The Training Wall, that area of the Pool & Spa Show exhibit floor in Atlantic City that is devoted to hands-on training activities for the pool and spa industry, offered hands-on training in six key areas at the 2020 show. Demos included tile repair and renovation, a close look at how to achieve energy efficiency in the pool and spa, electricity, shotcrete, lighting and, new this year, heaters.

At the demo on heaters, Brad Duncan, product specialists/trainer for Raypak, took onlookers on a tour of Raypak’s digital gas heater line. The typical swimming pool heater, according to Duncan, is a box with a “fire at the bottom and water at the top.” Beyond that, everything else is determining whether or not the fire comes on or off and whether or not it is safe to operate.

Duncan did a walk-through of the Raypak digital gas heater. He went through all of the various aspects of the heater including troubleshooting and the parts that can be physically removed from the heater.

“Quite often, when a pool professional looks at a wiring schematic of a heater,” explained Duncan, “it often does not give him the hands-on experience of knowing where these parts are on a heater.  We want to teach people here at The Training Wall: (1) where the various parts of the heater are, (2) how to access them, (3) how to remove them, and (4) how to test them.”

“At The Wall,” he said, “we do focus on the operation of the Raypak heater, although we did have a class here at the Pool & Spa Show on heaters where we did look at the similarities and differences among heaters, across different brands.”