Ep 074 Fire Features with Fire By Design

Episode Transcript
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Intro (00:02):
Welcome to Luxury Outdoor Living Podcast with Mike and Trey
Farley of Farley Pool Designs.
For over 40 years, we'vehelped homeowners turn their
backyards into personal retreats.
Spaces of joy, relaxation,and unforgettable memories.
And whether it's a cozy escape, or aresort style oasis, we design it all.

(00:24):
We know how overwhelming a projectcan feel and nothing feels worse than
a homeowner having a bad experience.
And that's why after decades of designingand teaching in this industry, We're
here to share our knowledge, helping younavigate the process with confidence.
Every week we break down designtrends and insider tips to
turn your vision into reality.

(00:45):
And since this is about creating somethingamazing together, drop a comment if
you have any questions, ideas, or justwant to be part of the conversation.
If you find this helpful, a like helpsget this out to more people like you.
And if you want to keep upwith what's next, go ahead
and hit that subscribe button.
We'd love to have you along for the ride.
Let's build your paradise together.

Mike (01:12):
Good afternoon.
Welcome to Luxury Outdoor Living.
I'm Mike Farley.

Trey (01:16):
And I'm Trey Farley.

Mike (01:17):
And we're with Farley Pool Designs and we're here to give you lots of
information about fun things outside.

Trey (01:25):
Yep.
And this one's gonna be really fun.
It's probably gonna be a fire episode.
Fiery.

Mike (01:29):
Yes.
My favorite things there was aquestion that was asked to me at the
pool show was whether I liked fireor water, which was the better thing.
And of course I chose a firewater bowl so I could have both.
But, my superintendents are alwaysjoking when they first get a set
of plans is they're curious onwhat kind of cool fire thing I've
put into this particular project.

(01:50):
I didn't realize that until abouta year ago that was a thing.
I guess I have a fire thing.

Trey (01:56):
Hillsides are not just your niche.
You got another one as well?

Mike (01:58):
Yeah.
like to see things burn.

Trey (02:00):
Oh, yeah.

Mike (02:01):
campfires, I love campfires, those aren't real practical in
most people's backyards withall the smoke and everything.

Trey (02:07):
Yeah.
Not everybody wants alog wood to a fire pit.
So who are we talking to today?

Mike (02:12):
Who are we talking to?
Yeah.
We're going to talk toBob at fire by design.
Perfect Oh yeah, that's right.

Trey (02:18):
Firebird Design.
Every time we go to a show, hisstuff always stands out to me.

Mike (02:22):
Wow, it's really cool.
Some of the things that they've done,custom and, we'll have to check everything
out that we're gonna go through.

Trey (02:29):
And it's not just the cool stuff, it's he'll be like, oh look
at this, and he'll like, go throughevery mechanism and talk about
every detail and stuff like that.
He's very down to the nittygritty about everything.
Well, He's

Mike (02:39):
built it all.

Trey (02:40):
Smart guy.

Mike (02:40):
Instead of components and using them.
Anyway, we'll let him tell his story.
Bob spent the first 20 years of hispost college life flying airplanes.
He began by flying fighters in themilitary, followed by a 13 year
stint as a commercial airline pilot.

(03:00):
Dude, flying airplanes was fun.
It felt like something was missing.
As a child, he loved to build andcreate things, however, as a pilot, he
didn't get to build or create anything.
After 9 11, his career as a pilotchanged drastically for the worse.
He was unhappy with the job andultimately decided it was time that

(03:21):
he left and to pursue his otherpassion, which was creating things.
little did he know that after afew short years later, he would
develop an electronic ignition systemthat would transform an industry.
Imagine a system that makesfire on water possible.
Bob, welcome to luxuryoutdoor living podcast.

(03:44):
Thank you for coming on with us today.

Bob (03:46):
It's good to be here, Mike.
you know, any chance I can get toshare what we do and how we can
improve upon a pool design usingFHIR I'm open to talk about it.

Mike (03:54):
And you have some really cool stuff, but before we jump
into the features and everything,explain to us how did you end up?
in the luxury outdoor living industry?

Bob (04:04):
it's a interesting story.
My background was flying airplanes.
I was in the military air forceflying fighters for a while.
And then I got out of thatand I got on with the United.
I was with them for 13 years.
So I spent 20 years flying airplanes.
When I was a teenager, my stepdad was acarpenter I used to be a helper some job
sites help them framing, but I got exposedto a lot of trades because he was building

(04:28):
homes in New Jersey where I grew up.
And so I got a chance to workwith electricians and plumbers
and roofers and, whoever neededsomebody, I was their guy.
I loved learning.
So after 9 11, I ended up not reallyliking the career any further.
It really became arduous for me.
And so I decided to transition, ifyou will, to a remodeling company.

(04:53):
The first couple of years after9 11 happened, I didn't fly much.
I was a reserve pilot, so I hada lot of free time on my hands.
And so I ended up starting to do littleprojects for neighbors everything
in my own backyard, includingmy pool, I pretty much built.
And so I had a lot of experience in thatand other things, but then and I actually
built several pools as a owner builderconsultant, not necessarily legal,

(05:17):
but you do what you gotta do to putfood on the table because after leaving
United, trying to replace that incomewas difficult, but somewhere in there.
One of a good friend of ours.
She said, Bob, I want youto build a patio cover.
I want to do this that, but theother thing that I would like
is a freestanding fireplace.
I'd never built a fireplace, and allthe fireplaces I ever saw were made out

(05:39):
of brick or cinder block, but anyway,I built it like they built barbecue
islands with the steel stud construction,backer board, things like that.
And it really turned out nice.
She was thrilled with it.
Her son graduated high school.
They had about 200 guestsat the graduation party,
and I sold a couple more.
So before long, I was in thefire pit fireplace business.

(06:01):
I wasn't doing patio covers or tile floorsanymore, which I didn't miss any of that.
And then I started playingaround with electronics.
I had a customer say, hey, I don'twant to turn it on with a lighter.
Is there any way I coulddo it with a remote?
That's when I started getting into remotecontrol I didn't know anything about it.
I've had no experience really is inthe gas world, but I ended up getting

(06:21):
together with an engineer in Vegaswho knew how to write code and build
circuit boards, and I told him exactlyhow I wanted the system perform.
And I'd been in the business acouple of years up to this point.
So I knew the challengesthat rain and wind.
Had on the existing systems.
So I said, I needed to let you tobe able to perform in 50 mile an

(06:42):
hour winds, and I needed to handletorrential downpours without a problem.

Mike (06:47):
Where were you located when you're doing this?

Bob (06:50):
was in Las Vegas, My first base of assignment was Nellis
air force base, which is in theNortheast corner of the Vegas Valley.
And so after moving around a little bitand the air force, and then a little bit
with the United, I ended up coming back toVegas in And I've been there ever since.
And it was a great, great proving grounds.
We didn't have a lot of rain, butwe had a lot of wind in the spring.

(07:11):
so I had a lot of experienceafter I would install systems.
I got to sit there and watch them.
And oftentimes my favorite day toinstall was a windy day because
it was better than using a fan inyour shop or anything like that.
You actually had real lifeconditions to test it.
then we used garden hoses to simulate.

(07:32):
Rain, we had a lot of fun with that.
Matter of fact, on our website, wehave what we call our torture videos.
You may have seen them where we drivea fire features in the back of a pickup
truck through a carwash, another just tohighlight how it handles a lot of water.
Okay.
And then you

Mike (07:48):
got to explain that a little bit more for people that
haven't experienced this video.

Bob (07:53):
The fun part about that was so I had a pickup truck, and I had elevated
a bowl in the back of the truck forthe previous Video we shot, which
was called the highway wind test.
And I'll talk about that in a second.
But so we had a bowl elevated.
You could see the whole bowl when you'restanding on the side of the truck.
And then we also had a tiki torch.

(08:14):
So the 1st video we dida highway wind test.
We lit the features.
And we're just driving down the highway,slowly accelerating from 10 miles an
hour up to the speed limits, which was 55.
And we had a lot of interest.
People were honking their horns.
You're on

Mike (08:30):
fire.

Bob (08:32):
Yeah.
Cause there's fire.
And meanwhile, I've got a guy in theback of the truck with a video camera.
There no phones with cameras at that time.
We were just video cameraand he was videotaping.
Then people are flashingwith the brights and stuff.
And at one point I said, youknow, I want to get a shot.
From the side of the road.
So I pull over to let him jump out andI'm gonna do a U turn and come around.

(08:54):
Just as we pull over, this offduty fireman pulls in behind
us, jumps out of his car.
He's got a fire extinguisher in his hand.
He's ready to just destroy my whole setup.
And I'm like no, no, no, don't do that.
And I hit the remote.
And it turned the fire off and youcould you see that look in his face.
He's like I was gonna save the day here

(09:15):
We totally removed, the look on his facewas He was so sad and he goes, Oh, okay.
I thought your truck was really on fire.
So he went back to his carand we finished our video.
But then I got the idea.
you know, we'll go through a carwashand we'll simulate the water thing,
and it's kind of a fun thing.
And, we were having trouble finding

Trey (09:33):
a

Bob (09:33):
carwash owner.
Yeah.
That was willing to haveus go through with fire.

Mike (09:38):
I bet.

Bob (09:39):
then we met this guy, I don't remember his name, but he was from
New York, strong New York accent.
And I said Hey, we'retrying to shoot this video.
We'd like to go through thecar wash with the bowl of fire.
And you can tell he's lookingat me and he goes do you think
it'll burn the building down?
I said well, no I don't think so.
I said, the flames aren't that big.
He goes, can you make them bigger?

Mike (10:00):
He

Bob (10:00):
needs

Mike (10:00):
an insurance claim.

Bob (10:01):
I have insurance and he wanted that building to burn down.
So I said, no, I don't think we'regoing to catch anything on fire.
And he goes, okay.
So we scheduled a day.
When I get there with the truck readyto shoot the video, he's got 20 people
lined up just standing there lookingaround because he wanted witnesses.
If in case the building burned down, hewanted to have plenty of witnesses to see

(10:24):
that it burned down other than himself.
So we shot the video.
It didn't burn down.
Yeah, it was a fun video toshoot we've done probably
about a half a dozen of them.
I think only four of themare up on our website.
Some of them didn't pan out the way wehad hoped, but what we were trying to do,
and I think we accomplished it was showthat our system can handle high winds.

(10:48):
Lots of water.
It can actually handle being submerged.
one of the videos is a submersion test.
And in the other we had peoplefrom Canada saying, yeah, but
can it handle really cold?
Like If I don't use it in the wintertime,what's going to happen in the spring?
Will it light up?
And so what we did was frozeour ignition system.
And this plastic, it wassomething you use to cover a cake.

(11:11):
but we made a hole and we sealed itand then we put water in it and we
froze it over a three day period ina freezer and it's called the freeze
test and we ended up setting it up ona gas line and we're videotaping it we
turned it on and it came on right away.
And again, they're fun videos.
Not necessarily realistic,but they get the point across.
. I think the videos on ourwebsite link to YouTube.

Mike (11:33):
Oh, perfect.
So we'll have to go look for those.

Bob (11:35):
And I can get you links to it if you need.

Mike (11:37):
Oh, most definitely.
So those are all fun things totest out and much better than,
just the wind in the backyard.

Bob (11:45):
Yeah.
And it's funny, still today like, theshow where we met, we do show some of the
videos on a loop on a monitor at our boothand you'll get people that come by and
say, oh, man, you got to watch this video.
This is awesome.
we posted those back in2010 and people still.
Recognize them and refer people to them.
they were an effective thingthat, you know, think about it.

(12:07):
2010 was a couple of years after thereal estate market did what it did.
We were still growing and thosevideos really gave us a bump.
Once people saw that we had the firstever system truly meant to handle the
outdoor weather, that phone startedringing, the email started coming
in, and it was really uplifting tosee the effect that those videos had.

Trey (12:29):
I'm curious whole concept of the wind cause I was in the back end
of construction for a little bit andI had to deal with, the punch list and
making sure that bowls were working.
And I know that a lot of homeownersthat just buy some random bowl, I'm not
going to say any names or anything likethat, just the wind in general, why?
Cause there's so many components to.
A fire feature working, you have thegas pressure, you have the modules, you

(12:52):
have regulators, sometimes, the sensors.
So why do fire features fail andwhy are your products just better?

Bob (12:59):
So when I first started out, I was using similar components
that A lot of other companies arestill using mainly the controller.
The controller is the circuit board thatwhen you supply power to the system, it's
what opens up the gas valve, it startsthe ignition, but it also is getting
an input from a sensor to make sureis the flame on, because if the flame

(13:22):
is not on, it's supposed to shut off.
Every controller.
That's out there for indoor furnaces,things like that, or hot water heaters
within their program the code saysthat they have to have what's called
a flame failure response time, whatthat means is when the flame goes
out, how much time is allowed beforethe valve has to be shut down well

(13:45):
in a furnace or a hot water heater.
It's a very confined space, right?

Trey (13:49):
Yeah.

Bob (13:50):
So it has to be pretty quick.
So if the flame goes out.
Yeah.
That gas valve better turnoff really quick or you're
going to get a buildup of gas.
That time frame is 08 seconds.
Oh, wow.
That's less than a second.
So within a second, boom.
Well, Imagine when it's windy outsideand you're using that same controller,

(14:10):
what happens when it gets windy?
The flame moves away from the sensorand then it'll come back, move away.
it stays away for more than 08 seconds?
It shuts down and that's the problem.
It shuts down, it'll relight, but it'sconstantly doing what we call cycling.
So when I developed our controller, I knewI had all the ventilation in the world.

(14:33):
Literally we're outside.
We've got all this ventilation.
And when I got involved in theindustry, there was no code
yet for outdoor fire features.
The initial code thatthey wrote, they said.
Let's do what we do on the inside, 0.
08 seconds.
But when that code came out I startedmaking phone calls and sending
emails to say, No, this doesn't makesense for the outdoors because we

(14:57):
don't have a little confined space.
So ultimately, it took about threeyears, but we got the code changed
to where now it's 90 seconds.
90 seconds flame failureresponse time for the outdoors.
Well, When we developed our controller,we didn't go for 90 seconds, but we
figured out through a lot of testingand charting of data and whatnot,

(15:17):
that if we had no flame within thisperiod of time, anywhere from 4 to 8
seconds, we knew that the flame was out.
And then we would shut it down.
But having that longer interval,four to eight seconds versus 0.
08 seconds, when the flame's doing thisand it's going back and forth, and let's
say this is the sensor and your flame isdoing this because of the wind, as long

(15:40):
as it touches it every once in a whilewithin that four to eight second window,
it knows there's a flame and it stays on.
it any different?
Nobody else has that.

Mike (15:49):
That's a really cool feature.
Because, yes, we've allexperienced the click click, click.
Oh, yeah.
When we're at photo shoots

Trey (15:56):
and we hear the fireballs clicking, we're like, Oh, gosh, should we go?

Mike (15:59):
or is there a different setting for propane or gas?
I'm just curious because those mediasare a little different in how they react.

Bob (16:05):
there is a difference, but the difference really is not
in the program per se, but it'sin what's called the orifice.
All gas appliances have an An orificeis a small hole in a fitting to allow
a certain amount of gas through.
Generally speaking, naturalgas is about quarter PSI.
Propane gas is a little bithigher at one third PSI, not

(16:29):
a lot more pressure, but more.
And so when you are dealing with propane,you want to have a smaller orifice.
Because of the higher pressure, thesmaller orifice lets less volume,

Mike (16:42):
right?

Bob (16:42):
But as far as the program goes it operates exactly the same.
Okay.

Trey (16:47):
Thank you

BBQ Intro (16:49):
We're going to take a break here for a second
and get into outdoor living.
So with outdoor living, we liketo go to barbecue bits here.
We're going to share some informationof everything that you may want to
consider in your outdoor living space.
As far as features,especially for the kitchen.
Hope you enjoy this.

Mike (17:09):
Okay, so we got a display of all kinds of different,
you know, pretties here.
So, uh, what's the differencebetween all of these things?

Bobby (17:17):
So back in the late seventies, early eighties, it was
quarter inch and one half inch, uh,colored glass that was fractured.
Then we've gone into crystal.
You can use this.
You'll see these as faras river rock, fire pits.
These are more of a, atumbled is what it is.
Then you've got bead.
Versus different types ofspheres, uh, and different colors

(17:41):
that are mixed and premixed.
And then one thing that I've seen ona lot of your jobs on your Instagram
is the tumble lava rock that comesin different sizes, but all in
all, what's the difference between.
A bucket of glass in a massmerch store than custom.
It has to do how it's, it has to behow it's manufactured and the dyes.

(18:03):
If you buy a, Hey, I found50 pounds of glass for 10.
It's probably going tofade within that year.
And, um, these glass manufacturers,you get what you get.
So usually it's about 75,80, uh, for 10 pounds.
And these are going to be your higherend qualities that will keep your
colors, uh, and they won't fade.

(18:24):
Maintenance.
Uh, you know, one part vinegar, threeparts water to clean it in a bucket
and then re appropriate it back intothe fire pit or the burner itself.
Awesome.

Mike (18:33):
So

Bobby (18:34):
one

Mike (18:34):
thing that we found over a period of time is we can use all
these medias with natural gas.

Bobby (18:40):
That's correct.

Mike (18:41):
What we found is it's not a good idea to use all these medias with propane.

Bobby (18:46):
That's right.
So how do you get around it?
Let's say you've got a big bolt tankand you've got to use propane and how?
In product, as far as what you'retalking about, propane tends to
blacken the glass, is what it does.
All you have to do, and you can useglass with bulk propane or propane
tank, you gotta make sure there's anair space under the burner and with an

(19:10):
air mix, which will give a clean burn,because propane goes from liquid to gas.
If we have the air mixer underneath theplate of the burner, there needs to be
a void for air space and ventilation,then you will not get the blackening
or the soot that you will, so.

Mike (19:26):
One thing also with the propane is it's heavier.
It is.
And so it wants to sit.
Yes.
And so we've cautioned peoplewith using glass, especially with
putting heavy levels of glassbecause it'll almost make a blanket.
That's correct.
And then your propane sits down thereand they don't think they're lighting it.

(19:47):
Right.
And then all of a sudden it goes boom.
That's correct.
Uh, so, you know, uh, I, withpropane, use a lot of lava rock.
Um, just because I don't wanthomeowners to risk safety situations.
However, if properly done,you could use glass as well.

Bobby (20:03):
You can.
I think another thing that we'velooked at is technology has gotten
a lot better with fire pits.
Um, I'm going to use some verbiagethat's not familiar in the industry,
but VIK systems, weather beatersystems are low voltage 110 systems.
And you can flip a switch or can goin your home automated system and

(20:24):
they run a low voltage current tothe fire pit where it can automate it
on and off with that's, that's, it'sgotten a lot better, but you're right.
You have to safety first when itcomes to what you recommend to the
customer, how you ventilated andum, what the customer's expectations
are sort of what it looks like.
So, yeah.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Yep.

BBQ Ends (20:43):
So I hope you enjoyed the barbecue bits that we just featured today
and we'll have more coming up next week.
If there's something in particular thatyou're interested for, let us know and
we'll get back into the episode now.

Trey (20:57):
I'm wondering because when I was in the field I remember talking to other pms
and supers on jobs and A lot of them wouldlike the manual fire pits just because
they think they would have less issues isthat like a myth or anything or is there?
Something that goes with, peoplehaving issues with the fire feature
being automatic versus manual.
Is there any benefit there?

Bob (21:17):
when we first got started again, I'm not going to name names,
but all the companies that wereoffering systems were using those
controllers that are meant for indoors.
The other thing that wasn'tconsidered was what happens
to the hardware when it rains.
Is water going to get in the gas line oneway or the other and that right there, so

(21:38):
you got quick flame failure response timecoupled with hardware that really wasn't
designed well to keep the water out.
So when we designed our systemstarting in 2009 and finishing in 2010.
I wanted our system to be able to besubmersed then once the water drained, it
could still work that created a challenge.

(21:58):
How do you let gas out?
But keep water out as well.
You let gas out, butthe water can't go in.
And so a lot of the design therejust had to do with the hardware.
product burner is nothing likeanybody else is out there because.
Our pile bird design is such thatwater can't get in there just
so you know, my background incollege was aerospace engineering.

(22:20):
And so that helped me as I wasdesigning this, you look at it, you
go, okay tensile strength of water,what size opening can I get away with?
and let gas out and water not come in.
And then if water gets in,does it have a place to go to
other than down the gas line?
And so that's the design of our pilotburner is such that water will get

(22:43):
in there But as soon as the watersubsides it drains out, but it doesn't
go into the gas line when you had allof these problems beforehand, yeah if
it rained You had to drain it somehow.
Nobody wants to do that.
And if it was windy, it would cycle.
So that was the belief that everybodyhad was automated fire features

(23:03):
are not reliable and they weren't.
And I wouldn't have putone in myself until.
just so that, you know, every automatedsystem that we've ever developed the
1st 1 always went into my fire pitand I would use it in my fire pit
and beat it up with leaf blowers.
If it wasn't windy or garden hosesor douse of 5 gallon bucket of

(23:24):
water on it in order to determine.
Is this new design betterthan the last or not?
You can test in a lab all day long,but you really don't get the full
effect unless you're testing in a firefeature with lava rock and all of the
elements of weather beating it up.
And, you know, in Vegas, I know we don'tget a lot of rain, but we do get 115, 120,

(23:46):
that'll defeat electronics, just as easilyas anything else, but certainly not.
that testing helps.

Trey (23:53):
Another element that you touched on there for a second is the
media that goes on top of the bull.
I know like in the design aspect offire features, people want to have
a very reflective surface to helpit shine the fire off and stuff like
that, but the shattered or the glassitself in the field would always like
clog into some of The modules and thecomponents and obviously if yours is

(24:14):
watertight, then I'm assuming that,glass media would be no issue either,

Bob (24:19):
you know, It's funny about fire glass as it became more
popular, more manufacturers.
Got involved and said, oh, I couldsell fire glass and I've seen glass
that I don't know what it's made of,but I don't think it's really fire
or it's not really glass because Iused to do all the installs in Vegas
for many years and I would see theglass melted to things, but then you

(24:42):
had the better fire glass, the bettermanufacturers and you never saw that.
Our pilot burner and a lotof pilot burners today have a
cage around the pilot burner.
Flame needs oxygen.
So when you're covering, fire glass isthe worst as far as suffocating the flame.
So what you want to do, and it showsclearly in our install instructions

(25:03):
with pictures, you want to have abouta, the very top of the cage, you want
about 50 percent coverage at the most.
If you really try to bury it,you're just not going to get oxygen.
It's not going to work.
But other than that, and then youasked about propane earlier, Mike
so propane is heavier than air,

Mike (25:21):
100

Bob (25:21):
percent gas is lighter.
So when you're using fire glass ona fire feature that has propane,
you want to put the bare minimum.
Of media over the burner andthe pilot burner, because
otherwise that gas will come out.
It'll hit the glass.
If you got an inch thick layerand go right back down and now

(25:42):
it becomes a hazard becauseit's lurking within the glass.
Yep.
And you get that sound.
Yeah, and not so much a boom, but itdefinitely will get your attention.

Mike (25:53):
Don't use glass with propane just our standard policy is just because people
will do the wrong thing and stuff happens.
So we just use tumble lava rock orthe spheres with propane, then we
don't have an issue of the propanesettling or being held under a blanket.

(26:15):
And aspect.
but good advice.
Keep it to a minimum.
So at least

Trey (26:19):
you do a lot of custom work think that's what separates yourself, not just
by the standards you hold yourself to,but the amount of custom work is crazy.
But since we're on the topic of theflame being suffocated, I'm just curious.
There's one I think it's custom.
It's the magma rock feature.
And it almost looks like lavas,like oozing down a mountain in
a way, but it's like a fire pit.

(26:40):
how'd you not suffocatewith the flame there?
Cause I can't even see the,the unit itself, which I love.

Bob (26:45):
In the early days of the, volcanoes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You had just the fire.
But then we started toincorporate LED lighting.
you know, It's funny how you can getthe LED it looks, like lava flowing.
It gives it a sense of it's moving.
So you have this flame and thenwe went to lighting experts to
say, this is what we wanna create.

(27:06):
However, it's fire, it's got heat to it.
How do we.
Protect the led lighting in its sleeve.
they got real creativewith that kind of stuff.
But when you're doing volcanoes, whichwe've done quite a few volcanoes over
the years, usually you're going tohave your fire start up top, flame will
catch on the burners going down throughthe different lava flows, if you will.

(27:28):
And then in some of the volcanoes,like I said, we incorporated LED
lighting to give you that effectthat something is moving slowly.
Down the volcano.
I love a lava flow.
in a lot of those instances, we just,like you said, Mike, earlier, we
just like the jagged stuff becauseit's more realistic, for a volcano,

(27:49):
it's nothing going to be rolled.
It's going to be jagged and

Trey (27:52):
right.

Bob (27:52):
And so you're not going to get much suffocation, first of all, it's igneous
rock, which means it's got a lot ofair pockets to it, and the way it sits
together, because it's jagged, you've gota lot of air pockets between them, you're
not going to suffocate in that instance.

Trey (28:06):
that's cool how you use the illusion effect too, the customer sees fire at
the top, and maybe feathers down, andthey still see the red at the bottom,
and it's like, oh, that's still fire.

Mike (28:14):
are these done on the resorts there in Vegas or did you
do any in residential settings?
Just curious.

Bob (28:21):
No, they do all of them.
the resorts of LasVegas, we don't do that.
So any more fire by design, Igot away from the install stuff.
Mainly I didn't have acontractor's license to do it.
Didn't want one.
So we work with companies in Vegas.
Who do the installs and wehelp 'em with the design work.
they're handling that When itcomes to your commercial or your

(28:43):
residential rather, we work witha lot of local pool builders and
we'll help 'em design, the features.
And yeah you'd be surprised.
I was shocked.
And, you know, Vegas is like anyplace as gobs and gobs of money.
People who trying to figure outhow do I make mine the coolest
on the, in the neighborhood?
Of course.
they see one, they go, canyou make it bigger than that?

(29:03):
Yes, we can.
And that's the mentality of the Joneses.
We want to outdo the Jones.
But no, we've had some reallycool residential stuff.
Some right now in New Jersey, there'sa bronze statue of a dragon standing
on a sphere, which is the earth.
it's either 14 or 16 feettall and it's also on website.

(29:25):
It's a fire breathing dragon.
So the artist reached out tous several years ago and we got
the dimensions of the mouth.
We replicated the size of the mouth usingjust a 3A3 bar, and then we developed
a burner system that could fit in thereand attach, if you will, and then we
created a program to where this thingspews fire, but it's in intervals, like

(29:48):
it might spew for a second, be off fortwo, spew for three seconds, be off for
one, we call it the dragon program.
so we did that.
It was installed.
We get a call from the electrical companyor somebody and they said, Hey, this
guy's got a long drive when he enters thedriveway and he's driving up the driveway.
He wants to see the dragonbreathing fire as he's coming home.

(30:10):
we use the motion sensor.
Somebody pulls through gate.
It sends a signal, there's a timedelay, and before you know it, the
dragon's breathing fire for aboutten minutes and then it goes off.
and we've done about a halfa dozen of those as well in
different parts of the country.

Trey (30:24):
Sweet.
That's a good cue for his wife.
Oh, he's home.
The dragon's breathing fire.

Bob (30:31):
Exactly.

Mike (30:32):
You were born in Jersey?

Bob (30:34):
was actually born in Staten Island.
I lived there until I was likefive or six and then my folks
decided to move to the suburbs.
I grew up in Hazlett, New Jersey.
It's a lot of peopleknow Holmdel or Keyport.
But yeah, I grew up in New Jersey veryclose, just due south of the city.
So when we would go to the beach in UnionBeach on a clear day, you could look
across and see the Verrazano Bridge andthe city, the towers and stuff like that.

Mike (30:58):
Point Pleasant, Tom's River.

Bob (30:59):
Oh, okay.
Tom's River, Point Pleasant, yeah.

Mike (31:02):
Yeah.
That's right.
Seaside Heights.

Bob (31:04):
Oh, yeah.
that was a favorite spot when you were akid, the roller coaster and the boardwalk.

Mike (31:09):
Oh, yeah, so

Bob (31:10):
that place

Mike (31:11):
I was born on the bay in point pleasant and grew up in Tom's River and
hung out in Seaside Heights, for the first12 years, and then I moved to West Texas.

Bob (31:21):
Okay,

Mike (31:22):
that was culture shock in the 70s.

Bob (31:24):
Oh, yeah.
my senior year of high school, Ifinished up in Prescott, Arizona.
My dad had a lot of issues withthe sinuses and humidity and said,
let's move to Prescott, Arizona.
And we didn't know anybody there.
I don't know if he threw a dart at a map,but you talk about culture shock going
from where I was to cat in those days.
Prescott was like a cow town.

Mike (31:45):
Yeah,

Bob (31:45):
I'm sure Texas was similar.

Mike (31:47):
That Lubbock, Texas was certainly, yeah, it would be
about like Prescott, Arizona.
Anyway I just was curious.

Trey (31:53):
I'm just wondering, so what's your product?
we're talking about it beinggreat for outside and the benefits
of that and the flexibility ofit and everything like that.
Do you use your product indoors?
Cause I'm sure there's someone'slike that sees your custom work and
it's like, man I want to have thissomewhere in my house somewhere.

Bob (32:07):
We do offer indoor features.
However, that flame failure responsetime we were talking about earlier.
And before the ignition system we offernow, the all weather electronic ignition
system, I worked a lot with the Honeywellsmart valve what I liked about the
Honeywell smart valve a couple of things,very compact It really was it, when

(32:29):
I designed our system that we have, Ifashioned the size of it and the makeup
of it after the Honeywell smart valve.
So we still, if someone wants anindoor custom feature, we'll do it.
And, but we'll use theHoneywell smart valve.

Trey (32:42):
And you don't have to think about the wind and the rain when you're indoors.
So exactly.
You

Bob (32:46):
don't

Trey (32:46):
have to think about

Bob (32:47):
any of those things, but you have to think about, that
flame failure response time.
That's biggie.

Mike (32:53):
on your website, there's a sphere that's surrounded by flames
and it looks like the flamesare coming up through the water,
The Bernie ball.
Yeah.
well,

Bob (33:03):
The flames are coming up through the water.

Mike (33:05):
So is really coming up through the water.
So that, because your valve allowsit to work in conjunction with water.
Is there anything special youhave to do to make that work?

Bob (33:17):
The way the system works is you have every automated fire feature has
is called a pilot burner, rather small.
It's the first thing that gets ignited.
Inside there is the sensor, the igniter.
and a place for the gas to come out.
a fire on water feature where the gasbubbles up through the water, you have
to have the pilot burner above the water.

(33:39):
Now it's small, it's twoinches in diameter and an
inch and five eighths tall.
That part sticks up out of the water.
So the Bernie Ball, we actually putthe pilot burner on the back of the
acrylic sphere so that when they weresitting on their patio looking out over
LA and Beverly Hills and all of that,they didn't see that pilot burner.

(34:02):
in this case, we hid itbehind the acrylic sphere.
Below that, in the water, submerged,is the submersible manifold.
And all it is, is it's tube,316 marine grade stainless, with
tiny holes in it that face down.
When you turn the system on, initiallyyou get the flame in the pilot burner.
That signal from the sensor goesto the box, which often times

(34:25):
is also submersed in the water.
it opens up the main valve, andnow you have gas coming out of
the tiny holes of the main burner,in this case the acrylic sphere.
The interesting thing aboutthat feature, acrylic burns.
So we had to design the plumbing so thatsphere is not full of water all the time.
When the feature is turnedon, a pump comes on and it

(34:47):
starts to fill up the sphere.
Well, When we timed it, it wasabout 45 seconds to fill up that
thing with the pump they had.
so what we had to do was we had to puta flow meter on the line, and based
on the flow, we knew how much timeit would take to fill up the sphere.
But if there was no flow, Weknew the power was applied,

(35:08):
but the pump was broken.
So that would be anotherway to burn the sphere.
So there was some things there withthe water that we had to tackle first.
And so bottom line is theflow meter measures the flow.
We have a table that says it's goingto take this long to fill the sphere.
And then we add a 10seconds on top of that.
And then the fire portion comes on.

(35:29):
So again, like the fire breathingdragon, there's a time circuit
and it sounds complex, but itreally is pretty simple stuff.

Trey (35:35):
So if the pump say is broken and the flow doesn't work, does that
pretty much communicate to the burner?
Hey, we're not going today.

Bob (35:42):
That's right.
We had to have a minimum flow ratein order to give the go signal.
Okay.
So if a pump is going out, it may not,just not come on, it may just be reduced.
So the fear there is the pumpgoing out altogether, somewhere
in the middle of the operation.
So we knew that this pump should berunning at let's say 4500 RPM or whatever

(36:04):
the case and it was actually a flow rate.
It should be delivering this much water.
If it was less than I think 20percent of that, we feared that
the pump would be going out andso we wouldn't even turn it off.
again, probably tooconservative for Bernie.
Bernie had money to burn so he didn'tcare about the cost of an acrylic sphere.
And I, but I do.
So I said, no, we're goingto design it this way.

(36:26):
I never want you to send me a picture ofa sphere that now looks like a blob of
acrylic in the bottom of your feature.

Trey (36:34):
I'm wondering with the Bernie ball and you said the
pilot light was behind it.
Is there any way to Have the ball actuallyhave an opening at the bottom and set it
on top of it and have the pilot like,just be in the middle and poke a hole in
the top of it so it doesn't suffocate it?

Bob (36:47):
well, In this case, the fire was outside the sphere and the
sphere was filled with water andthe water would cascade around it.
So you couldn't really put your pilotburner interior to the sphere because
it was going to fill up with water.
Okay.

Mike (37:00):
But his creative mind is trying to come up with solutions.
As all designers do.

Trey (37:06):
It's such a cool piece.

Mike (37:08):
Just,

Bob (37:08):
you know, And that's, what's fun about it.
Like you said, we do a lot ofcustom and that's a lot of fun for
us, for me, particularly becauseI don't do the day to day stuff.
I get involved in all the custom stuff.
And like the very first timewe had somebody ask us about
an eternal flame feature.
It burns 365 days a year, 24 7.
And I want to say it was in Missourior someplace that gets a lot of rain.

(37:30):
The way our system works is ifyou get a heavy downpour it could
cause the system to shut down.
Now the system will light up again.
But it'll only light up 10times in a two hour window.
Don't ask me where we got that, butwe basically said, you know, if this
thing shut off 10 times in a twohour window, it's pretty heavy rain.
So let's not even deal with it.

(37:52):
Let's just shut it off and letthe homeowner turn it off and
back on when they want to use it.
Because that's how, so onceit goes through that 10, it
goes into what's lockout.
It's called lockout.
And the only way to get it to comeback on again is cycle of power.
On eternal flame features,there's nobody there monitoring.
And so we ended up developing anelectrical circuit that does that

(38:14):
very thing cause on the eternal flamefeatures, the biggest complaint we got
on the first one was it works great.
And then if we have a longrain, an hour's worth of rain,
when we go out, there is off.
So I thought, okay, how do we do this?
And how do we cycle power?
So we ended up developing anelectrical circuit that does that.
It acts as though it's ahomeowner saying it's went off.

(38:34):
It's 10 times now we're going toturn the power off and back on.
And it works great.
Now we've got probably, I don'tknow, a few dozen eternal flame
features across the country, you know,veterans, memorials, things like that.
And we don't get that complaint anymorenow that we've developed That circuit.
again, challenging thingto come up against it.
And it's great when youfigure out a solution.

Mike (38:57):
you have the standard fire bowls different sizes and shapes and colors
and materials and that type of thingthat you can put fire into or do you
just provide the mechanical parts?

Bob (39:11):
In house we have a line of metal bowls, there's copper bowls, there's
stainless steel bowls that are considered,they're not marine grade, they're 304, we
use those when somebody wants their bowlscolored, and that I mean powder coated.
So we'll use the 304 stainless for that.
If somebody likes the stainlessfinish, and they want it to just
be stainless, then we use themarine grade or 316 stainless.

(39:34):
When it comes to concrete bowls,The industry standard anymore
is what they call, GFRC bowls.
And what that stands for isGlass Fiber Reinforced Concrete.
Normal concrete has aggregate,little stones in it.
your sidewalks, things likepatios and what, it's very
strong, but it's very heavy.
So what they do on these concretebowls is they remove the stones, what

(39:58):
they refer to as aggregate, and theyreplace it with fiberglass fibers,
because fiberglass is also very strong.
the nice thing aboutfiberglass is it's far lighter.
than that aggregate, those stones.
So we work with other manufacturers.
We work with three different manufacturerscause they offer different styles.
All of those are shown on our website.

(40:20):
Some people like concrete,some people like metal.
it's just whatever yourpersonal preference is.
The nice thing about the metalbowls is they're far lighter so
your shipping costs aren't high.
However, those metals aremore expensive than concrete.
So what you save in freight, you'regoing to pay for in material costs.

Mike (40:37):
they're somewhat close to the same price.

Bob (40:40):
Yeah.
works out that they're pretty close.

Trey (40:42):
So do those bowls, can you do custom sizes as well?

Bob (40:45):
Oh yeah.
We have our standard sizes, but wedo a lot of custom our capabilities
for metal in house is limited.
The nice thing about being in LasVegas with all these casinos is you
have some amazing metal shops here.
So there's a handful that we work with.
Some are better at somethings than others.
We've had some really cool projects wherewe had to go outside and outsource it.

(41:09):
We do the design work.
We will with the pool designer or whomeverthe customer is working with, and then
we'll take those drawings and go farmit out to the metal shops in Vegas.
that's worked out really well for us.

Mike (41:23):
So any crazy things you've manufactured out of
metal and put fire into?

Bob (41:29):
Yeah, we had a really cool project.
It was in Texas.
They had a stone wall.
want to say 15 feet or something likethat wide by maybe six foot tall.
And they wanted a burner pan that was anS shape that went the length of the wall.
So this was a burner pan and sowater came down the wall and they

(41:49):
wanted this suspended off the wall.
And basically they hadwanted this line of flame.
In front of this wall and it hadreally cool led lighting illuminating
the wall really turned out beautiful.
That was a fun project because thechallenge there is we had to work
with their structural guys to figureout how it was going to mount.

(42:11):
And then we put it alltogether it basically slid.
Onto these posts that werecoming out of the wall.
We had never built anythingquite like this before.
It was challenging.
the first pan we made out of somejust mild steel or whatever,
before we went to the hammeredstainless, that was the other thing.
It was hammered.
Stainless beautiful because thelight off of hammered stainless just.

(42:34):
dazzles.
But that was a really cool project.
And then we've done, another coolfeature, not a bowl or anything like
that, but in Costa Rica, there's a FourSeasons on the West Coast where they
have an island in the middle of theFour Seasons with a moat around it.
And they've got palm trees andall this stuff on the island.
And it's 50 foot in diameter.

(42:56):
Which is about 150 foot or socircumference, and we did six fire on
the water features within that moat.
that picture's on our website.
That was a really cool project aswell, because we had never done a fire
on water that big up to that point.
So yeah, the fire on water is very,it's like mesmerizing people look at it.

(43:20):
Like in Vegas, there's nine of themin the water by red rock casino.
They have fountains in the frontof the casino and each one of
them has two or three fire onwater features in those fountains.

Trey (43:33):
I always wondered And I'm sure you know the trick behind this, but there's
this huge fire pit and it's steel, right?
It's like Corton steel, andif you touch it, it's not hot.
and it's this huge burner.
So I'm just wondering howdo you get that effect?
Maybe a homeowner wants to,Something like that without

Mike (43:50):
the burner is only about 36 maybe 42 inches Okay, but
the bowl is yeah, it's massive.
It's seven feet And so there was a lot ofmedia around the perimeter of the fire.
So

Trey (44:05):
the media dispersing versus that's how we,

Mike (44:08):
did it on that.
Okay.
But you might have a Bobmay have other ideas.

Bob (44:12):
The key in most features is the clearance between the burner.
And like you just said, Mike, the distancebetween the vessel, in this case, the
core 10 steel bowl and the burner, ifyou get that burner within three inches.
The certain bowl, it's going to get hot.
We have found that if we maintain atleast a minimum clearance of six inches.

(44:34):
But the other thing too is wehad an interesting job another
company that sells fire.
They sold it somewhere inFlorida, Boca Raton, Florida,
some polo club or something.
They had three features in themiddle of the pool, spread out.
they supplied everything, thebowls, the ignition systems,
the burners, and they burned up.

(44:54):
I want to say nine systems,three in each bowl.
Each one lasted about a week andit turned out it was due to heat.
And so that was an interesting jobbecause they basically threw their
hands up and they said we don'tknow how to fix this, but we know
a company that probably can fix it.
And so they put us in touch withthem and we were able to fix it.
But it was interesting in that theburner was very close to vessel.

(45:20):
It was oversized for the feature.
And so my first suggestion waslet's go with a smaller burner.
It would be fine.
No, the owners don't want to do that.
Okay.
So we ended up we changedthe design of the burner pan.
It had really good ventilationfrom below the bowl.
The bowl was elevated off a pedestal andit had like little feet, if you will.

(45:40):
And there was a big opening in here.
So air could get in.
The problem was the burnerpan that they had in there.
It had no holes, no nothing.
Basically, it was cookingthe ignition system.
I redesigned the pan to allow fora lot of airflow through the media,
but yet keep the lava, and it wasstandard lava rock but small enough.

(46:02):
So, Basically, it waslarge perforated holes.
That we used in this pan.
And it fixed it.
We put our ignition system in, I wantto say it was back in 2016 or something.
And the first time they ever called us toreplace any components was like six years
later, they needed new pilot burners.
the other thing that did was theynoticed that it brought the flame up a

(46:24):
lot higher because what happens, you getthat chimney effect that air is pulling
from the bottom, goes right through thispan and as the media heats up, you've
got your heat that's going upwards.
So the flames initially might be well to18 inches, but then they grow to 24 to
30 inches because of the chimney effect.

(46:46):
really liked the design and that builder.
Still orders from us today forall of their commercial jobs.

Trey (46:52):
That's cool.
I'm wondering in a job that we havea backyard and say we have like five
different fire features, like threebowls, a fire pit, and something else.
would you recommend putting a regulator?
On every single fire feature.
Because also it's not just about fromwhat my experience, it doesn't seem
just to be about the components it'sabout, the gas pressure and how long
the runs are, stuff like that, gettingenough gas to everything evenly.

Bob (47:16):
There's a couple of ways to handle gas volume.
One is, most residences that are,six, 7, 000 feet or less in square
footage, they're going to have thatstandard low pressure for residential,
which is about quarter PSI.
Once you get into the bigger homes,now you're looking at two PSI.
That's the next step up.

(47:37):
The problem with the, if you have fivefire features, you got a pool heater,
maybe a barbecue island back there.
Yeah.
You're gobbling up gas and if everythingis done at the low pressure, your gas
lines are going to get awfully big.
So one of the things that we help poolbuilders with is, except for the state
of California, if you have low pressure,residential pressure, you can apply for.

(47:59):
what's called medianpressure, that's that 2 PSI.
Because often times your gas meter'sgonna be on the side of the house,
close to the front of the house.
Why?
So that they can readthe meter pretty easy.
You might have a house that's50, 75 feet deep, I don't know.
You gotta run all that distance.
use a big gas line to feed allthose and then you start branching
off to the different areas.

(48:20):
But if you can get your system upgradedto 2 psi, the median pressure, now you
can get away with a lot smaller line.
And now when you start looking at thebackyard you go, okay, somewhere in here
we do want to downsize the pressure,where's that central location, where's
that place where we might be able to havea manifold and a regulator, one regulator.

(48:43):
So you bring your two psi to thatpoint, you put the regulator on and
from there you go to your different.
Appliances propane guys are real good atthis what's nice about propane is when it
comes out of that first stage regulator.
There's
It's 10 P. S. I. You can do a lot ofdamage with 10 P. S. I. And you can
use very small gas lines when you'redealing with propane and they'll do that.

(49:06):
They'll run it as far as they can.
And then they put what's called the secondstage regulator, which knocks it down to
whatever the desired pressure they want.
And then you still might have to upsizeyour gas lines, but it's not as bad
because you've already eaten up a lotof the distance between your propane
tank or your meter to the backyard.

Trey (49:25):
That's great information.
Cause when you design apool or a luxury backyard.
Some people might not think aboutthese things and how the actual
gas lines are going to be run.
Make sure that the thing youdesign is actually buildable.
So thank you.

Bob (49:37):
You're exactly right.
Particularly, you're lessexperienced pool builders.
They're relying on their plumberto tell them what needs to happen.
I'm surprised how many plumbers we haveto tell how to plummet to save money
for the customer because if you'rerunning a three inch gas line versus a
one inch gas line, Expenses significant.

Mike (50:00):
You have a Tiki torches as well.
Yeah.
From a feature standpoint.
So what are those made out of?

Bob (50:08):
We have several different styles.
we have some are cone tiki torches.
You've got cones that are madefrom copper, spun copper, and then
others that are made from aluminum.
The aluminum ones, we put a high heatpowder coat on them so that they'll
not peel away when the flame's going.
So you've got aluminum,copper on the cones.
Those are the most popular sellers.

(50:29):
We also offer othersthat are stainless steel.
And then we have others that are made fromcast iron and we get them from different.
So what we do is we buy the componentsfrom different suppliers and
then we add our automation to it.
all of our Tiki torches, we havewhat we call the neck of the torch.
It's a three inch in diametercylinder by four inches tall.

(50:53):
Our entire system fits inside thatsmall area, and then from there,
you go up to with your igniter andyour sensors and things like that.
So you'll have what looks like apilot burner either at the top of
the tiki cone or on some of theothers just within the feature.
and I was talking earlier howwe developed our own controller.

(51:16):
Our controller is only about two anda quarter inches long by an inch wide.
By comparison, we were talking about someof the other controllers that are out
there that are being used on features.
The Honeywell controlleris about four inches wide.
By six inches long so we could fitquite a few of ours to sit on top of

(51:39):
one of those controllers And whatthat does for us is it allows us to
miniaturize everything and make it lookgood to where you can't see it because
nobody wants to look at that stuff.

Trey (51:49):
No looks really sleek and I like how the cone is
flipped on its head It's cool.

Mike (51:53):
Any other features or projects you'd like to highlight that shows your product?

Bob (52:01):
The one system that I've worked far too long on, but we have finally
gotten it to the certification point.
It's going through testing right now isour battery powered ignition system.
when I was doing installs backin Vegas, I would sometimes be
at a pool doing new construction.
And the new construction was great becauseyou had your conduit in there, you had

(52:21):
your gas in there, everything was planned.
A neighbor might look across and say,hey, what are you doing over there?
Oh, we're installing fireballs.
And they're like, oh, okay, that's cool.
They said, I have a couple of fireballson my pool, but I never use them.
I'm like why don't you use them?
Well, I just got tired of walkingout there and turning the gas
on and lighting them by hand.

(52:41):
It's just, I just don'tlike doing it anymore.
So I don't use them.
So it got me thinking the remodelmarket is very active right now.
And so there's a lot of fireballs.

Trey (52:50):
Yeah.

Bob (52:51):
Yeah.
There's a lot of fireballs outthere right now that have gas,
but they don't have any electric.
And if you wanted to run electric, you'dhave to tear up the decking to do it.
It's very costly to do it.
So we developed a batterypowered ignition system.
it operates.
Exactly like our standard ignitionsystem, only it uses three AA batteries.

(53:12):
It's a different valve,but it's also Bluetooth.
we have an app called Firetronics.
You could go to the App Store todayor the Google Play Store and look up
Firetronics and you'll see our app there.
So with this system, you could take firebowls that just have gas and no electric.
You would install them in the bowls.
Before you install them, youwould pair to them, and then want

(53:35):
to turn on your fireballs, youjust open up the firetronics app.
You can hit on or you could say,Hey, I want it on for 30 minutes.
I want it on for an hour.
There's a timer mode.
If you had four fireballs,you could instead of hitting
each one to say, turn on.
after you paired to them,you say all on all off.
And then if you set a timer,it'll apply to all four.

(53:56):
You can have unlimited number offire features that are battery
powered in your backyard and stillcontrol it through the same app.
We're really excitedbecause it's starting to gain
traction in the remodel market.
Those that know about it.
Matter of fact, the first place weintroduced it was at the show in Dallas.
So when people saw it and I mentionedremodel, that's what this is for.

(54:17):
Then all of a sudden the lightswent on and I went, Oh, that makes
a lot of sense because otherwiseyou're not going to run conduit.

Mike (54:23):
No.
most people don't realize, 20years ago there weren't fireballs.
Exactly.
This is something that's fairly new.
But there is an aging, there'ssome that are out there that are
starting to get old and that didn'thave, or, you sold to one homeowner.
That was fine with turning it on manually.
Now the new homeownercomes in and he hates it.

(54:44):
He wants to turn it on automatically.
So this would be a perfect situationfor somebody that moves in that they
could modify the system as well.

Bob (54:52):
Yeah, and that's matter of fact, I just put we, I think I
was telling you we downsized andbought a new place and the fire pit.
There is a manual light fire pit andthere's no way I can run conduit to it.
So I haven't done it quite yet.
I've been moving in, but my intention isto put one of battery powered AWIS's in
there, so I can turn it on with my phone.

Mike (55:13):
That's a cool feature.
Yes, I will let a couplepeople know about that.
They'll like that.

Bob (55:18):
Yeah, and like I said, it takes about two months to get through certification,
and then we're gonna Let the world know.

Trey (55:23):
That's awesome.
I actually did remember.
So with the tiki torches, doy'all take that same technology
and do that in lanterns?
Do y'all do lanterns at all?

Bob (55:33):
one of the most popular torches out there is a lantern.
It's called a tempest torch.
You probably have heard about it.
There's a lot of them out there.
the Tempest torch is put out bya company, Travis Industries.
They put out amazingproducts, mostly fireplaces.
they make the biggestfireplaces I've ever seen.
They're what in the resorts in Vegas.

(55:54):
But anyway, they designed this torch.
It's a great torch.
The problem was the automation on it washoused in a junction box that was 10
inches by 10 inches by 6 inches deep.
And it had to be locatedwithin 6 feet of the igniter.
Oh wow.
So if you wanted to have a tempest torchon a pole, at the base of the pole you had

(56:18):
to have something to hide this junctionbox and It was unsightly to say the least.
We have one of our customers,they do a lot of business with us.
And they said, Bob, this guywants 36 of these Tempest torches.
He goes, that means I got toput 36 boxes on the ground.
Is there anything that you can do?
And I had never worked withlanterns, so I ordered, got it in and

(56:41):
immediately we looked at it and we go.
We can use the same cylinder, that 3x4cylinder that we use on our tiki torches.
Just plug it in here, make the burnerlike that, and I said, it's done.
And we did.
I think I had it together in a day.
And I took some pictures and videoand I sent it to the customer.
I said, what do you think of this?
He goes, that's perfect.
So then I thought.

(57:02):
I wonder if the company that, makesthese, if they'd be interested and
sure enough, I called them up andI said, Hey, they're up in Seattle.
I said, Hey, I've done somethingwith your tempest source.
I think you might be interested in it.
they're looking at me like you'rereally bothering us right now.
I said that's fine.
I'll send it to you.
If you don't want it, that's fine.
And sure enough, I sent video and pics.
Within 30 minutes, I got a callback and they said, this is amazing.

(57:26):
so he said can you ship that to us?
I said yeah, but I'm selling itto you because I just bought it
to figure out how to do this.
So anyway we exchanged uh, I sent theman invoice, we shipped it up, and I
think, it was like for three or fouryears, bought just controllers from us.
Because their MetalFab capabilityis far more than what we have.

(57:46):
But I sold them controllers, thousandsand thousands of controllers, and
then finally their engineers one daysaid, we could probably make something
similar that'll work, and they developedtheir own controller specific to
the Tempest Torch, which was fine.
But it was cool because it stillis the top selling torch as far
as other lanterns I've had peoplecome to me and ask me to develop.

(58:08):
did a couple of jobs inMassachusetts, but not a lot.
There is a market for it, and maybe oneof these days I'll go after that market.
there are a couple of companiesthat we buy other things from
that are in the lantern business.
I've just never really pursued it.

Trey (58:23):
Okay.
Is there any other fire featuresthat we haven't covered that y'all
do that are just spectacular?

Bob (58:29):
Probably one of the ones that people really like people love putting
the rocks, be it the faux rock orthe real stone and waterfalls and
all that, rather than having justa bowl that you have to look at.
They like the fire comingright out of the rocks.
Like it was some sort of cave band daystype look, you don't see any vessel.

(58:49):
You just see fire coming out of the rocks.
so we have what we call our Vulcan.
It's a cylinder feature atseven inches tall, got a burner.
That same cylinder that we use on TikiTorches, all our components are there.
And it screws in just like a light bulb.
You screw it on to a gas line, make yourgas connections, and boom, you're done.
And you don't need much room.

(59:10):
You need maybe about 10 or 12 inches.
So if you stack your stones, sothere's a little gap between them.
we've got some really cool looking ones.
that's a fun feature because,again, you're not looking at
any bowls or anything like that.
You just turn it on and it looks like,oh, this is almost like a volcano.
You got fire just comingout of different places.

(59:30):
we've had people do what theycall a fire guard, where they
have, maybe a kidney shaped area.
Where they might have some plantson the outside and then they have
set some boulders somewhere on theinside and then they run burners.
between the boulders, not near theplants, but just in a serpentine
shape and in those instances, we'llactually locate the ignition system.

(59:53):
And let's say landscape boxes outsideof the garden and run everything
through conduit gas line to fire guard.
we've gotten some pretty cool picturesfrom those where it's just an area in
the backyard where there's just fire.
Just in a serpentine shape or whatevermixed in with plants and rocks.
And there's so much thatyou can do with fire.

(01:00:14):
Your imagination is theonly limiting factor.

Mike (01:00:16):
So it's no problem at all to curve the burner from a construction standpoint.
You just got to get you theradiuses on the layout of it.

Bob (01:00:26):
Yeah, you know, our burners we use what's called heat exchange
tubing for stuff like this.
You can actually bend it in the field.
It's not stainless pipe this tubingyou could actually radius yourself.
Now, if somebody wants us to radius it,we can, but what's really cool about this
is it's pliable, it's easy to work withand yet it'll stand the test of time.

(01:00:47):
You could hit it with salt water, fire,heat exchanger tubing, the material that
they make it out of, I don't know what.
The material is exactly otherthan stainless, but I'm sure
there's a lot of nickel in itchromium maybe, but it's pliable.
you got to put some force toit, but you're not going to
just do this with your hands.
You're going to have to wrap itaround something work with it,

(01:01:07):
but it's really easy to work with.
And yes, you can bend it.

Mike (01:01:12):
So one of the things we have in the podcast, we talk about poolside
true crime is there something thatyou've seen that's happened or, a
project that was just like, I can'tbelieve that happened to an individual.

Bob (01:01:30):
Yes.
We talked about natural gas and propane.
Natural gas pretty safe.
Propane, you got to treat itdifferently in that you really have
to respect the fact that it's heavierthan air and just like water, It'll
pool wherever you allow it to pool,meaning where there's no ventilation.
probably the first one thatreally caught my attention.

(01:01:50):
really blew me away.
This was propane company in Floridathat I won't name, but they designed
a pretty good size fire pit.
Now, when you're dealing withpropane, your vent holes have to be
at the very bottom of your structure.
That way if there's a leak orpropane makes its way down there it's
going to seep out of the feature.

(01:02:12):
It's not going to build up.
They had, dug down from grade, 8 inches,and they built this thing out of block.
it was propane and they, mind youit's a fire pit, but the bottom
of it's eight inches below gradeand their vent holes are at grade.
that means the bottom iseight inches below grade.
and it was a big table, it was probablyeight by three, eight foot by three foot.

(01:02:35):
So you had an area that was eightfoot by three foot by eight inches
deep where propane could pool.
And that's exactly what happened.
Luckily nobody got hurt, buta leak developed and it
wasn't an ignition system.
It was something to do with the plumbing.
Then they went to light it.
Luckily, because it was theydidn't have to be close by.

(01:02:57):
But when they hit that buttonto turn it on, it didn't look
like a fire pit after that.
It looked like a demo site.
It blew that thing up.
That's a lot of propane.
of course it turned into a lawsuit,our install instructions are very
clear about venting for propane.
There's warnings, cautions, and diagramsin the whole nine yards about that.

(01:03:20):
And here was a propane company thatdesigned and installed a This feature
and never even gave a second thought.
don't know why they went downeight inches, but that eight
inches needed to be filled in.
And then they would have been fineif they would have had the venting
that they had on the at grade.
That would have been fine.
Never would have had an issue.
That was one instance.
Another one, again, another propane issue.

(01:03:42):
There was a two columns left andright of a spa, concrete columns, and
the gas lines came down the columns,and then they wrapped around the
spa under the sidewalk, and thenwent to, towards the propane tank.
So this whole sleeve, and it was justa sleeve, was under the concrete.
Within that sleeve, was thegas line, the propane gas line.

(01:04:05):
Whenever you have a sleeve, Andyou have the propane coming out,
you have to seal that sleevewith expanding foam or something.
Why?
If there's ever a propane leak,it can't go down the sleeve.
Because if it goes down the sleeve,that's just as bad as the first scenario.
This person had video cameras that wererecording all the time around their house,

(01:04:27):
so I got to see this, and, sure enough,somehow propane filled up both sleeves,
because I think it went this way andthen came up and all the, when it went
off at first you couldn't see anything.
You just saw, smoke.
And then when the smoke cleared,there were slabs of concrete in
the spa from the sidewalk, andthe rest of the sidewalk was gone.

(01:04:52):
But interestingly enough, both of ourfire features were still burning, which
told me it wasn't our fire featuresthat had anything to do with it.
Otherwise, at least one ofthem would have gone out.
Yeah, that's the thing.
We encourage people, look,if you're not sure how to do
this, just call us or email us.
Send us your design.

(01:05:13):
We'll try to give youas much help as we can.
But propane is not something,saw a propane tank go
through the top of a gazebo.
Because of where it was in thiswell below the fire pit in concrete.
And all of a sudden there was a leak ofsorts, and I don't know how, but this
propane tank and some debris went up.
Why it went up, I don't know.

(01:05:34):
But it put holes in thetop of roof of the gazebo.
So, If anything else, just give us a call,send us some pictures, we'll help you.
We don't charge for it either.
We do a lot of design work that wedon't even charge for because we
know you're going to buy from us.
If we, design it.
So anyway, and there'stoo many of those stories.
Unfortunately, we had 1 instancewhere it was a natural gas unit

(01:05:57):
again, a leak in the plumbingand it ended up it was a small.
to use the word explosion, butit was in Vegas and I decided I
want to go see what happened here.
And I happened to get there when theSouthwest gas guy was there and we
were talking and I go, man I hardlysee this kind of stuff at all.
He goes, Oh, we see this allthe time with barbecue balance.
I'm like, really?

(01:06:18):
He goes, oh yeah.
He goes, I can't tell you how manyincidences we go out to a yard
and the barbecue island explodedbecause either there was a gas leak
or they left the grill on and thenthe wind blew the flame out and now
there's natural gas just flowing.
The homeowner goes out to startthe grill because it's steak and
There goes the barbecue and ithappens more often than you'd think.

(01:06:42):
Wow,

Mike (01:06:43):
Ventilated is a key here.
I see a theme.

Trey (01:06:46):
Yes curious because you did this was all explosive.
because I'm sure there's landscapersout there that maybe don't work with
what's going on with the or maybeit's landscapers or homeowners or
whatever but with like clearance ofthe fire and maybe starting actual
fires with Landscaping or whatever.
Have you seen any situations where?
That's happened,

Bob (01:07:07):
If I understand the question, you're wondering if
landscapers know how to do this.
Is that kind of where you're

Trey (01:07:13):
has anyone managed like bought your product?
Maybe not even your product, butbecause the fire gets pretty big
in some situations and the fireactually starts a bigger fire.
That's not controlled, I guess.

Bob (01:07:24):
Gotcha.
In the early days, we used todo that where we didn't have
what's called an orifice.
Earlier in the podcast, Imentioned everything should have
an Every gas appliance has one.
Why?
What does an orifice do?
Well, If you have a fitting with alittle hole in it, it's only going
to allow so much gas through it.
If you remove that fittingand now you have a half inch

(01:07:45):
pipe, that's a lot of gas.
And that's how we all usedto do it in the early days.
And then back in 2010, when weintroduced our ignition system, I
said, Every gas appliance has anorifice, but we're the days of the
wild west here with fire features.
Everybody, the biggerthe flame, the better.
And you're right.
I've seen bushes catch on fire.

(01:08:05):
Matter of fact, we did a job forsome entertainers in Vegas where
they wanted fire everywhere.
And I'm looking at some of these bushesand I'm telling the maintenance guy,
you might want to remove this causethis could catch on fire on a windy day.
And sure enough, ithappened, but Anymore.
I don't know what other companies aredoing, but we put an orifice in there.
We don't want to flame anybigger than 12 to 18 inches.

(01:08:28):
So what we've done is withevery one of our burners.
We've tested it and we said,okay, what orifice setting will
get us that 12 to 18 inch height.
so every burner ships with an orifice,the orifice for natural gas is different
from the ones for LP for propane.
The ones for propane is a very rich fuel.

(01:08:49):
And if you don't add air to it.
You'll actually see the blacksoot coming off the flame while
you're looking at the feature.
It's wisps of black, butit dirties everything.
So with LP with propane, you usethis thing called, it's an orifice,
but it's got air holes in it.
And as the propane isflowing through the fixture.
It draws air in like a vacuum.
It's called the Venturi effect.

(01:09:11):
And what it does is it leans out thepropane and not only does it restrict
the amount of gas, but it leans itout so that you don't get the black
soot and you don't get the wispsof black smoke and stuff like that.
But every one of our burners goesout and, we've had people say, Hey,
I'd like to get a bigger flame.
And you just say you pull out theorifice and drill it out, we recommend

(01:09:33):
you go no bigger than, and we'll givethem a size, we'll pull up the invoice,
see what orifice is in there, andthen we'll give them a drill size.
We'll say recommend no biggerthan this for safety reasons.
What they ultimatelydo is totally on them.
We can't, stop them most people justgo with the flow because you're not
cooking things on these fire features.

(01:09:55):
It's just for ambience.
Oh yeah.

Mike (01:09:57):
S'mores.
Lots of s'mores are cooked on them.
Yeah, I went to a job site not too longago and I thought the glass was melting.
It wasn't.
It was melted marshmallowsall over the glass.

Trey (01:10:09):
Yep.
Seeing that.
Oh yeah.
Something I always ask every guest isjust a couple easy questions just to
get to know you a little bit better.
So I'm wondering what your favoritemovie is, your favorite book,
and then also your favorite meal.

Mike (01:10:24):
And I want to know your favorite trip.

Trey (01:10:26):
Yeah, he wants to know where you love to go to.
for inspiration,

Bob (01:10:30):
Because of my background as a pilot, when I was younger, I always
dreamt of possibly being an astronaut.
So that's an easy one.
Apollo 13.
Okay.
That's a good one.
Love that movie.
I can't tell you how many timesI've watched it because I'm living
vicariously through the movie.
This is what it would havebeen like just a great one.
Far as a favorite book there'sjust so many good ones out there.

(01:10:50):
The seven habits of highlyeffective people is a great one.
I referenced it quite abit in my own business.
I'll read through sectionsof it time and again.
That's a great one.
Favorite meal.
I have to say, my wife'spot roast is amazing.
If I said anything other thanthat, she's in there, Sean,
so let's just stick with that.

(01:11:11):
And then what was the lastquestion you had, Mike?
Favorite trip,

Mike (01:11:14):
your favorite place to go?

Bob (01:11:16):
You know, My wife and I went to Italy.
We had a great time.
we flew first class there and back.
And you know, it was funny when Iwas a pilot with United, we used
to be able to fly standby and we'dgo to Maui and different places.
One year, I took my youngest daughterto Auckland, New Zealand with me.
Those were the days where you canactually bring them up in the cockpit.
That was pretty cool.
And she was very young, 90, 98, 99.

(01:11:40):
So she was maybe 10.
But it was funny about that was, when youfly standby, you gotta have an open seat.
It turns out the return flight,we didn't have an open seat.
Because earlier flighthad canceled or something.
So the flight was completely full.
I'm not leaving my 10 year old daughterby herself in Auckland, New Zealand.
So I bought her a discountedticket through air New Zealand.

(01:12:03):
met the crew.
I met the flight attendants.
Everybody was wonderful.
I said, I'm trusting you,my daughter in your hands.
that aircraft took offjust before hours headed.
To I think we were going toL. A. and it was pretty cool
because somewhere in there.
We got a call you all monitor thesame frequency when you're going
over the Pacific or the Atlantic.
And all of a sudden we get a callfrom the Air New Zealand flight.

(01:12:26):
They're in the middleof the Pacific Ocean.
And he said is first officer Roman there?
Of course I was.
I was in the cockpit.
I said, yeah, somebodywants to talk to you.
And so they put my daughter.
They put the headset on herand uh, hi, daddy, you know, we
were talking and it was awesome.
You're not supposed to do thaton that frequency, but we're
in the middle of nowhere.
So who cares?
that was a fun trip also because itwas a chance for her to see something

(01:12:50):
totally different from Las Vegas.
Awesome.
That was good times.
The time at United was good, but Iwas glad to leave and I'm much happier
where I am because I love to create.
I love to build and problem withairline flying is it's boring.
Once you get up to cruise out toyou, there's nothing to do, but
watch the airplane do its thing.

Mike (01:13:07):
Well, We greatly appreciate you coming on and sharing was great
information for homeowners to havean idea going in on what good things
they can have in their backyard versusjust what everybody else gives them.
Thank you so much for your information.
So is there a best way to reach out toyour company if someone was wanting to get

(01:13:28):
a custom design or something like that?

Bob (01:13:30):
You know, We have a website like all everybody does fire by design.
com.
I will say this, that when it comesto, because we're dealing with fire,
we'll work with homeowners as faras design goes and things like that.
But ultimately, when it comesto the purchasing of the product
we make a requirement that wework through your contractor.
And that's really we had ananswer many years ago where the

(01:13:55):
homeowner was the go between.
They didn't want us to talk to thecontractor for whatever reason and nobody
got hurt, but it didn't work out the wayit could have nothing even got damaged.
It just was a lot ofheadache for the contractor.
And finally, after that,I said, we can't do this.
We have to deal directlywith the contractor.
We'll work with homeowners for the design.

(01:14:17):
And then at some point you say, okay,I need to talk to your contractor.
And we've had to tell people, sorry,we're not going to generate an invoice
for you for liability reasons, safetyreasons, whatever you want to call
it, because we're dealing with fire.
They understand it.
You get those peoplethat they'll call back.
And if somebody else answersthere, Oh yeah, I'm a contractor.
Oh, okay.

(01:14:37):
what's your gas pressure and water column?
Uh
They're like, there's no water in my gas.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, Why don't you have acontract that goes back to you.

Trey (01:14:50):
Before you leave, I'm curious do you like the aftermarket fire pits or is,
we had one for my future mother in law.
And I was like, my fiancebought this from Amazon.
This is so sketchy.
I don't know.
what's your thoughts onthat whole situation?

Bob (01:15:05):
It's one of those things where, you know, when I used to do installs
I would get homeowners asking me, Hey,can you take a look at the fire pit
up on my patio, my second floor patio?
And oftentimes it was those kindof kits that you're talking about.
The bottom line is as long as itdoesn't leak gas, I think they're okay.
The problem is, you don't know whotightened the fittings and do homeowners

(01:15:28):
think enough to check the fittings or.
Grab a spray bottle with soapy water andspray the joints to see is it leaking.
And that's exactly the firstinstance where somebody,
he says, yeah, I smell gas.
It was just a matter ofgrabbing an adjustable wrench
and tightening something down.
But you don't, with the, intransit and don't know where,
who tightened it or whatever.

(01:15:49):
That's the only concern that I have.
And again, propane.
Is a scary one but you can haveincidences with natural gas.
So I think a lot of ithas to do with the brand.
There's some great brands out there, buteven then, when they're shipping from
wherever they're shipping from, don'tthink I've ever seen instructions that
say, Hey, make sure everything's tight.
No,

Trey (01:16:09):
nothing.
It's just put it together and

Bob (01:16:11):
you're good to go.
That's great information.
There is a company called O. W. Leethat they're a U. S. based company.
They're out of actually San Antonio.
They used to be out of California.
They make some really nice stuff.
Okay.
I would say they're top of the industry,O. W. Lee, and they're sold in a lot
of stores across the United States.
So they're not cheap.
But they're high qualityand very nice stuff.

(01:16:32):
Matter of fact, I haven't done it yet,but once our battery powered system
is certified, I'll be reaching outto them because they don't offer an
ignition system and everything theyoffer comes with a propane tank and
you don't have to run power to it.
So we're believing that once theysee our battery powered system,
they'll want to incorporate it forthose people who want automation
and don't want to light it by hand.

Mike (01:16:53):
Nice.
Thanks again, Bob.

Bob (01:16:55):
Thanks for having me.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.

Mike (01:16:56):
appreciate

Bob (01:16:57):
it.
It was fun.
Yeah.
Firebydesign.
com.
And we're here to help.

Mike (01:17:02):
Thanks again.

Bob (01:17:03):
I'll see you around.
All right.

Trey (01:17:04):
That was entertaining.

Mike (01:17:05):
Oh, I'm fired up.
Yeah.

Trey (01:17:08):
There was a lot of information in there that I'm going to take home.
That was, wow.
What a pool of information.

Mike (01:17:14):
It's one of the key elements in most projects today is people love,
Things that are beautiful and fires aheavy component that I would say over
half the people consider is a must havesituation and he's given the keys to
having your must have perform well.

(01:17:35):
Which isn't always the case.

Trey (01:17:36):
No.
And yeah, fire has been aroundsince fire, man discovered fire.
So it's deep into our DNA.
So that's why we love it so much andbe able to merge things like the blue
mind theory and aspects of fire andbring it all together and have someone
that does custom work, like he doesyou touched on it briefly, but a lot
of the mechanisms he has are not flat.

(01:17:57):
They're rounded around something.
It's just the, he said limit is yourimagination, which is 100 percent
true when it comes to this product.

Mike (01:18:05):
And I think this is going to offer a lot of inspiration for people to check
out some other things and get a littlebit outside the box, dragons breath.

Trey (01:18:13):
Yeah.
a lot of homeowners, they wantto have fire because obviously it
creates that new, not new, but anotherlevel vibe, especially at nighttime.
It's more immersive.
But

Mike (01:18:23):
the ambience it creates.

Trey (01:18:25):
Yeah, exactly.
But be able to havesomething that's different.
Everyone wants to havesomething that's different.
They want it to beunique to their backyard.

Mike (01:18:32):
Bowls have been done

Trey (01:18:35):
for 20 years, which is relatively new.
But ever since I've been yeah.
around you and you doing everything.
I'm only 28, so eight years old.
I was running around and they werefireballs were discovered, I guess.

Mike (01:18:47):
I've discussed

Trey (01:18:48):
27.
I always forget my age.

Mike (01:18:50):
Well, You'll be 28 in a couple of days.
Yeah.
So by the time this episodecomes out, you'll be 28, I guess.
So, but there's lots of inspirationhere that you can look at to, up
your game or if you're a homeownerlooking at stuff, get, some creative
things done that also work well.
The idea of fire.
Yeah.
in water Is definitelyless than 20 years old.

Trey (01:19:14):
It's a foreign aspect a lot of people

Mike (01:19:16):
Yeah, so I remember talking about it years ago and
people were like absolutely not.
It's not even possible and nowthat's Been a thing for quite a while

Trey (01:19:25):
yeah, the only time I saw it before was like seeing oil fires
in the ocean or like watching gameof thrones and seeing the wildfire.
So to have manipulated and capturedand controlled is a thing of beauty.

Mike (01:19:37):
Hopefully this helps everybody and have some more fun stuff coming up.

Trey (01:19:42):
Sounds good.
See y'all later.
Take care.

Outro (01:19:45):
This show is all about helping you become a better buyer, a better pool
owner, and hopefully you're going to findsome insights into how to enjoy your pool
even more so, how to help your friends,your family, anybody looking to buy a pool
in the future, or that want to remodeltheir backyard, add an outdoor fireplace,
fire pit, add an outdoor kitchen area, addsome shade cells, or whatever else it is.

(01:20:08):
We want to be that resourcefor you, and that's the end
goal here, and we promise you.
That there's going tobe a ton of information.
We'll try to go through it, youknow, as relatively quickly, but
also slow so people can understand.
But the intent of the show, thereason Mike and I are doing this
is because we just got a lot inour heads and we want to share it.
So we hope to see youhere every single week.
Thanks for listening.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep 074 Fire Features with Fire By Design

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Ep 074 Fire Features with Fire By Design

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