Boiler Blog | Nationwide Boiler Inc.

Nationwide Boiler is fortunate to have closed on another record year in 2022 for rental and sales volume. Looking back at our customer base, it is extraordinary to see how many industries and manufacturing processes utilize steam. We worked with customers from roughly 15 different industries to supply reliable temporary boilers, new and used boilers and related equipment for permanent applications, the CataStak™ SCR system for single-digit NOx performance, and custom control systems and fuel skids from our Controls Division in Washougal.

The food processing industry pulled ahead this year as our largest industry served. Steam is used for many purposes in the food and beverage industry including heat, sterilization, food processing and preparation of sauces/flavors, canning, cooking, curing, and drying. We have annual rental customers in the food processing industry to support their seasonal increased steam demand needs. We also had a large number of projects with chemical & manufacturing companies, pulp and paper facilities, and oil & gas refineries. Steam is used for process heating, drying or concentrating, steam cracking and distillation in these industries. Other prominent customer groups included energy and power generation, colleges and universities, aerospace, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and textile mills.

In terms of geographical location, Nationwide Boiler supplied equipment to customers in locations spanning more than half of the states in the country, but also to customers outside of the U.S. As we like to say, Nationwide Boiler is not just ‘nationwide’, but ‘worldwide’, and this year we had the pleasure of supplying equipment to customers in Canada, Mexico, China, South Korea and Israel. Plus, we had our first equipment sale to a refinery in Kazakhstan - two (2) 75,000 lb/hr, 750 psi high-pressure saturated steam package boilers that will be utilized for process heating needs.

Steam continues to be a powerful source of heat and energy and is utilized in a wide variety of industries all across the globe. Nationwide Boiler is proud to be ending on a high note again this year, as we strive to continue our legacy of providing reliable temporary and permanent boiler solutions with “...Integrity, Dependability, and Real Customer Service.”

Check out our December 2022 edition of the Steamlines Newsletter to learn more about what's happening at Nationwide Boiler Inc. 

Nationwide Boiler has been on the forefront of innovation in our industry since 1967. Our founder, Dick Bliss, pioneered the mounting of a 20,000 lb/hr package watertube boiler onto a highway-legal trailer signaling the start of an entirely new business on the West Coast.

The rising of truly mobile rental boilers provided time and cost savings for those in need of temporary steam, as well as a reliable, purpose-built option for rent. Prior to this development, temporary steam supply was sourced from steam locomotives or “jury-rigging” obsolete boilers that had been scrapped. None of these early systems were efficient or easy to get to a job site.

Throughout the years we have continually upgraded and enhanced our offerings and have been a leading innovator in our industry. We were the first rental boiler company to convert our entire fleet to low NOx levels of 30 ppm back in 1995, and in 1999 we demonstrated the first SCR system for ultra-low NOx performance on a package boiler. Just two years later, we began offering our CataStak™ SCR system which has now been installed in over 200 applications.

Today, our product offerings include many one-of-a-kind systems, including the world’s largest mobile saturated and superheated steam boilers. Take a look at the list below for a complete overview of the products unique to our company.

40-75,000 lb/hr Trailer-Mounted, High-Pressure Saturated Steam Boilers
110,000 lb/hr Trailer-Mounted Superheated Steam Boiler (World’s Largest)
125,000 lb/hr Trailer-Mounted Saturated Steam Boiler (World’s Largest)
225,000 lb/hr Skid-Mounted, High-Pressure Rental Deaerators
Complete Mobile Feedwater Vans
Urea- and Ammonia-Based CataStak™ SCR Rental Units
DataStak™ Emissions & Efficiency Monitoring System

Nationwide Boiler is a well-established company that provides reliable, purpose-built rental boiler equipment and a great deal more. As a manufacturer’s representative, we supply new and reconditioned fuel-fired boilers, electric boilers, boiler burners and economizers for sale, and we have boiler systems in-stock and available for immediate requirements. In addition, our proven CataStak™ SCR system is available for ultra-low NOx solutions, and we build custom, PLC-based control systems and fuel skids at our UL-certified fabrication facility in Washougal, WA.

Give us a call today to learn how we can support your next boiler related need with, “Integrity, Dependability, and Real Customer Service”. 1-800-227-1966

At Nationwide Boiler, we maintain a purpose-built fleet of over 100 rental boiler systems from as small as 47.5 hp to as large as 200,000 lb/hr. We have multiple configurations including mobile, trailer-mounted boilers, complete mobile boiler rooms and mobile steam plants, skid-mounted firetube and watertube boilers, factory-integrated skid packages, and even electric boiler systems. With a rental fleet as versatile as ours, we can always find a solution when a customer comes calling.

It is not uncommon for a rental boiler to return and need repairs. A unit might need parts to be replaced, an acid cleaning or even a complete retube, but the worst-case scenario would be the need to scrap a boiler entirely due to damage beyond repair. But if a boiler is properly maintained, as we have said before, it can last a lifetime. A boiler retube can transform a system and bring it back to like-new condition. And, with so many different types of boilers in our rental fleet, we have found other ways to transform, reuse, and recycle when our equipment still has years of life left. 

Combustion equipment safety is essential for the daily operation of facilities and safety of plant personnel. Safety protocols and mechanisms in industrial plants have improved drastically in the last century, but incidents still occur far too frequently. Because boiler systems are inherently dangerous, safety must be factored into the design of not just the boiler, but also the burner, combustion control, and the overall operation of the system.

The burner management system (BMS) is just one of many safety devices built into a boiler system, designed to control the combustion process from beginning to end in a safe and reliable manner. It monitors high and low gas pressure, the combustion air fan, combustion air, and water levels, in addition to monitoring safety devices and controlling the sequence of lighting the burner. If any issues arise related to pressure or water level, it will initiate closure of the shut-off valves. To automate these processes, PLC-based controls are often used as a BMS. PLC based BMS gives you much more flexibility, the ability to use analog input signals as limits, limit voting and the versatility to have almost unlimited safety limits.

A Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) is a robust computer utilized for industrial automation. Although a PLC doesn’t physically look like a typical computer, it incorporates the very same technology seen in computers and smart devices that we use every day. The PLC receives information from connected sensors or input devices, processes the data, and triggers outputs based on pre-programmed parameters. It consists of a power supply, a CPU (central processing unit), input and output cards, and communication cards. A programming device (often a laptop computer) is utilized for writing programs into the PLC and HMI (human machine interface) which provides a visual model of the system as a whole.

Compared to traditional technologies, a PLC-based system is easier to troubleshoot, more reliable, more cost-effective, and much more versatile. In addition, PLC-based controls provide added levels of safety for the burner management system and overall operation of your boiler. PLCs are built in compliance with NFPA 85 and SIL2 requirements at minimum and can be configured to meet SIL3 standards as well. Therefore, we are seeing boiler control panels being built or updated to PLC-based systems more than ever.

Pacific Combustion Engineering has extensive knowledge and experience in the design, build, and programming of PLC-based combustion control systems. If you are in the market for an upgrade or brand-new panel that incorporates PLC, give us a call and we will design a system that fits your unique process needs.