for sure.
[00:12:17] Eric Knight: So let's go back to the days before the Evacuator was created. Pre 2009.
[00:12:23] Dennis Ingram: Right.
[00:12:23] Eric Knight: Been in pools for a long time. Rust, corrosion, people coughing. I know I personally got sick. I had my first asthma attack in 2009. My pool was a bromine pool in college and then it converted to cal hypo in 2008 and that's when I started getting sick. I actually didn't have issues when it was bromine. Some other people did so it's a tolerance thing. But I was intimately familiar with how much this problem hurt.
[00:12:50] And by the time I came to Charlotte in 2011, I had been using an inhaler for over a year. All the time, every single day. So the way I was introduced to it was Don Baker and Jeff Gaeckle showed up to our practice when I was on Team Elite, and they had just put in that bench at Johnson C Smith.
[00:13:07] And they said, Hey guys, how's the air in here? And I thought, you know, now that you mentioned it, I haven't had to use my inhaler in a few weeks.
[00:13:14] And they explained, Hey, we're pulling this heavy gas that's making you sick, that you're breathing in all the time, that chlorine smell, and we're just sucking it out of the room. And I was sold immediately because it was clearly working. So take me back. What was it like before and then how did this originate? Because you were there. You were on the front lines.
Origins of the Paddock Evacuator
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[00:13:33] Dennis Ingram: You know, I was actually out building these pools and training people and learning about chemicals and such as this.
[00:13:40] You know, being a kid swimming, you know, you walk into an indoor pool and your eyes are burning and you know, but you don't know what that is. I mean, you just assume it's chlorine like everybody did,
[00:13:50] Eric Knight: Right.
[00:13:50] Dennis Ingram: And a lot of people probably still do. You know, I mean, we're bringing it out and it's more and more people becoming aware. But you didn't really realize it's such a big problem.
[00:13:58] You being a swimmer, of course, knew something was up. But, um, so I think it all originated from a meeting they had about rebuilding a pool facility in Greenville, South Carolina. Westside Aquatic Center. They were tearing the building down because it had rusted through and it was only, I think, like 15 to 17 years old. And it had already gotten to the point where it was not safe to be in the building.
[00:14:23] They had an engineer that was on the board. And they had several pool builders there to come in and give bids and in quotes to rebuild this whole facility. And so his question to him was, what are you gonna do to prevent this from happening again?
[00:14:37] Eric Knight: And that was, um, that was Randy Baxter, right?
[00:14:40] Dennis Ingram: Yes, sir. I believe it's correct. Um, so everybody just kind of looked at each other. And after the meeting, I think Don Baker, the owner of Paddock and Tom Lee, one of the sales guys were on the way back. And I think Tom actually come up with an idea of why don't we put like a, uh, exhaust fan in there of some sort. And it kind of all started from that.
[00:15:02] And then from there we started putting ideas together. We had other HVAC engineers come in and work with us as well.
[00:15:08] Eric Knight: I remember Chris Adams was one of those guys who came down.
[00:15:10] Dennis Ingram: Yep, absolutely. Yeah, Chris was, Chris was a big, big help with us. But we started putting it together and designing it.
[00:15:17] And you know, it just, uh, evolved into what it is today. I've been to a lot of facilities. We actually had this thing, we called it the road show. And we would go out and temporarily install it and set it up. And if it was in the right place, it was amazing. I mean, it would just blow people away.
[00:15:35] Eric Knight: I remember we went to that YMCA where they had that wall between them that almost had the fireplace, but it was two chases where we had like the water park on one side and then the lap pool on the other. We put that temporary system in there. It was like five minutes later. It was amazing.
Commercial pools are complex
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[00:15:49] Eric Knight: A little bit of context since most of our listeners are either homeowners or residential pros. When I got to Orenda, the first time I saw a residential pool system, my reaction was, where's the rest of it?
[00:16:01] Because I was, you're laughing because I was so used to commercial pump rooms with the years at Paddock. That I'm going in there, there's automation controllers, and these big filters I can fit inside, and there's all sorts of this equipment, these massive pumps, and I was just stunned at how simple a residential system was. And I think you could speak to that too, that a residential system is... Really a very simplified version of commercial pool system. Would you agree?
[00:16:27] Dennis Ingram: Yes, absolutely. And 180 degrees from that, we've had guys come from residential pools over to work with us and I take him out to his first pool and he walks in there and it's like a deer in the headlights.
[00:16:38] He's like, what is all this? So, I mean, it's, it's, uh, there's a lot that goes into commercial pools. You get into UVs and Heaters and you know, all kind of stuff, which you have that on residential as well, but, um, it's just a lot larger pipes and larger pumps, larger filters,
[00:16:58] Eric Knight: and larger risk too, because if you close a valve, the amount of pressure in a commercial pool, you're using schedule 80 pipe, not schedule 40, right?
[00:17:07] Dennis Ingram: For the most part, yeah.
Indoor pool chemistry
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[00:17:08] Eric Knight: Well, outdoor commercial pools basically have the same chemistry parameters that we're used to with residential, just an exponentially larger bather load. Higher turnover rates ideally a lot more filter square footage. But a disproportionately higher bather load. Especially with people wearing sunscreen and swim teams and all of that.
[00:17:26] When you put that indoors, the byproducts of chlorination in these environments creates chloramines. And we've talked about this in previous episodes, and it's all over our website. But chloramines is a big buzzword that if you're unfamiliar with it, this is the stuff that off gasses.
[00:17:42] And this is the main culprit behind the pool smell. But the truth is... in our industry, chloramines is a very generic term to refer to all byproducts. And so anytime you have chlorine byproducts of chlorine oxidizing anything that contains nitrogen, basically, whether it's organic or inorganic, we just call them all chloramines.
[00:18:02] We probably shouldn't. There's cyanogen chloride, there's chloroform, there's trihalomethanes beyond chloroform, lots of different things. But we're just going to use the word chloramines generally. And when we're talking about chloramines, in the water they're known as combined chlorine. In the air, this is the pollution that's called the pool smell. We just call them chloramines.
[00:18:20] And chloramines are highly corrosive. When they condense on metals, they're loaded with chlorides, which are corrosive to metals to begin with, and they have a very low pH. Dennis, you remember when we took the condensation out of the Evacuator on that YMCA and it had like a 19 part per million chlorine level?
[00:18:39] Dennis Ingram: yeah
[00:18:40] Eric Knight: It was crazy. And the pH was like 3. And so we see the runoff from these big pool dehumidifiers etching concrete outside and the sidewalk is showing the aggregate where the water runs. We got photos of it. The rest of the sidewalk's fine.
[00:18:54] And so this is very corrosive air that's corroding things. If you are a commercial operator or if you've ever spent time in an indoor pool, if you see rust that looks like it was orange spray paint, almost. Like spots on metal, stainless steel in particular. Handles of doors, starting blocks, backstroke flag rails, any rail goods like that, that's chloramines.
[00:19:16] So that's the big problem we're talking about here. And Dennis has been on the front lines of not only developing the technology, but installing it, figuring it out and helping perfect it. And I want you to speak on that a little bit more of the story. So we started at the Westside Aquatic Center in about, I think that was 2008 or 9.
[00:19:35] Where did it go from there?
Developing the Evacuator into the standard of care
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[00:19:36] Dennis Ingram: Uh, well, back in house. Derek came in as well. He was doing a lot of the engineering on it, if you will. Calculations and such as that. A lot of times I'd go out and measure these facilities, look at them, and try to determine the best location to put an Evacuator.
[00:19:52] And one thing that we learned is that we wanted to use the HVAC air flow. Um, that was a very important part because none of these are cookie-cutter units. If you just in and put an exhaust fan in, it would just suck your conditioned air out, which is money. Because you're paying the heat and cool the air in these facilities and you just don't want to suck that out.
[00:20:15] figured out how to use that air flow to our advantage. And you were talking about the rust on the equipment. One thing we figured out is the chloramines are so much heavier than air. So all your rust starts usually really low down at the floor level. Yeah. You'll see it and, uh.
[00:20:31] Eric Knight: We call that the breathing zone. Right where the swimmers are at the water surface. Exactly. That's the highest concentration. Yeah.
[00:20:36] Dennis Ingram: Exactly. We figured that out, so we determined that's where we needed to pull the air from. Is where it's just saturated with chloramines and get that out and let the good air quality, which is usually high, come back down. So you're breathing in good air.
[00:20:49] We went out and did a lot of test runs. Uh, putting in the roadshow, which was a temporary unit and just seeing what would happen. We did videos. We use that liquid nitrogen.
[00:21:02] Eric Knight: Yeah. If you, if you ever YouTube chloramines or Evacuator, like Paddock Evacuator, you're going to hear Dennis's voice saying, this is a liquid nitrogen.
[00:21:09] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Those were the early days.
[00:21:12] Dennis Ingram: Yep. And, uh, I mean, it was actually a enjoyable time doing this. uh, We installed a bunch of these things. It was a trial and error on a lot of it. But we figured it out and kind of got it down pat, but it's got a lot to do with the airflow.
[00:21:27] And the HVAC contractors could, you know, rule the world with this. I mean, they could be the ones that actually set the precedents as far as whether it's a win or lose situation on these indoor pools. But anyway, uh, it's just all a matter of figuring out your airflow and then getting those chloramines out.
[00:21:49] Eric Knight: So let's give a visual because you say we're putting in this roadshow, this temporary system. We're not going to get into the technical specifics of it, but essentially what this is, is a new exhaust system. So it's a, it's a capture point for heavy pollution in the air. Because good air, heat and humidity come out of this pool. Heat and humidity rise and expand.
[00:22:11] And so from a dehumidification standpoint, you have to have a properly sized pool dehumidifier. Not an air conditioner, huge difference between a pool dehumidifier and an air conditioner. And we don't need to get into that now, but we can if you want to Dennis. But if you condition the air you have to do something with the pollution. And the reason for that is the old way of doing things until recently, ASHRAE is the standard that the HVAC industry uses, and they have updated their standards quite a bit.
[00:22:40] The old way was you would put the exhaust as part of the return path. If you do that, that exhaust fan doesn't have the ability to just pick and choose the pollution and pull that out. It's just pulling out a percentage of the airflow. And so it can't distinguish between good air and bad air.
[00:22:57] And as a result, if you were returning air back to the dehumidifier that was low in the room, it was loaded with pollution, it was basically chain smoking cigarettes. That's basically what it was doing is chain smoking chloramines and then blowing them right back into the room.
[00:23:11] Conversely, if you had a high return, that's high up in the room, it stagnates and there is no relief because the chloramines just build and build and build and build and build.
[00:23:20] And eventually they get stirred up enough that you start to get some out. But all the exhaust was pretty much in the return path. And I should note before passing this mic back to you. The word return is the exact opposite in HVAC that it is in pools. You're smiling because you know, when you return in a pool, you are returning to the vessel, you're returning to the pool.
[00:23:43] In air systems, it's the opposite. You're actually returning to the system to condition the air and then you supply the room. So it's, it's different.
A paradigm shift in natatorium HVAC design
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[00:23:53] Eric Knight: What the Paddock Evacuator did was such a paradigm shift because it was the first system that proved you could separate the airstreams. You could separate and capture the pollution while recirculating the good air.
[00:24:04] And you could take it so you would just disable the existing exhaust fan, or on a new system, ideally, you just design it this way. A separate fan, separate path, you never recirculate chloramines, you get them outside. And that way... it's fresh air inside. You're never recirculating chloramines.
[00:24:22] Now they'll always be produced because bathers are always using the pool and as a result of that, you will have these byproducts that off gas. The key is, do they build up to a point where they start to annoy swimmers like me or get us sick? And the answer is generally no. If it is properly designed, no. You're going to have a constant sweep of air. You're going to be constantly pulling this pollution out and recirculating the good air. And that's the whole point of the Evacuator.
[00:24:46] That technology would not exist if not for the people that we've already mentioned in this. And specifically on the front lines of figuring this out was you, Dennis, and your son, Derek. And so I want to talk about like that legacy that Derek has left behind, if you're comfortable doing that. And, um, let's honor the work that he's done.
[00:25:06] Dennis Ingram: Well, he did a lot of the design, um, figuring the loads and stuff. Like I said, it's not a cookie cutter design. And we had to figure out how much air we could pull out without pulling out the conditioned air. Um, so that was, that was one thing that we did. We had to know how much, you know, return they were putting into the building.
[00:25:26] How much fresh air, because you were going to pull, exhaust so much air. So, we basically got to the point where we would just take out all the exhaust air. And let the building circulate air. So it was not really exhausting anything. We were doing all the exhausting of the air. Uh, and it was always the low the chloramines if you will.
[00:25:48] But, uh, yeah, Derek was in on a big part of it. And we got to a certain point. And I moved on and went back to the service industry. And, uh, he stayed there. So he had it all on his own. But, um, he was very instrumental in the design and such as that.
[00:26:06] Eric Knight: That's about the time that I got involved. That was about 2012. So you went back to servicing and building pump rooms and commercial pools, right? And right around that time I came in, that would have been about 2012 after Olympic trials. I came in, yeah, 2012. And you know, for an architecture student, Derek was a hell of an engineer.
[00:26:25] Dennis Ingram: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:26:26] Eric Knight: He would probably resent me saying that, but... Basically the technology was a concept that came from an idea, maybe this is possible. And a lot of credit goes to the other people involved with this. And some manufacturers said, okay, we see what you're doing. We like this. And dehumidification companies started saying, we'll actually modify our sequences and our controls so that we can control this new fan that you're putting in to keep the air balanced.
[00:26:50] That was a huge shift. Because with their credibility and their rep groups and their connections to engineers, we were able to get a lot more credibility for this idea. It wasn't about us as a manufacturer. It was the fact that now engineers understood the nature of the problem and there was an answer to it.
[00:27:08] Uh, some manufacturers like desert air went as far as to create an entirely new product just to exhaust chloramines. It was double coated and it reclaimed a lot of that latent energy, meaning heat. And actually could put that heat back into the pool to help heat the pool and offset energy costs.
[00:27:26] So there were a lot of different things that took this good technology and made it into a great one. And that was, I mean, it started in 2009. It's 2023 now. Is now being widely accepted. And that, you know, kudos to you and to Don, but especially to Derek.
[00:27:42] Because none of this would be possible without Derek. I really want to take this time and honor the work that he did because if you as a listener ever use an indoor pool, you may not have this technology yet, but there's a possibility that you will in the future or the next one that is built will. A very high likelihood that the next indoor pool at least should have this and that would not be possible without you and Derek.
[00:28:06] So thank you for your contributions and let's talk about him a little bit so the people who have never heard his name get to know who he is and who he was.
Derek's legacy
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[00:28:15] Dennis Ingram: Um, very OCD everything had to be perfect. What is there to say? You know, he was hard working, dedicated to it, which he stayed on it up until, you know, he had to leave. But, um, I think he was doing still working all day. They developed, got it to where they could put it into the gutter system. So when they're building a brand new pool, the Evacuator could be put into that.
[00:28:38] You were talking about the companies that are accepting it now. But back in the, in the beginning, nobody likes change. So in the beginning, everybody was like, that's not gonna work. That's not a great, you know.
[00:28:48] Eric Knight: Snake oil!
[00:28:49] Dennis Ingram: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I heard that once, I heard it a million times. But that was one of the reasons we did the road show to prove it. And as it started catching on, they started going, hmm. Yeah, this is, uh, this is a real deal.
[00:29:01] We just kept, kept doing it. Derek kept on with it. Like I said, I left and so he basically had it all on him to keep it going. And and you know, any designs that had to be changed and such as that.
[00:29:13] Eric Knight: Well, you mentioned OCD, a couple stories about Derek. So we shared an office, Derek and I. And when I say OCD, or what Dennis does, he means it. Like, we're talking shirts in his house folded perfectly in order of color. Everything, the closets were the most meticulous thing. And his desk, he had these pens. Like a green one, a red one, a black one, a blue one. And they were perfectly aligned. And so I got to this thing where after he would leave, I would just like turn one around.
[00:29:42] Like, just, just see if he would notice, or I would shift one out of alignment. And, oh gosh, it got him so annoyed. You're touching my stuff! One time, he had this to do list that he would write in perfect handwriting. And I mean, he must have written at the speed of a third grader. But, so meticulously perfect handwriting.
[00:30:02] And I took another yellow pad next to it and just added in three or four items into his to do list. So I would copy exactly his handwriting the best I could. And it took me like 20 minutes at least. I was, I had to go so slow. And I added things in like, do Eric's laundry, clean Don's car, that kind of thing into his to do list. It was really funny to mess with him.
[00:30:25] But that attention to detail that Derek had really elevated this to even being viable with engineers. Because if you just throw out a lousy shop drawing, they're not going to take you seriously. The fact that Derek did architectural drawings, he was an architecture major at Clemson.
[00:30:43] He was super good at it. I mean, it was a real gift. This guy could do CAD drawings to the Nth degree of perfection. And that took the Evacuator to that professional level. Otherwise, it may never have taken off. You gotta be proud of that. And it's worth being proud of.
[00:31:01] Dennis Ingram: Absolutely. Absolutely. It was great, I mean, we had a good time working together. We got to travel together some. You know, but he was so meticulous with everything. It would drive me crazy at times just because there were things I do. And if I do something, I'm gonna do it right. That was... pretty much the way my dad would do it. If I didn't do it right, I had to do it again and I hate to do anything twice.
[00:31:23] So I got to where I did everything the first time. But some, some of his stuff would be so perfection that it was like over the top and I'm like, all right. And so we had our differences on that. But, um, like you said, his meticulous attitude and, and, you know, deep to detail and such really, really, I guess, put it up, up where it needed to be.
[00:31:48] Eric Knight: Well, beyond that, you can't just exhaust air low in a room. We found out. We tried. Tried it several times. Like you said, it was a lot of trial and error. You can't just do that and be successful every single time. And it got down, , this is the precision we're talking about. Derek figured out to get a laminar flow, which means a flow of air across a long length. So, like the length of a pool, not just from one corner of the room. Each intake, which we called them slots because they were narrow and tall. Each intake hole was precise to the centimeter. I mean, he had it down. He knew the exact width and height of these things, had calculated it to the Nth degree, so you could plug in an air volume, and then plug in the length of the bench, and it would design it for you.
[00:32:33] It was pretty unbelievable what Derek came up with. And I gotta give him credit, because this is a man who never competitively swam, never really knew the end users. Like I was an end user. I was deeply, personally tied to this problem. Derek wasn't. And yet, it went from a job to a vocation. Every bit as committed to that mission to help these people he had never met, who may never know his name, who may never say thank you because they just take it for granted.
[00:32:59] You don't think about bad air when the air is good. And if you do have bad air, you just think, well, ah, that's normal. That's just what a pool is. That's the pool smell. And so we get used to it and we rationalize it that, oh yes, this must be okay.
[00:33:13] It's not okay. It's not supposed to be there, but it is how things have been for a very long time. And, uh, he deserves a lot of credit for that. Because had he not taken it so seriously and so personally to help these strangers, really, we wouldn't be where we are today. And, uh, you raised a good one there, Dennis.
[00:33:32] Dennis Ingram: Yeah, thank you. He's gonna be missed, for sure. He's, uh, he was the easy one, I guess. But, uh...
[00:33:42] Eric Knight: That's saying a lot. Yeah.
[00:33:44] Dennis Ingram: Yeah. But, uh... Yeah, he was a good kid. I never had any issues really with him coming up. He was always a go getter if you will. And what do you say? I mean, I'm bragging so
[00:34:01] Eric Knight: You get to. Normally you don't get to, you get to right now.
[00:34:05] Dennis Ingram: Yeah, but one of the best, I guess.
[00:34:10] Eric Knight: I'll say this. Yeah, he'll be missed, but his work will live on. I'm personally committed to continuing that mission. I know you are as well in our own ways. We're in different aspects of the industry, but the work was never in vain. That's the point. We're going to take this to the next level. We're going to continue on. It's a hard time for all of us, but it means the world to me that you came here and we talk about this issue and about Derek, really. We honor him. Is there anything you want to add? Because these people that are listening, some of them may have interacted with him, but not many.
[00:34:44] But all of them, if they ever use an indoor pool, can be grateful. The work that Derek did impacts pretty much every indoor pool moving forward. So I'm personally very grateful for it forever. But if there's anything you want to add then otherwise, we'll wrap up here.
[00:35:01] Well Dennis Thank you so much for being on this podcast and telling the story of air quality and Derek. So if you use an indoor pool we are grateful that you're supporting the industry because they're not building too many of them anymore. A large part of that is the air quality challenge.
[00:35:18] They're a lot more expensive to build, a lot more expensive to operate, but they're necessary for sports like swimming, water polo, synchronized swimming, diving, things like that. And, uh, I know most of this we talk about water chemistry, we talk about backyard pools, but commercial pools are a big part of our industry as well.
[00:35:34] So, we're grateful for you. Thank you for listening. This has been episode 125. We'll see you next week.