For years, manual balancing valves have been the industry standard in regulating the flow of recirculating domestic hot water systems.
Particularly in large, populous commercial buildings, such as offices, hotels, and multi-dwelling housing, maintaining perfect hot water distribution was very challenging until Pennsylvania-based manufacturer ThermOmegaTech®, Inc. launched its self-operating temperature actuated CircuitSolver® thermal recirculation balancing valve and set a new standard.
“Even people who are very knowledgeable with years of experience in the industry are impressed with what CircuitSolver® can achieve,” shares Nick Tallos, vice president of engineering for ThermOmegaTech® and 40-year industry veteran. “They ask, ‘where was this 20 years ago,’ and call CircuitSolver a game-changing technology.”
However, ThermOmegaTech® is no stranger to game-changing products. Since the company was founded by the late Fred Pirkle in 1983, it has been solving temperature control problems all over the country and the world.
“I was working with Fred before he started ThermOmegaTech®,” recounts Tallos. “He was working as a sales representative for another company when he was offered a position in product development in Pennsylvania. A few years later, in the early 1980s, he decided to start his own company.”
Setting the standard early on, the ThermOmegaTech® first breakthrough product was the highly reliable, cost-effective freeze valve for the railroad industry. “The freeze protection valve has become the industry standard and almost every diesel-electric locomotive in the U.S. has our products,” reveals Tom Ruggierio, director of sales and marketing for ThermOmegaTech®. “We now have 98 percent of the market share for Class 1 locomotives in North America.”
“Our freeze protection valve is critical because a locomotive has 300 to 500 gallons of coolant circulating through to keep the engine temperature down, but antifreeze is not compatible with the diesel engine technology,” adds Tallos. “If the coolant freezes it means a major risk to the engine, not to mention huge costs due to lost operating time.”
The freeze valve is still one of ThermOmegaTech®’s most important products, but Tallos says the company has grown to fit the needs of numerous other industries and applications. “We took the freeze-valve technology and started applying it to other problems our customers in the petrochemical and industrial arenas had,” he explains. “If we saw an opportunity to make a device to solve their problem, we did, and steadily they’ve become standard products.”
From locomotives to commercial dishwashers, ThermOmegaTech® technology can be found in almost every corner of industry. ThermOmegaTech has developed a wide range of valves and systems for the industrial market, including valves for scald protection, steam traps, ambient sensing, surface sensing and more. The company also has mixing valves for water and steam-water applications, which have been incorporated into wash down stations for hot water wash down and instantaneous tepid water heaters.
The most recent generation of ThermOmegaTech®’s game changing technology is the CircuitSolver® thermal recirculation balancing valve and its ability to regulate and cut costs in domestic hot water systems. “The CircuitSolver® is just an extension of the self-operated valve technology we’ve been working on for 30 years; we’re just adopting it to other arenas,” explains Tallos.