Be more clear in the future

I just received my August 2018 issue of pme and noted on the cover that it had a bullet indicating “The code for hard water,” which was also the tag under the only feature this month. I have had several projects where hard water was an issue so I was interested to read the article.

I think you did your readers, and to some extent your magazine, a disservice by “selling” this as a feature and that it would focus on “code”. Although it is a useful piece of information, this is much more of an advertorial than an article. You do clearly state that the president of Aqua-Rex is the author of the article, but this company name appears nowhere in the article, and it is not readily apparent that the author of the article is also the president of the company that makes the technology he is talking about. The impact of the article rings a little hollow once this connection is made.

I will also point to the first paragraph on page 57:

“If you mention the possibility of an alternative ‘no-salt softener’ to your water treatment professional you likely will be told that these units don’t work, are a waste of money and none are tested or proven.”

I think that this phrasing is a little hyperbolic for a technical magazine, and it stems in part from the fact that the author is not a technical writer or journalist, but is in fact the president of a company selling a product.

I really think there should have been more prominent placement that the author was the owner of a company that makes technology being discussed in the text, and that it should have been touted as an advertorial, not a feature. I’m not outraged, just a little disappointed at the overall outcome — this seems like an issue where there are many shades of gray, but pme might be on the wrong side on this one.

Sincerely,

Eric Rosenberg

Editor’s Note: This was an online comment from www.pmengineer.com

Tariffs are the right call

Being in the plumbing and mechanical contracting field for 40 years I have seen a lot of products come and go, and a lot of price swings. I think that the tariffs imposed by this administration are a wake-up call to American industry to bring it home.

Over the years the products that were developed and manufactured in the U.S. have delegated their core manufacturing responsibilities overseas for profits much like the Chinese are being accused of today, and frankly it backfired. They learned it from us like a lot of other aspects of industry.

Now we are all paying the price for what should have been stopped years ago. By keeping the raw material production and manufacturing of these products here in the U.S., it would have hands-down, eliminated the need for this massive reset in the industry and boosted the national GDP.

— Tom Thompson