Business View Magazine | December 2018

22 23 THERMOGENICS BOILERS facturing facility in Toronto, it was repurposed for use by a company in the UK where it now oper- ates in a steel mill - proof that Thermocoils have a strong “shelf life” and travel well! Bryan Heppell is currently President of Ther- mogenics and has enjoyed a long tenure with the company. He recalls, “In 1982, I was selling boiler feed pumps for Smart Turner Pumps and had all the OEM boiler manufacturers as custom- ers. That’s how I met Thermogenics. They were growing fast and continued asking me to join the company. In 1987, they built a new plant in Aurora, near my residence in Newmarket, and a year later I decided it was time to go to work for them.” The primary market for the company’s equip- ment is North America, but Thermogenics has supplied boilers to South America, Russia, and England. The company headquarters and man- ufacturing facilities (including an engineering department) are located in Aurora, with well qual- ified service operations in Cincinnati, Chicago, and Ottawa. According to Heppell, “Our typical cus- tomers include: institutional (hospital, universi- ties, colleges); pharmaceutical; food and beverage manufacturers; and other industrial applications. There are a lot of manufacturing processes that require steam.We supply small businesses, right up to major multinational operations, and gov- ernment contracts.” While there are many boiler manufacturers in the world, surprisingly, there are few coil tube boiler manufacturers, and Thermogenics is very successful in that particular niche. Heppell ex- plains the difference between the two types of equipment: “A coil tube boiler has a very small op- erating content of water. So, there is no potential energy there that would allow a crack in a tube to cause a catastrophic event. Many conventional boilers have thousands of gallons of water inside, and if a crack develops in the pressure vessel, the potential energy of the water and steam flashes to atmosphere and that can be extremely danger- ous.” In fact, several North American jurisdictions allow the use of coil tube boilers without the requirement of stationary engineers. On the innovation front, Heppell says, “We manufacture our own burners, and the technology in that is always changing because of emission rules and regulations. So, we’re always trying to develop a better product that will burn at lower emission levels.We’re always improving controls, but the main design of the boiler hasn’t changed dramatically since the first design. Material-wise, it’s still made of steel.”As for cost, while decades ago coil tube units were expensive to produce AT A GLANCE THERMOGENICS BOILERS WHAT: Industrial coil tube manufacturer WHERE: Aurora, Ontario WEBSITE: www.thermogenicsboilers.com