Anish Desai, Adam Cory, and Markus Lenger

On this episode, we speak with Anish Desai, Senior vice president of product certification at IAPMO R&T, about product certification at IAPMO R&T in our News segment; Adam Cory, Founder and Business Unit Leader of ThermoGrid at ECI Software Solutions, about how businesses in the trades can utilize cloud-based business management software in our Trends segment; and Markus Lenger, co-founder and CEO of CleanBlu, about his company and how emerging technologies can help underserved communities in needin our Good Vibes segment.

To get in touch with Anish Desai, you can visit www.iapmort.org to find contact information and information about about IAPMO R&T.

To get in touch with Adam Cory, you email him at sales@thermogrid.com or call at 1-800-592-3611.

To get in touch with Markus Lenger, you can email him at markuslenger@cleanblu.com.

Transcript

Christoph Lohr: Welcome to "The Authority Podcast: Plumbing and Mechanical." When talking about the built environment we would do well to remember: We shape our buildings, and afterwards, our buildings shape us. Therefore, on each episode, we'll discuss the latest trends from IAPMO in plumbing and mechanical safety, sustainability and resiliency.

Join me, your host, Christoph Lohr, and together we'll explore the ways we can make our building shape us for the better.

Welcome to this episode of "The Authority Podcast: Plumbing and Mechanical." On this episode, we'll be speaking with Anish Desai, senior vice president of product certification at IAPMO R&T, in our news segment; Adam Cory, founder and business unit leader of ThermoGRID at ECI Software Solutions in our trend segment; and Markus Lenger, co-founder and CEO of CleanBlu, in our good vibe segment. This podcast episode is sponsored by ECI Software Solutions' ThermoGRID, a cloud-based solution that makes doing business more efficient and profitable for small to medium residential service companies. ThermoGRID's service management platform and mobile app enables independent businesses to engage customers, orchestrate service and empower technicians by performing all the specific functions vital to competing in today's marketplace.

Let's get at it. Here's my conversation with Anish Desai, where we discuss product certification at IAPMO R&T. Anish, welcome to the show. 

Anish Desai: Thanks for having me. 

Christoph Lohr: Really glad to have you. Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself. 

Anish Desai: My name's Anish Desai. I'm a mechanical engineer, graduated from university of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and I'm a PE as well, a licensed professional engineer, state of California.

I've been with IAPMO since 2003, so much of my career has been spent here; a lot of growth. It's been very exciting, very rewarding. Obviously that longevity speaks to the kind of company IAPMO is, and also the kinds of opportunities that it has afforded me. So, very happy to be here. 

Christoph Lohr: Well, we're excited to have you on the podcast too. Tell us a little bit about IAPMO R&T for some of our listeners that haven't heard of IAPMO R&T. 

Anish Desai: IAPMO R&T is a certification body. We are a product certification body. We're accredited, and what we do is we evaluate and certify products in accordance with standards and codes. So that includes review of test data drawings, product samples, and basically we ultimately will issue a listing, which indicates that certain products from the manufacturer comply with the standards and codes that are stated on that listing. And the reason it's important is because plumbing codes, which are adopted and enforced by jurisdictions across the country, those codes require that the products or the components installed in the systems be certified by an accredited third-party certifier.

So being one such body, we are an entity that will conduct that evaluation and issue that listing that those jurisdictions can then use to base their acceptance of the product on. 

Christoph Lohr: It sounds like you're playing a really vital role in public health and safety then, making sure that what somebody says they're going to do is actually happening in terms of products.

Anish Desai: It is, and that's a good point. So the plumbing codes, again, getting back to that, the plumbing codes, they cover a couple important things. One, they govern the installation of the plumbing system. And I say plumbing because plumbing is one of the product categories that we certify, but it's probably the primary one and the bulk of our certification activity is in the plumbing area. So getting back to the plumbing code, the plumbing code governs the installation of plumbing systems in addition to specifying that the components that are installed in that system be independently certified. So when we certify a product, we ensure that the product complies with any applicable standards, but also to ensure that the product, by its design or by the installation instructions that are provided, that those installations are consistent with the guidelines in the code, and to take it even a step back further, the purpose of the plumbing code is to ensure the plumbing systems are installed safely, so the public health and safety is taken care of, first and foremost.

So in that regard, yes, I would agree. The certification that we carry out is very much directly tied to public health and safety. 

Christoph Lohr: That's awesome. Well, I've met some folks within the plumbing design professional circles that are only vaguely aware of IAPMO R&T. And I'm sure there's other listeners that are trying to figure out how IAPMO R&T integrates into IAPMO in general.

So for those listeners that maybe aren't as familiar with IAPMO R&T, what would be the one thing that you would want our listeners to know about IAPMO R&T? 

Anish Desai: Well, IAPMO R&T again, as mentioned before we, you know, we conduct product certification, which is obviously separate from code development, which is one of the other major activities that IAPMO conducts.

But with IAPMO R&T, one thing I think is important to stress is that we are the leading certifier of plumbing products in North America, but I think that can be attributed to a couple of things. One, the customer service we provide is tops in the industry; the technical competence we possess is industry leading; and also we're responsive and dynamic. As you might know or your listeners may know, there are always new trends in the industry, there are always changes and regulations that affect manufacturers that affect the kinds of products that can be installed, and going back to the earlier point, because these products have to be certified, there has to be a certifier out there that is ready to adapt to these changes that is ready to understand and be able to evaluate to ever-changing standards regulations. And so I think that dynamic nature of our business and the responsiveness that we offer I think is definitely noteworthy, especially with respect to the earlier point about ensuring public health and safety.

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. Well, you mentioned responsiveness, and that makes me think of the amount of changes right now in the plumbing industry that is occurring, whether it's Legionella or water quality or other concerns such as drought. From IAPMO R&T's standpoint, in terms of these new challenges and being responsive, what is a new trend in plumbing that you all are seeing at IAPMO R&T? 

Anish Desai: Well, from a certification perspective, all the things you mentioned are very relevant and certainly in play nowadays. From a product certification perspective, I think the drought topic you mentioned last is a big one because water conservation and what can be done about it takes many forms, and it directly applies to the industry here and what we do. A couple of examples of how that works, number one is simply products that use less water are in demand. Why are they in demand? Because, well, regulations are clamping down on water use. So as a result, manufacturers have to offer products that can function, that can perform and perform their intended function, but do so by using less water.

And so water conservation is one, but also a couple other areas are harvesting rainwater, for example, and then reusing water. So gray water, for example, water that has been used to wash hands, can that water be filtered and then used for something else? So there are new technologies coming out, there are innovative products that are coming out, and again, going back and being the leading certifier in the plumbing arena, we have the opportunity to engage with manufacturers or people that are at the forefront of these technologies that want to bring them to the market, and they know that we're the ones that can be their partner in that and help them to reach that objective to get their products to the market. But then we can also play an important role in getting a very useful, safe technology to the market that can support the goal of saving water, but again also ensure that plumbing systems are safe and perform their intended functions. 

Christoph Lohr: Fascinating, fascinating. Lots of great information there.

Thank you for the great summary, and I think there's a lot for our listeners to take away from this, but if you were going to give our listeners a one-word summary for your talk, what would that be? 

Anish Desai: Informative, I would say. I think putting all the glamor and the flash aside, it's about getting information out to people that need it. We provide a very important service, and it's all about knowledge and information getting to the right ears and to the right folks so the people that need this service can get it and products that have a place in the market can find their way to the market. And it's just about being a partner in that process.

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. Well, before we sign off, if our listeners want to get in touch with you or IAPMO R&T, what's the best way for them to do so? 

Anish Desai: I would start at our website, www.iapmort.org. There's a lot of great information there. There's some contact information as well. I would suggest starting there.

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. Well, on behalf of "The Authority Podcast: Plumbing and Mechanical," Anish, thank you so much for joining me today. 

Anish Desai: It was great talking to you. Thanks for having me. 

Christoph Lohr: In our next segment, I talk with Adam Cory, founder and business unit leader of ThermoGRID at ECI Software Solutions, about how businesses in the trades can utilize cloud-based business management software. Adam, welcome to the show.

Adam Cory: Thank you. 

Christoph Lohr: Do you want to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and a little bit about ThermoGRID? 

Adam Cory: Yeah. So I am, like you mentioned, VP of sales for ECI Software Solutions at ThermoGRID. And I started in the industry. So I started out as an installer, I was a service technician, I was a sales rep for a period of time, sales manager, operations manager, and general manager.

And during that time I found a lot of challenges that I use to create, and I'm the founder of ThermoGRID and RISE coaching. 

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. Excellent. And what does ThermoGRID do, for our listeners that are not familiar with you all? 

Adam Cory: ThermoGRID is an ERP system that is designed to handle scheduling, dispatching, quoting, invoicing, taking payments, managing maintenance contracts, load calculations, just really everything for the HVAC/plumbing/electrical-type industries.

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. Excellent. Well, and it's interesting because in essence, from what I gather is that a lot of what ThermoGRID focuses on is data. And one of the trends in the construction of plumbing and mechanical systems is this push toward more data. And what's interesting to me is you're talking about data in terms of working on the business.

And that gets me thinking, it's a different perspective, but it's the same topic in terms of data and construction. And from what you're seeing, Adam, how is cloud-based business management software changing construction? Are there any trends that you're seeing that are happening in regards to construction?

Adam Cory: Yeah, I think that the biggest thing that's really happening is that businesses are starting to understand the importance of the software and what it can do for their business. When we look at thermal grade, for instance, when I first created this program, it was all about creating efficiency, accuracy and profitability for companies.

We ran into many challenges as a business as general manager, and not having the visibility and not knowing where things are at. It was really kind of managing a business based on emotion instead of looking at facts and data and details to really make the proper decisions on what's really going on.

Christoph Lohr: So what are some of the examples of some of the data points that were maybe based on emotion before? 

Adam Cory: Well, I think part of it would be just dispatching technicians, for instance. If you have a technician that did well the day before, you feel like they should maybe get all the opportunities, but knowing somebody's closing ratios, their average tickets, the callback ratios, and some of those things are really important to know who is the best technician qualified for a job.

And that's something that ThermoGRID will do is that actually does smart dispatching to figure out who is the best person for a job, but also just knowing as a business, what should the numbers be? Like what's a revenue per employee per day? How much revenue should be brought in for a service truck each month or per day? What the net profit should be.

But that's some of the things that software can do today, and especially with ThermoGRID, is to help businesses know where their number should be, and where they're currently at by using the platform. 

Christoph Lohr: Fascinating, fascinating. And, you know, I read Harvard Business Review and a number of other management publications but I keep seeing this trend of data in business in general in business. And what's typically pointed to is things like Google or especially venture capital or high-tech industries. I think construction is sort of the new kid on the block, I guess, in some ways with data in terms of construction of buildings, and then also in terms of maintaining those buildings and then also those service technicians and everyone else in terms of how those service industries support that construction and maintenance of the buildings.

So since data's becoming more and more critical in all business, are there any specific data trends you see in construction and the service industry that are maybe a little bit different or similar to other data collection or other data services in other businesses? 

Adam Cory: Well, I think the HVAC or mechanical-type businesses are very similar to any other type of business.

There's a metrics, there's a KPI for everything within the industry. And I think one of the things that we see a lot with contractors is just the awareness of how much or how important these KPIs are. When you have a company that's coming off of paper, it's tough enough to manage the daily schedules and everything else in the double entries and everything else of that data, and really not knowing where the profit should be, profit margins and how to do their pricing. It's usually set based on what other companies are charging. But one of the things that we do through the RISE coaching and through ThermoGRID is help businesses see exactly where their data should be and show them, again, it's specific for their business instead of what their competition is offering, even though they may have different prices or warranties, guarantees overhead, some of those types of things. 

Christoph Lohr: That's fascinating. Part of it makes me think, my background, it comes from the engineering side, and so I've seen many engineering firms base their prices in terms of how much they charge for engineering services based on what competitors are doing. And so what you're saying is really a whole-scale different approach when it comes to providing services based on your best value.

And I'm assuming some opportunities are ones that you want to follow and other opportunities are ones that you don't want to follow necessarily based on how your company operates, and that data can help lend itself to making those determinations a little bit more clear. 

Adam Cory: Absolutely. I mean, if you were to know ahead of time that this is what you have to have for profitability, which will actually tell you what your selling price should be on each particular item, like knowing how far can you really go to earn this customer's business? But it kind of gives you that line that says you don't want to go past this point, or it's actually going to be something that will cost the company.

And most of the time, if somebody's on pen and paper, they do not know what those numbers look like. Many times, they're trying to calculate those things right on the spot. They're more focused on getting the job versus am I going to win here? So one of the things we do on our coaching side is we show companies that ultimately, when we're making decisions as a business, we have to make it based on a win-win-win philosophy. The customer must win. The company must win. The technician or team must win. So a big one in that is the company must win because if the company never wins, if it's losing money on certain jobs, then ultimately the employees will lose and the customer will lose too if the company's not around to be able to take care of them in the future. 

Christoph Lohr: Great points. And it's interesting from my experience doing project management, again, from the engineering side, I saw that play out on multiple occasions where you could really make some pretty significant questions on whether you should take a project or not from an engineering side.

So the parallels for me, seeing that with the service and construction side of things, it's very clear. Data collection, we're focused a lot on the positives, but obviously there's always a double-edged sword with everything. So what are some of the possible negative consequences of data collection and what are some of the solutions to overcoming these challenges when using data like this for making better business decisions in construction? 

Adam Cory: Well, I think one of the biggest challenges or negative things that comes from a business wanting to take that step and become more effective and profitable is that they start getting platforms that maybe don't do everything that they need it to do.

It'll do one portion of it. And then they have another platform that does another portion of it. And all of a sudden we have maybe four or five or six different software platforms that have to be used to manage the business. So they're going to have double entry and they're not going to have all the data in one place, which means, again, you don't have that full visibility or the technicians don't so they don't know the full history for that customer. So ultimately I think the best thing to do is have a platform that will do everything, something that there doesn't have to be any extra, double, triple, quadruple entries to be able to manage the day-to-day operations. And I think the other side of it is just sometimes people don't really know maybe the processes or how things should be designed, and if they don't know how to do that, and they're jumping into a software platform on their own that doesn't have maybe the support or guidance to help them get to the goals that they want, what happens is they set things up a certain way and everybody's heard the terminology "garbage in, garbage out."

Sometimes people will make things overly complicated and then all of a sudden there's too much inconsistencies and that causes challenges on its own too. So really I think the biggest thing is just have a platform that can pretty much be the all-in-one platform as well as somebody that will do the support and help with implementation to help them achieve their goals.

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. Well, in closing, if you were going to sum up your talk in one word, what would that word be? 

Adam Cory: One word. I'd say profit. I think all this is about profit. 

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. Well, if our listeners wanted to get in touch with you and/or your organization, what's the best way for them to do so? 

Adam Cory: They could contact us and call us directly at 1-800-592-3611. Otherwise, they could email us at sales@thermo grid.com. 

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. And ThermoGRID is T H E R M O G R I D. Correct? 

Adam Cory: Correct. 

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. On behalf of The Authority Podcast, Adam, I just want to say thank you for being on. I appreciate the time and sharing some of your insights with us.

Adam Cory: Thank you for having me.

Christoph Lohr: In our final segment, I speak with Markus Lenger in person at the Emerging Water Technology Symposium in San Antonio, Texas, about his company, CleanBlu, and how emerging technologies can help underserved communities in need. This segment's being recorded from the EWTS, the Emerging Water Technology Symposium, here in San Antonio, Texas. And joining me live, actually here in person, we're not on the call together, we're sitting here next to each other, is Markus Lenger, co-founder and CEO of CleanBlu. Markus, thanks so much for joining our episode podcast here. 

Markus Lenger: Welcome. Glad to be here. 

Christoph Lohr: Well, this is the first time I'm recording with a person next to me. And for our listeners, you're going to hear some background noise around us here as people are talking, but I was able to steal Markus away after his presentation here this morning. 

Markus Lenger: Yeah. 

Christoph Lohr: And maybe before we dive into that, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your company? 

Markus Lenger: Yeah, my company's CleanBlu Innovations. So basically I design and build prototypes and pilot systems, water reuse, water treatment, typically small systems that are running independent power sources. So I've been doing this for about 30 years around the globe. I've dabbled in anything from oil spill response at the Exxon Valdez to like fats, oil and grease remediation.

So a lot of biological treatment, that seems to be my greatest expertises. 

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. Well, and at the symposium today, this morning, you spoke about open-source water projects. 

Markus Lenger: Yeah. 

Christoph Lohr: And this open-source water project that you're working on. Maybe tell our listeners a little bit of the highlights of your speech and the project itself.

Markus Lenger: Absolutely. So the project is called Bergbach. 

Christoph Lohr: Okay. So how do you spell Bergbach? 

Markus Lenger: B E R G B A C H. And so it's German, I'm born and raised in the Swiss Alps. And so for me, Bergbach is German for mountain stream. And that's for me, my idea of clean water. I remember that as a kid. So basically what I did is, when COVID happened, I think a lot of us revisited priorities and kind of had time to reflect on life if you want, so get a little bit philosophical. And so I decided, look, I want to configure a system. I want to configure a water treatment system that's small for the third world, inexpensive, could be used for off grid. It typically takes any kind of wastewater source and turns it into potable drinking water.

And I wanted it to be something that's, as I said, very inexpensive but easy to build. And so I went around the globe, asked all my friends and colleagues and experts, and we kind of collaborated and came up with this blueprint of building a system that's going to be very inexpensive that you can 3D print, and so we decided to make it all available for free on what we believe is the first open-source water project. So you'd be able to go to that website and download clear instructions, how to build the system, 3D printing files, because everything can be 3D printable — the software, the hardware platform — we're going to use open hardware, probably Arduino, and so we're going to put this all together, it's being peer reviewed as we speak, and then we're going to make it available and want pretty much anybody, invite them to build it. There will be no license fee, nothing. It'll be an open collaboration, kind of what open-source Arduino does, but we hope we have a lot of people around the globe helping to build this thing, a very affordable system that can make drinking water off solar power that hopefully is only a few hundred dollars. That's the plan. 

Christoph Lohr: That's excellent. That's exciting. I guess one of the first questions that comes up is taking wastewater, sanitary water, and making it into drinking water, right? 

Markus Lenger: Yeah. 

Christoph Lohr: I'm sure a lot of people — not everyone, a lot of people in the water industry don't get grossed out by that — but probably a lot of people in the general public, there's a yuck factor that is kind of associated with that. So how do you address that when that comes up? 

Markus Lenger: Well, basically when I usually do presentations, I show a picture of Earth from Apollo. And then I say, you notice there's no pipes going and in and out to Earth. So really the water that we have on Earth is the water we had. It's 5 billion years old, and it went through graveyards and dino doo and all sorts of stuff. I always say, like, the water is the water. It's just not really how you clean it. And in essence nature cleans it anyway. 

Christoph Lohr: And then we have manmade processes at this point, which is what you're taking advantage of. 

Markus Lenger: Yeah. And I I tell a lot of people, if you don't like it, just don't tell people. It's like if people would see in a slaughterhouse how their meat gets prepared, they probably didn't want to eat it either. 

Christoph Lohr: Yeah. 

Markus Lenger: So sometimes it's better not to know. On the other hand, being in wastewater long enough, even when you look at poo, if you want, so what is it really? It's food you put in your mouth in the first place that just goes to your body. When you look at it, really detach and you look at it, it's not so bad. There's a lot worse things in water like heavy metals and toxins that are really bad for you. Plus, we actually even consider urine sterile.

So it's not a big thing to overcome mentally. I don't think, it's not a big thing to overcome technically. And really we're at a point where we don't have a choice anyway. If your decision is am I going to die of thirst or I'm going to drink reprocessed urine, you probably find yourself going for the reprocessed urine. 

Christoph Lohr: Yeah. Yeah, that's clean. It's as good as mountain spring water. 

Markus Lenger: Absolutely. Yeah. Hopefully as good as mountain spring water, but certainly better than bottled water anyway. 

Christoph Lohr: Yes. Yes, definitely. 

I guess the second question, you mentioned a lot of this is open source. 

Markus Lenger: Yeah. 

Christoph Lohr: So, obviously people wonder, well, how does a company stay afloat in those things? Maybe the question more cynical would say, well, what's in it for you? 

Markus Lenger: Yes. It's of course open source. I think there's still ways to make money for somebody providing support with it. That's been proven like with the Arduino or all sorts of different things. But at the end of the day, I think anybody in our field realizes that what we're doing is so much bigger than ourselves. 

Christoph Lohr: It's a movement. Gotcha, yeah. 

Markus Lenger: It's a movement. And if you make it open source, you kind of take the financial equation out of it. And I think that's the most important thing, because now you can really go forward and say, we just need to build it. Now we're just talking parts and labor, and that's something you can't get around anyway.

Yeah. And so giving it away for free at that point. Yes. And there's some patents that I have given away as well. It's just something I felt needed to be done. I think it's more important to have it implemented and used than having systems that don't ever have the chance to make the impact that they should.

And so this is just something where when I asked all my colleagues and stuff, I said, by the way, we're gonna do this for free, you won't get paid, and nobody blinked an eye on it. 

Christoph Lohr: I think everyone knew it was the right thing to do. 

Markus Lenger: Yeah. It just, it needed to be done and that's the way we decided to do it.

Christoph Lohr: Yeah. No, that's amazing. That's amazing. Well, and to your credit too, this isn't the first time you've gotten involved in this sort of stuff. 

Markus Lenger: No. 

Christoph Lohr: And you've been involved with IWSH and the DigDeep project on the Navajo Nation. Maybe you wanna talk to our listeners a little bit about that experience? 

Markus Lenger: Yeah. I was fortunate enough to because I'm on a lot of IAPMO and WE•Stand committees that I got exposed to IWSH early on, like Pete DeMarco kind of knew what I was doing. And so I was asked to help out a little bit with IWSH, but specifically for the Navajo Mountain project. And so real quick, the Navajo Mountain project is basically a temporary chapter house, it's a very small building. It has the chapter in it, which is basically their government, as well as a little post office, the only post office around. And so it's literally the only toilet within like 15 miles or even more than that. And so it's an extremely well-used toilet where everybody stops there. They have like 80 to 120 users a day. 

Christoph Lohr: Wow. 

Markus Lenger: And it's all off a cistern, so they have like a 1,500-gallon fresh water cistern that they have to fill up. They have to truck the water in from about 30 miles and fill that up. And so some quick calculations we figured out, well, heck that tank is going to last a couple of days and then they have to refill it.

So we did something that was very unconventional. We said, OK, we're going to the septic system. And so I put a bioreactor module into the second septic tank where we treat the water biologically, aerobically. We'll pick it up, and we built this little inexpensive system that basically reuses that water, treats it, and we are running the flushing water of the toilet.

So we're not losing any water at least from the toilet usage. So they deliver water they have they can actually use to make drinks or whatever it may be. And one thing notable that we did there is that it doesn't have a sterilization stage in its classic sense. And I really wanted to get some data on it.

I asked the Navajo whether that's fine that we're not going in and starting to kill everything. And so they were fine with it. And it's been running for three years. 

Christoph Lohr: Amazing. 

Markus Lenger: Yeah. And, and you know what? 

Christoph Lohr: Any issues? 

Markus Lenger: No, no. And that's exactly kind of where we picked it up when people said, when we talked about Bergbach or even Navajo, they said, well, you have to have a sterilization stage.

And I'm like, no, not if you do it right. And, there is no sterilization stage in nature. And as we talked before, urine is sterile or is considered sterile. So where is the UV light bulb with an ozone generator in the human body? You know, it's not. So obviously your own body proves it's possible.

And so the data that we got out of it really also inspired Bergbach in that sense that we knew how to design it. I always say there's three rules to wastewater treatment. It's oxygen, oxygen, and oxygen . And so you've got enough oxygen in there, you could do that. So Navajo was and is a fantastic project. We managed to control everything off a modem chip. So we used a small LTE, which is a cellular modem chip that I also used as a controller. So basically our connected controller is $40. And it's never been done, even with the controller, so if you go to the company particle that actually makes that chip, there's a beautiful writeup about the Navajo project and how we used that chip to control it remotely.

I mean, it's being controlled from California in a very, very remote area. 

Christoph Lohr: Northeastern Arizona is very remote. 

Markus Lenger: The closest hardware store is a seven-hour round trip to Page Arizona, so it's very far away. 

Christoph Lohr: Well, as we're wrapping up here, the next time we have you in for the podcast — we don't know when — what do you think we're talking about then? 

Markus Lenger: Well, hopefully we're talking about Bergbach and how we can implement it, and we'll have the first blueprints and designs and everything up there and hopefully have a couple of people already collaborating on it, as I have people saying they would.

So we're going to launch this within the next couple of weeks. Right now you can go to bergbach.org, and sign up with an email, there's a sign-up sheet. And then as soon as the big site goes live, we're going to send you an email and you can come and do that. So I'd love to talk about that. I'd also love to talk a little bit more IWSH, what we're doing.

IWSH does some extremely important work and just kind of see where the first open-source water project will lead us and how it's going to be received. 

Christoph Lohr: Excellent. Well, if our listeners want to get in touch with you, what's the best way with you or your organization? 

Markus Lenger: The email is info@bergbach.org. So it's B E R G B A C H.org. You can go my private email. My business email is Markus Lenger, markuslenger@cleanblu.com. 

Christoph Lohr: Perfect. Well, on behalf of "The Authority Podcast: Plumbing and Mechanical," vielen danke. 

Markus Lenger: Danke, danke, danke. 

Christoph Lohr: Look forward to the next time we have you on. 

Markus Lenger: Okay. Danke. 

Christoph Lohr: Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of "The Authority Podcast: Plumbing and Mechanical." Love this episode of the podcast, head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate and leave a review. Please follow us on Twitter @AuthorityPM; on Instagram at theauthoritypodcast, or email us at iapmo@iapmo.org.

Join us next time for another episode of "The Authority Podcast: Plumbing and Mechanical." In the meantime, let's work together to make our buildings more resilient and shape us for the better.