Burnham Holdings enters hot boiler rental market. local business

When international chocolate maker Barry Callebaut had to shut down its steam boilers at a Philadelphia-area plant for routine maintenance and inspection earlier this year, the company turned to Manheim Township-based Thermal Inmotion for a temporary replacement boiler to keep production going. Turned.

“There is a high demand for temporary boilers,” said Jerry Varello, a retired supervisor at Barry Callebaut, who hired Thermal Inmotion when no other company was available. “Hospitals, factories, mushroom plants all needed continuous steam. It is. Last year was really tight. It opened up a little bit in December.”

Then, there are emergencies that make a tight market even tighter — like the one that happened Aug. 27 at a chicken processing plant in Milford, Delaware. Workers at that Perdue plant, which processes about 240,000 chickens a day, discovered a serious malfunction in one of its boilers and had to hire a company headquartered in Georgia.

Boiler rentals are so hot that longtime Lancaster County boiler manufacturer Burnham Holdings launched its own rental business, Thermal InMotion, last May to get a share of the nearly $600 million rental boiler market. Burnham, which has been in Lancaster County since 1923, makes boilers, radiators, furnaces and air conditioning systems for use in commercial, industrial and residential settings.

This trailer containing a Thermal InMotion 350 horsepower mobile steam plant is parked at Burnham Commercial 1239 Harrisburg Avenue in Manheim Township on Monday, August 28, 2023. This rental boiler is being tested at Boonram before being rented to another customer.

Blaine Shahan | staff photographer

Last month, Burnham acquired the assets of York-based boiler repair company CSI Services to support its boiler rental business. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. All 21 CSI employees now work for Burnham. Burnham has approximately 800 employees.

Jim Cipollone, president of Thermal InMotion, said the need for rental boilers is so great that Burnham is serving companies from as far away as Wyoming. Thermal InMotion considers its market to be mid-Atlantic because moving boilers further is cost prohibitive – unless another one is available.

Jim Cipollone, president of Thermal InMotion, poses outside Burnham Commercial 1239 Harrisburg Ave. in Manheim Township on Monday, Aug. 28, 2023.

Blaine Shahan | staff photographer

“We’re not limiting where we can go,” Cipollone said. “We have received inquiries from all over the country – Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia. We’ve done a deal in Wyoming that looks promising because everyone there is booked. “We’re primarily focused on the Mid-Atlantic region.”

a growing market

This trailer containing a Thermal InMotion 350 horsepower mobile steam plant is parked at Burnham Commercial 1239 Harrisburg Avenue in Manheim Township on Monday, August 28, 2023. This rental boiler is being tested at Boonram before being rented to another customer.

Blaine Shahan | staff photographer

The North American boiler rental market was valued at approximately $575 million in 2022.

Verify Markets, a market research and consulting firm specializing in industrial, environmental, energy, consumer products and water markets, said in its report that boiler shortages and manufacturing lead times are driving growth in the boiler rental market.

Verify recently said that with a limited supply of boilers available for purchase, companies are turning to rental to meet their immediate needs.

Boiler rental costs have nearly doubled since 2017 due to steel shortages during the pandemic. Verified Markets reported in June that the lead time for a new piece of machinery is close to a year.

Varela said boiler rental costs can range from $20,000 to $25,000, not including installation costs and depending on how long they are used.

Cipollone said another reason rental boilers are hot right now is the lack of workers able to repair boilers, and the boilers are getting older.

Companies also reduced on-hand maintenance staff and turned to third-party services like CSI, which are not contracted for the same type of maintenance that an employee maintenance staff can provide.

Cipollone said that as a result of deferred maintenance, boilers fail more frequently and more catastrophically than before.

a development strategy

By the end of last year, seven months into the new venture, Cipollone said Thermal InMotion had three rental units up and in use. The acquisition of CSI, which was founded in 1969 as a representative for the manufacturer of York-Shipley boilers, will allow Thermal InMotion to grow with people who can build, service and rehabilitate the units.

Brian O’Toole, Burnham’s vice president of business development, said CSI currently fits into the regional food processing operations Thermal InMotion rental boiler fleet with its combustion and boiler installation services and many different types of Burnham’s various subsidiaries. Has the ability to provide commercial services. Boiler units for a wide range of applications in heating, water heating and process.

Cipollone expects to have a dozen units available for rental by the end of this year.

Burnham has bounced back after struggling post-pandemic. The company said it increased prices because production costs have increased due to inflation. Sales of $111.7 million for the first half of the year were up 6.4%, or about $7 million, compared to $104.9 million for the same period in 2022. Its net income in the first half of 2023 was about $4 million, up from a loss of $1.8 million during the same period in 2022.

In its April report to investors, Burnham said its sales for 2022 were $240.5 million, an increase of 10.1% compared to 2021, with residential products up 6.2% and commercial products up 23.2%.

Burnham is publicly traded in over-the-counter markets as BURCA. Its 52-week high was $13.84 and low was $12.03.

Success! An email has been sent to List with a link to confirm signup.

Mistake! There was an error processing your request.

Source: lancasteronline.com