Why Steam Trap Surveys Pay for Themselves in Industrial and Commercial Facilities

If you're new to a plant with a steam system, you'll hear people talk about steam traps the way they talk about the weather. Nobody thinks about them until something goes wrong, and by then it's expensive. A steam trap survey is how experienced teams stay ahead of that.

What does a steam trap actually do?

A steam trap is an automatic valve that lets condensate and air out of a steam line while keeping live steam in. Steam gives up its useful heat by condensing back into water, and that water has to leave. If it doesn't, it blocks heat transfer, cools your process and can set off water hammer in the piping.

What is a steam trap survey?

A steam trap survey is a planned, documented check of every trap in a facility. Each trap is located, tagged, identified by type and size, noted for its application and pressure, and tested. Then it gets a status: working, leaking or blowing through, blocked or cold, or flooded. A report then estimates what the failures cost and recommends repairs. Unlike a casual spot check, it's complete, repeatable and written down, so next year's results can be compared with this year's.

Why do failed steam traps cost so much?

Traps fail in two main ways, and both hurt.

A trap that fails open lets live steam blow into the condensate return. You paid to make that steam, and it leaves without doing any work. On a high-pressure line, a single failed-open trap can waste thousands of dollars of steam a year.

A trap that fails closed, or plugs with dirt, holds condensate back. That means cold spots, uneven heating, product quality problems and water hammer, which can damage equipment and injure people.

The scale surprises most newcomers. U.S. Department of Energy guidance says that in systems that haven't been maintained for three to five years, 15 to 30 percent of traps may have failed. In systems with a regular testing and repair program, leaking traps should stay under 5 percent. Trap manufacturers commonly estimate that 5 to 15 percent of traps in service fail each year, and that replacing them typically pays for itself in roughly 6 to 10 months. Your plant's numbers will vary, but wasted fuel also means avoidable emissions.

How are steam traps tested?

There are four basic approaches: temperature, sound, visual and electronic.

• Temperature: an infrared gun or thermal camera compares readings upstream and downstream. A cold trap on a hot line may be blocked.
• Sound: ultrasonic testers or a listening rod pick up what's happening inside. Depending on the trap type, a healthy one cycles or discharges in a recognizable pattern, while a blowing trap makes a steady rushing noise.
• Visual: a test valve or sight glass shows what's coming out.
• Electronic: handheld testers interpret the readings for you.

One tip that saves newcomers some embarrassment: flash steam isn't live steam. A lazy, billowy plume at a condensate receiver vent is normal, while a sharp, fast one points to a trap blowing through. And steam burns are serious, so don't open test valves or touch hot lines unless you're trained and wearing the right protective gear.

How often should traps be checked?

DOE guidance scales testing with pressure. High-pressure systems, 150 psig and above, call for weekly to monthly testing. Medium pressure, 30 to 150 psig, calls for monthly to quarterly. Low-pressure systems, under 30 psig, are usually fine with an annual check.

What tools make surveys easier?

Armstrong International, best known for its inverted bucket traps, also makes float and thermostatic, disc and thermostatic traps, plus trap valve stations that make testing and replacement safer. Its SAGE UMT handheld tester pairs an acoustic sensor with an infrared temperature reading. Each trap carries an RFID tag, so the tester pulls up the right record and sends the result by Bluetooth to the SAGE Mobile app. Because the tool makes the call instead of a technician's ear, results stay consistent from person to person. For critical traps, wireless monitors such as Armstrong's AIM and SteamEye alert you the moment a trap fails.

Why bring in Energy West Controls?

A first survey is often easier with outside help, especially if nobody on site has a complete trap count. Energy West Controls has worked on steam systems since 1981 from Salt Lake City and supports customers across seven Rocky Mountain states. Its factory-trained, certified technicians perform on-site surveys, and the report goes well beyond a pass/fail list. It covers monetary savings and losses, fuel used in MMBtu per year, steam loss, CO2 emissions and a detailed summary of every trap. That makes a repair budget easy to justify.

Energy West also teaches. Its steam seminars use a live steam board with see-through traps, heat exchangers and condensate pumps, a great way to learn before you're on a ladder next to a hot line.

What should you do next?

Ask your supervisor when the plant's traps were last surveyed and where the results are kept. Report anything odd, like banging pipes, cold equipment or unexpected steam plumes. If there's no recent survey, that's a conversation worth starting. To request a survey from Energy West Controls, call 833-416-3700 or email info@energy-west.com.

From Sterilization to Showers: Steam and Hot Water Systems in Modern Healthcare

Walk through any hospital or medical center, and you'll notice the visible things: monitors, imaging suites, patient rooms. What you won't see is the plant working behind the walls. Steam and hot water quietly keep operating rooms sterile, showers warm, air comfortable, and instruments safe to use across the entire healthcare campus. When those systems fail, patient care feels it quickly.

Why Do Hospitals and Medical Centers Still Rely on Steam?

Steam remains the backbone of many medical centers and healthcare campuses for practical reasons. It carries a great deal of energy, moves through pipes without pumps, and can be distributed across large campuses with multiple buildings. A central boiler plant can serve a main hospital, outpatient clinics, and research facilities from one source.

Hospitals, medical centers, and the clinics and labs around them run around the clock, every day of the year. That demands redundancy, steady pressure, and equipment built to last decades. Armstrong International, founded in Michigan in the early 1900s, built its reputation on that kind of durability. The company is best known for steam traps, and it has grown into a broader provider of steam, condensate, and hot water products and services.

Where Steam and Hot Water Are Used in Healthcare

The list is longer than most people expect.

• Sterilization. Autoclaves in sterile processing departments use steam to sterilize surgical instruments. Steam quality matters here. Wet or contaminated steam can cause wet packs and poor sterilization results.
• Humidification. Operating rooms and other critical spaces need controlled humidity, which supports patient comfort and helps limit static electricity. Steam humidifiers are a common way to add moisture to air-handling systems without adding much heat.
• Space heating. Steam or steam-generated hot water feeds coils, radiators, and reheat systems throughout the campus.
• Domestic hot water. Showers, sinks, and clinical uses all need a dependable supply, and it has to be managed carefully to control bacteria such as Legionella.
• Laundry and kitchens. Laundries and food service operations at hospitals and medical centers use steam for washing, pressing, cooking, and dishwashing.
• Central utility and campus loops. Many campuses convert steam to hot water at the building level using heat exchangers, giving each building a heating loop suited to its needs.

The Real Challenges Facilities Teams Face

Ask a facilities director at a hospital, medical center, or healthcare campus what keeps them up at night, and the answers are usually the same. Aging infrastructure is one. Rising energy costs are another. Staffing is a third, since experienced steam technicians are getting harder to find. On top of that comes pressure to cut emissions and meet sustainability goals without ever compromising patient safety.

Small problems in a steam system add up. A steam trap that fails open lets live steam escape into the condensate system, wasting fuel. A trap that fails closed can back up condensate, causing water hammer, poor heat transfer, and damaged equipment. Poorly maintained pressure reducing stations can deliver unstable pressure to sensitive equipment. And without good condensate return, a facility throws away hot, treated water it has already paid to heat.

How Armstrong International Approaches the Problem

Armstrong's approach is to look at the whole system, not just individual parts. Its solutions generally fall into a few areas.

Steam traps and trap management. Traps remove condensate and air while holding steam in the system. Armstrong offers several trap designs, including its long-established inverted bucket traps, which are known for working reliably in demanding conditions. The company also supports monitoring programs that help teams find failed traps early, so they can repair them before energy losses pile up.

Pressure control and steam distribution. Hospitals and medical centers typically receive steam at a higher pressure than their end uses need, so pressure reducing valves and stations step it down safely. Properly sized and maintained equipment gives sterilizers, humidifiers, and heat exchangers the stable supply they need.

Steam-to-hot-water systems. For heating and domestic hot water, Armstrong provides heat exchangers and packaged systems that convert steam into hot water. These systems deliver stable temperatures, supporting both comfort and water safety programs. They also let facilities keep using an existing steam plant while serving buildings with hot water loops.

Humidification. Armstrong manufactures steam humidification equipment for air handling systems, along with options for settings that require cleaner steam. The right approach depends on the space and the standards the facility follows.

Condensate recovery. Returning condensate to the boiler saves water, chemicals, and fuel. Armstrong's condensate return equipment and pumping solutions help facilities capture that value.

Monitoring and services. Beyond hardware, Armstrong supports steam system surveys and data-driven monitoring. The idea is simple: know what your system is doing, find waste, and fix it before it becomes an emergency.

Why Local Expertise Makes the Difference

Even the best equipment only performs as well as its selection, installation, and upkeep. Healthcare facilities have strict codes, tight schedules, and little tolerance for downtime, so many rely on local specialists who know both the products and the region.

That is where Energy West Controls of Salt Lake City comes in. As a partner of Armstrong International, Energy West Controls helps hospitals, medical centers, and healthcare campuses across the region with steam and hot water needs, from selecting equipment and sizing systems to supporting efficiency upgrades. Their team understands the demands of healthcare environments and works alongside facilities staff, engineers, and contractors to keep critical systems running.

If your facility is planning a boiler plant upgrade, dealing with steam trap problems, or looking at better ways to produce hot water, reach out to Energy West Controls. An early conversation can save time and money later.

Coils 101 Webinar: Introduction to Applied Heat Transfer for Institutional & Industrial Facilities

In this webinar, we cover the fundamentals of applied heat transfer as it relates to coil selection and performance in institutional and industrial HVAC applications. Whether you're an engineer, facility manager, or contractor, this session provides a solid foundation in coil technology and best practices. 

Topics covered:

🔹 Heat transfer basics — core principles that drive coil performance 

🔹 Thermal properties of materials and how they impact coil efficiency 

🔹 Armstrong Duralite (platefin type) coil and Armstrong Series 6000 (HD industrial) coil construction 

🔹 Centifeed design — coil design strategies for freeze protection and eliminating thermal stresses caused by thermal expansion 

🔹 Piping best practices — a quick overview of proper piping configurations 

This webinar was recorded live on Wednesday, August 19, 2026. 

To learn more about Armstrong coil products, visit Armstrong's website. 

For regional support, contact Energy West Controls.

What Your Drum Level Instruments Are Really Protecting: Clark-Reliance in Boiler and HRSG Service

A plugged water leg will show you a beautiful level. That's the unnerving part. When the lower connection between the drum and the gage fouls with sludge or scale, the column holds onto the water it already has, the glass keeps reading right where you want it, and the real level in the drum walks away underneath. Boilers have been run dry while the gage looked perfect.

Every boiler inspector has a version of that story, and it's why low water gets the attention it does. The cause is rarely corrosion or a bad weld. It's water level. More precisely, it's an operator acting in good faith on a reading that wasn't true.

That's the real job of boiler trim. Water columns, gages, gage valves, remote level indicators, illuminators, low water cutouts, and alarms exist so that the number on the panel matches the water in the drum. Clark-Reliance® has been building that chain of instruments longer than almost anyone, going back to the Reliance® Gauge Column Co., and the individual pieces are worth understanding on their own terms.

Water Columns: The Foundation Everything Else Bolts To

A water column does three things at once. It supports one or two gage glasses, it houses float-type high and low alarms, and with a probe cap it delivers alarm and low water cutout functions from conductivity probes. Reliance cast iron columns cover service up to 250 PSI, steel columns run considerably higher, and every column and component is designed and manufactured to ASME Boiler Code provisions, with steel welded to qualified procedures and assemblies hydrostatically tested to 150 percent of design pressure.

Two details matter in the field. First, existing Reliance float-type columns can often be converted with a probe cap through the Retropak PC™ approach, which adds probe-actuated alarm and control functions without ripping out the column you already have. Second, when probe alarms aren't required, a standpipe gives contractors an economical, dimensionally accurate gage connection and cuts the number of field welds. Both are quiet cost savers that don't show up until you're scoping a retrofit.

Gages, Valves, and Illumination: Making the Level Actually Visible

A direct-reading gage is the practical reference for drum level, which means visibility isn't cosmetic. Reliance offers flat glass and prismatic (reflex) water gages, and the Simpliport® 180 bi-color ported gage for demanding drum service. Bi-color indication does something a plain glass can't: steam and water resolve as two distinct colors, so an operator forty feet away reads the level in a half second instead of squinting for one.

Pair that with LED illumination and the difference is dramatic. DuraStar™ illuminators for transparent gages and Simpliport LED illumination turn a marginal reading into a clear one, including on CCTV. It's a common enough scenario: a control room camera can't resolve the gage, so operators climb the stairs every shift to eyeball it in person. Better optics and better light end that routine, using the cameras already installed.

Gage valves deserve the same attention. The line spans bronze sets for lower-pressure service through forged steel sets for high-pressure drums, with upper and lower ball checks that seal on glass failure, chains and handles that indicate open or closed position as the Code requires, and a blowdown tap on the lower valve. These are the parts that keep a glass failure from becoming a scald injury. Ratings are model-specific, so match the valve set to the drum rather than to a category.

Remote Level Indicators, Cutouts, and Alarms

Eye-Hye® indicators have provided remote boiler water level indication for over fifty years, and the electrically actuated Electro Eye-Hye system can drive as many indicators as you need, at whatever distances and locations you want, while also actuating fuel cutoff interlocks, alarms, solenoid valves, or pump motors at preset levels. The Eye-Hye SmartLevel™ generation adds self-diagnostics that most plants notice immediately: the system distinguishes a dirty probe from a failed one, illuminates an indicator when probes need cleaning, and lets you blow down on condition rather than on a calendar. Fewer nuisance trips into hazardous areas. Longer probe and valve life. Faster fault isolation when something does go wrong. And retrofits drop into existing panel cutouts without cutting new holes.

On the protection side, Levalarm® GOLD float units and probe-type Levalarms handle primary and secondary low water cutout duty, in configurations carrying the third-party approvals these applications typically call for. TWIP® level switches address turbine water induction protection, a failure mode that gets expensive in a hurry.

Where Compliance and HRSG Reality Meet

The ASME Boiler Code governs water level indication, and its requirements tighten as pressure climbs. Higher-pressure drums call for redundancy, with independent remote level indication permitted alongside direct-reading glass under defined conditions, and the gage glass has to stay serviceable even when shut off. Clark-Reliance builds assemblies specifically for that arrangement, combining a direct-reading Simpliport drum gage with independent Electro Eye-Hye remote indicators. Have a qualified boiler engineer confirm the applicable Code edition and your jurisdiction's requirements before finalizing a design, but the hardware path is well established.

HRSGs add their own pressure. Combined-cycle units cycle daily, sometimes twice daily. Fast starts thermally shock instrumentation that older base-loaded plants never subjected to that duty. Multiple pressure levels often mean more than one drum, which multiplies the sets of level instruments and the chances for a false reading during the exact transient when level is hardest to control. Instruments that are merely adequate under steady load become a reliability problem under cycling service, and a false low-level trip on a unit dispatched into a peak hour costs real money.

Regional Support Matters as Much as the Hardware

Specifying the right instrument is half the job. Getting it commissioned, calibrated, and supported afterward is the other half. In the Rocky Mountain region, Energy West Controls sells and supports Clark-Reliance boiler level instrumentation. Based in Salt Lake City and serving plants across the surrounding states, EWC has been solving steam and boiler problems since 1981, and their people live and work in the same altitude, water chemistry, and regulatory environment as the facilities they support.

Trapped Air, Hot Chips: What Every Liquid Cooling System Needs to Vent Automatically

Walk into almost any new high-density compute facility today and you'll find the same story playing out. Racks that used to pull 10 or 15 kilowatts are now pulling 60, 80, even 120 kilowatts, thanks to the GPUs and CPUs powering AI training and inference workloads. Air cooling simply can't keep up with that kind of thermal density anymore. So the industry has shifted, almost universally, to direct-to-chip liquid cooling — cold plates mounted right on the silicon, with coolant carrying heat away far more efficiently than air ever could.

It's a great solution. But it introduces a problem that a lot of facility teams don't think about until it's already costing them: air.

Why a Little Air Causes a Lot of Trouble

Liquid cooling systems are only as good as their contact with the heat source. Any pocket of air that gets trapped at a cold plate, manifold, or high point in the piping acts as an insulator right where you need heat transfer to be at its best. Even a small air gap on a cold plate can create a localized hot spot, which is exactly the failure mode these systems were designed to prevent.

It doesn't stop there. Trapped air collecting in a pump housing leads to cavitation — that's the noisy, damaging condition where air pockets collapse violently against impeller surfaces, chewing away at metal over time and shortening pump life. Air also carries dissolved oxygen, and oxygen in a closed loop means corrosion, which means scale and debris that can clog small-diameter cold plate channels. And because these loops are pressurized and dynamic, air that seems harmless on day one tends to migrate, settling at high points and manifold tops where it interferes with flow sensors and balancing valves.

Here's the part that catches people off guard: you don't have to do anything wrong for air to show up. It enters during initial fill and commissioning almost no matter how careful the install crew is. It comes in with makeup fluid. It comes out of solution as the coolant warms up, since warmer liquid simply can't hold as much dissolved gas as cold liquid. Every time a quick-disconnect fitting gets used during maintenance, there's another opportunity for a little air to sneak in. In other words, trapped air isn't a one-time commissioning issue — it's an ongoing condition that liquid cooling systems have to manage for as long as they're running.

Why You Can't Just Vent It Manually

The old-school answer was a technician with a wrench, manually cracking a valve at each high point to bleed air, then closing it back up. That might work for a single chiller loop you can take offline once a quarter. It does not work for a data hall full of CDUs and manifolds running 24/7 under live compute load. You can't schedule downtime every time a few cubic centimeters of air accumulate somewhere in the loop, and by the time a problem is visible on a monitoring dashboard — a temperature spike, a flow alarm, a noisy pump — the air has probably already done some damage.

What these systems need is something that handles venting on its own, continuously, without anyone having to notice the problem first.

How Armstrong's Automatic Air Vents Solve It

This is exactly the role Armstrong's stainless steel automatic air vents are built for. The design is refreshingly simple and mechanically reliable: a free-floating, guided lever mechanism sits inside an all-welded stainless steel body. As liquid fills the vent, the float rises and the vent stays sealed. As air or other gas accumulates and the liquid level inside the vent drops, the float falls and opens the vent, releasing the trapped gas. Once the gas is gone and liquid returns, the float rises again and the vent closes — positively and leak-tight, with no manual intervention, no electricity, and no controls programming required.

Because the body and cap are welded into a single sealed unit rather than gasketed together, there's no joint to fail and no seal to maintain over years of continuous service. These vents are rated for serious operating pressure — many models handle several hundred psig — which makes them well suited to the pressurized, high-flow conditions found in CDU loops and rack manifolds, not just low-pressure hydronic systems.

Installed at the high points of the loop — at CDU outlets, manifold tops, and anywhere else air is likely to collect — these vents do their job continuously and automatically, keeping the system fully primed without taking anything offline. That keeps cold plates in full contact with coolant, keeps pumps running quietly and free of cavitation damage, and keeps the whole liquid cooling system operating at the efficiency and reliability that high-density compute demands. For data center operators chasing lower PUE and higher uptime, that's not a small thing. It's the difference between a cooling system that quietly does its job and one that generates support tickets.

Where to Get the Right Guidance

Specifying and placing air vents correctly across a CDU loop or rack manifold isn't something you want to guess at, and that's where having a knowledgeable partner matters. Energy West Controls, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, has represented Armstrong International's steam, condensate, hot water, and fluid control products across the Rocky Mountain region for more than four decades. Their team of factory-trained sales and applications engineers works directly with facility engineers and contractors to size equipment correctly, identify the right vent models and placement for a given loop design, and support projects from initial design through commissioning and beyond.

If you're designing, retrofitting, or troubleshooting a direct-to-chip liquid cooling system and want to make sure trapped air isn't quietly working against you, Energy West Controls is a solid first call. Reach their Salt Lake City headquarters at 801-262-4477 or through energy-west.com, where their engineers can walk through your system specifics and recommend the right Armstrong air vent solution for your facility.

Recorded Webinar: Heat Pump Technologies for Institutional & Industrial Facilities

Whether you're a facility manager, plant engineer, sustainability lead, mechanical contractor, or consulting engineer trying to size up your options, this overview is designed to give you a working understanding of what heat pumps can do and how to think about deploying them at scale.

Steam Built the Rocky Mountain Economy — And Energy West Controls Helps Keep It Running

From the refineries of the Front Range to the trona plants of the Green River Basin, from coal-fired turbines in Wyoming to the brewhouses of northern Colorado, the Rocky Mountain region runs on steam. Behind nearly every barrel refined, ton of soda ash dried, megawatt generated, and pint poured, there is a steam line, a boiler drum, a control valve, and a trap doing the quiet work of moving energy where it needs to go.

For more than 40 years, Energy West Controls (EWC) has been the trusted partner that the operators, engineers, and facility managers of the Mountain West turn to when that steam has to be monitored, measured, controlled, and trusted. Founded in 1981 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, EWC supports customers across seven Rocky Mountain states with steam, air, and hot-water specialties, process valves and automation, fluid sealing, and boiler-level instrumentation — all backed by factory-trained technicians and partnerships with industry-leading brands like Armstrong International, Clark-Reliance, Jerguson, and Everactive.

Below, we walk through the five biggest industrial and commercial steam users in the Rocky Mountain region — and how EWC supports each one.

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1. Petroleum Refining — Where Steam Never Sleeps

The Rockies are home to the largest concentration of refining capacity between the Midwest and the West Coast. A major Colorado refining complex anchors the region at roughly 98,000 barrels per day, complemented by two Wyoming refineries (a 94,000 bbl/day complex and a 30,000 bbl/day plant) and a 45,000 bbl/day Utah refinery — all of which depend on continuous, high-pressure steam for distillation, catalytic cracking, hydrotreating, vacuum systems, stripping, and tank heating. The region's newer renewable diesel facilities — including a converted Wyoming unit — share the same steam-system DNA.

In a refinery, every pound of steam lost to a failed trap, a stuck valve, or a leaking gasket is money — and emissions — going up the stack. EWC helps refiners protect that asset with:

• Armstrong steam traps and SteamEye® wireless monitoring for around-the-clock visibility into every trap in the unit.
• Process control valves, severe-service valves, and automated actuators rated for the temperatures, pressures, and corrosive service refineries demand.
• Boiler drum level instrumentation from Clark-Reliance and Jerguson, including magnetic level indicators and reliable gauge glass systems for utility boilers and HRSGs.
• Fluid sealing solutions that hold up to thermal cycling and aggressive hydrocarbon service.

When uptime is measured in millions of dollars per day, refiners across Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah rely on EWC to keep the steam system invisible — exactly the way it should be.

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2. Electric Power Generation — Coal, Gas, and Geothermal

Most utility-scale electricity in the Rocky Mountains still comes from a steam turbine. Wyoming remains the nation's largest coal producer and is dotted with coal-fired plants; Colorado, Utah, and Montana all run major gas-fired combined-cycle facilities (which produce steam in their bottoming cycle); and a southwest Utah geothermal facility remains the region's only flash-steam geothermal unit, alongside binary-cycle geothermal generation at sites in southern Idaho and elsewhere.

Power generation lives or dies by steam and water chemistry, drum level control, and turbine protection. EWC supports power producers with:

• Boiler drum level gauges, magnetic level indicators, and electronic level transmitters engineered to the precision required for safe boiler operation.
• Control and isolation valves for feedwater, blowdown, attemperation, and main steam service.
• Steam trap programs and condensate recovery systems that improve heat-rate and reduce makeup water demand.
• Sage® IIoT platform integration for real-time visibility into utility-system performance across an entire generating site.

As coal units across the region retire and new combined-cycle and renewable thermal assets come online, EWC's instrumentation and controls expertise is helping operators modernize their steam plants without sacrificing reliability.

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3. Mining and Mineral Processing — The Region's Hidden Steam Giant

Wyoming is the country's largest producer of trona, bentonite, and uranium, and the Green River Basin's soda-ash plants are some of the most steam-intensive operations in North America. Add the large copper smelting and refining complex in Utah, Colorado's molybdenum operations, and the region's many lime, cement, and glass facilities, and mineral processing collectively rivals refining as a steam consumer.

These operations push steam systems to the limit — abrasive dust, chemically aggressive process streams, hard water, and remote sites that demand bulletproof equipment. EWC delivers:

• Heavy-duty process valves and automation packages designed for slurry, scaling, and high-cycle service.
• Wireless steam trap monitoring (SteamEye® and Everactive STM) that lets a small maintenance crew keep watch over miles of steam piping across a sprawling plant site.
• Boiler level instrumentation and water columns built to survive the duty cycles of calciners, dryers, and crystallizers.
• On-site steam trap surveys with documented payback typically in 6–10 months — a fast, measurable win in a margin-sensitive industry.

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4. Food and Beverage Processing — From Sugar Beets to Craft Beer

The Mountain West has one of the densest concentrations of steam-using food and beverage operations in the country: a regional sugar-beet processing cooperative with plants across Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana; large-scale meatpacking and rendering operations along Colorado's northern Front Range; one of the world's largest single brewing sites just outside Denver, plus dozens of craft breweries clustered throughout northern Colorado and the broader region; and commercial dairies, snack-food plants, and pet-food producers.

Food and beverage steam systems demand sanitary design, precise temperature control, and rock-solid reliability— a missed cook, a CIP cycle that doesn't hit temperature, or a contaminated condensate return can stop a production line cold. EWC supports these customers with:

• Sanitary and high-purity control valves suitable for direct and indirect steam service.
• Steam trap surveys and replacements that protect product quality, reduce energy consumption, and lower the facility's carbon footprint.
• Boiler-room instrumentation for the package and watertube boilers common to F&B plants.
• Training and on-site demonstrations using EWC's live steam-system board — letting plant teams see traps, heat exchangers, and condensate pumps in action.

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5. District Heating and Institutional Steam Systems

Some of the most visible steam users in the region are right under downtown sidewalks. Denver's downtown steam loop — roughly 10 miles of pipe — heats and humidifies a federal facility, the city's primary convention center, a major downtown performing-arts complex, and many of the city and county government buildings. Beyond that downtown loop, the region's institutional steam infrastructure runs deep: major state university campuses across Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Montana, state capitol complexes, and large hospital systems across the Mountain West all operate central steam plants of their own.

These systems combine commercial-grade reliability with industrial-scale infrastructure — and the consequences of a failure show up immediately for tenants, students, patients, and visitors. EWC provides:

• Pressure-reducing stations, control valves, and steam-to-hot-water heat exchangers sized for campus and downtown loops.
• SteamEye® continuous trap monitoring to catch failures before they waste energy or damage equipment.
• Boiler level instrumentation, gauge glass assemblies, and water columns for central plant boilers.
• Decarbonization roadmaps that pair steam-system optimization with newer technologies like electric and heat-pump steam generation.

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Honorable Mentions

A few steam-using sectors didn't crack the top five but still drive meaningful demand across the Rockies — and EWC supports each of them.

• Enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Wyoming hosts some of the largest CO₂-flood EOR operations in the country across its mature oil fields, with smaller cyclic-steam and steam-assisted projects on select heavy-oil leases. Both flood types depend on high-pressure injection systems, severe-service valves, and rugged level and flow instrumentation — all in EWC's wheelhouse.
• Chemical, fertilizer, and ammonia plants. Steam-methane reformers and downstream synthesis trains scattered across the region need severe-service valves, condensate management, and boiler instrumentation built for hydrogen and ammonia duty.
• Military and federal installations. Major Air Force bases and other federal sites across the Mountain West operate central heating plants and process facilities that count on EWC's specification expertise and U.S.-supplied products.
• Hospitality and large commercial properties. Hotels, resorts, and convention centers across Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming use steam for laundry, kitchens, sterilization, and space heating — all areas where EWC's traps, valves, and monitoring tools quietly pay for themselves.

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Why Rocky Mountain Operators Choose Energy West Controls

Steam looks simple from the outside — water in, energy out. But anyone who runs a plant knows the truth: the difference between a steam system that prints money and one that bleeds it lies in the details of monitoring, control, and maintenance. That is the niche Energy West Controls has owned for more than four decades.

What makes EWC different:

• Regional focus. EWC's people live and work in the Rocky Mountain region. They understand the altitude, the water chemistry, the regulatory environment, and the industries that operate here.
• Best-in-class product lines. Armstrong International, Clark-Reliance, Jerguson, VAC, A-T Controls, Check-All Valve, Process Technology, and others — assembled into solutions, not just parts on a shelf.
• Engineering and survey services. Factory-trained, certified technicians perform steam trap surveys, system evaluations, and decarbonization assessments that deliver documented ROI.
• Modern monitoring. Through SteamEye®, the Sage® IIoT platform, and Everactive's battery-free wireless sensors, EWC brings continuous, data-driven visibility to steam systems that were historically inspected once a year — if at all.
• Training and education. EWC's live steam-board demonstrations and seminars help customer teams build the in-house expertise they need to operate confidently.

Whether you're producing a barrel of refined product, a megawatt-hour of electricity, a ton of soda ash, a pallet of sugar, or a comfortable 72°F inside a downtown high-rise, your steam system deserves the same level of attention. Energy West Controls is here to help you give it.

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Energy West Controls, Inc. 1955 West Industrial Circle Salt Lake City, UT 84104 📞 801-262-4477 | 800-533-4477 🌐 energy-west.com

Serving Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, and northeastern Nevada — wherever steam is critical to your operation.

The Armstrong SAGE UMT®: Making Steam Trap Surveys Faster, Smarter, and Frankly Easier

If you run a steam system, you already know the punchline: a single failed steam trap can quietly burn through thousands of dollars a year in wasted fuel, and most plants have dozens of them. The harder problem has always been finding those failed traps without sending an experienced technician on a clipboard-and-stopwatch tour of every drip leg in the building. That is exactly the problem Armstrong International built the SAGE UMT® to solve.

What is the Armstrong SAGE UMT®?

The SAGE UMT® is a wireless, handheld automatic steam trap tester. You press the stainless steel probe against a trap, hit the test button, and the device does the rest. Inside the housing, a piezoelectric acoustic sensor that Armstrong tuned specifically for steam trap conditions listens to what the trap is doing, while a non-contact infrared temperature sensor reads the surface temperature. Those two streams of data get sent over Bluetooth to the SAGE® Mobile app on your phone or tablet, where Armstrong's UNFCCC-approved analysis methodology decides whether the trap is good, cold, leaking, or blowing through.

In other words, the technician does not have to interpret anything. The tool does.

Why does that matter?

Traditional ultrasonic trap testing is only as good as the ear holding the headphones. Two technicians can listen to the same trap and disagree about whether it is failed. That subjectivity is the single biggest reason trap surveys lose credibility over time, and it is the reason failed traps go uncorrected for years in plants that genuinely believed they had a maintenance program.

The SAGE UMT® takes the human guesswork out of the equation. Anyone you can train to scan an RFID tag and press a button can run a trap survey, and the results will be consistent from one technician to the next, one shift to the next, and one year to the next. That consistency is what makes year-over-year trending actually mean something.

How does the workflow work in practice?

Each trap in your facility gets a SAGE® RFID tag. When a technician walks up to a trap, the SAGE UMT® reads the tag, and the SAGE® Mobile app instantly pulls up that trap's record from a database that already contains thousands of trap models from nearly every manufacturer. No paging through a binder, no squinting at a faded stencil. The test runs, the data flies up to SAGE® Smart Utility System Management in the cloud, and your survey record updates automatically. If you are out of cell range, the app stores the data locally and uploads it the next time you have a connection. And the data is yours, full stop. Armstrong stores it securely and backs it up automatically, but you own it.

For traps that are tucked behind equipment or twelve feet up a wall, the UMT® threads onto any standard painter's pole, which is a small detail that field technicians appreciate within about ten minutes of using it.

What makes the SAGE UMT® different from other trap testers?

A few things stand out. The acoustic sensor is purpose-built for steam, not a generic ultrasonic gun repurposed for the application. The RFID tagging system collapses the time spent identifying and locating each trap, which is often the slowest part of a survey. The Bluetooth link to a real mobile app means no cords to tangle, melt, or break, and no transcription step at the end of the day. Battery life runs ten hours or more on a charge, with an 80% recharge in two and a half hours, so a full shift in the field is genuinely doable. The unit weighs about 1.25 pounds, carries an IP64 rating, and works in steam pressures from 2 psig all the way up to 3,200 psig. There is no calibration to send out for, and firmware updates for both the device and the SAGE® Mobile app are included with the SAGE® subscription.

The bigger competitive picture is the ecosystem. The SAGE UMT® is not just a tester, it is the field input device for a complete steam trap management program. The data feeds dashboards, identifies failure trends, prioritizes repair budgets, and supports energy and emissions reporting. A standalone tester gives you a snapshot. SAGE® gives you a program.

Who should be using one?

Any plant or campus that runs steam should have a real trap survey program, and any organization that already has one will get more out of it with a SAGE UMT®. The classic candidates are refineries, chemical plants, food and beverage producers, pulp and paper mills, pharmaceutical facilities, hospitals, universities, mines, and power generation sites. If steam is in your utility bill, the math almost always works.

Where to get it in the Rocky Mountain region

Energy West Controls is the Armstrong International representative for the Rocky Mountain region, serving industrial and commercial customers in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Northern Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Montana. The Energy West team has been working on steam systems for more than four decades, and they handle SAGE UMT® specification, sales, training, and ongoing program support throughout the region. If you want to talk through how a SAGE-based trap management program would fit your facility, or you simply want to put a UMT® in your hands and try it on a few traps, Energy West Controls is the local call to make.

How Energy West Controls Became the Go-To Partner for Process Valves and Steam Systems Across the Mountain West

When a steam system fails mid-shift at a food processing plant, or a critical control valve starts misbehaving at a mining operation, the last thing a plant engineer wants is to spend hours hunting down a vendor who actually understands the problem. They need someone who picks up the phone, knows their system, and gets it right the first time.

That's exactly the kind of relationship why customers choose Energy West Controls, Inc. — and why so many of them have been calling on EWC for years, sometimes decades. Founded in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1981, Energy West Controls has built a reputation across the Rocky Mountain region not on flashy marketing, but on deep technical knowledge and a genuine commitment to making industrial operations run better. Four-plus decades in business doesn't happen by accident.

Four Decades of Focused Expertise Means You're Not Their Guinea Pig

There's a big difference between a distributor that carries everything and an expert that truly understands what they sell. Energy West Controls made a deliberate choice to go deep rather than wide — specializing in energy services, process valves and automation, and boiler level instruments. That focus pays off for customers in ways that are hard to quantify but easy to feel.

When an engineer at a chemical refinery calls EWC with a tricky flow control problem, they're not explaining the basics to a generalist. The team already knows the application. They know what a segmented V-port ball valve does differently than a globe valve in a high-turndown process loop. They know why steam trap failures ripple through an entire system and what to look for. That depth of understanding — built over 40 years of solving real problems across mining, power generation, hospitality, food and beverage, and even military facilities — is genuinely rare in this industry.

Customers keep coming back because they trust the recommendation they get. Not because it's the cheapest option, but because it's the right one.

A Regional Presence That Actually Shows Up When It Matters

Energy West Controls maintains a tight regional focus — serving customers across Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Montana.

That regional commitment means EWC's team knows the specific challenges that come with operating in high-altitude environments, remote mining sites, or the harsh temperature swings of the Mountain West. They're not applying a generic solution developed for a coastal manufacturing corridor. They're working with the same industrial landscape their customers work in every day. When something urgent comes up, they're close enough to actually help.

Energy West Controls is genuinely embedded in the communities it serves — and that creates a different kind of accountability than you get from a catalog house.

A Manufacturer Lineup That's Been Vetted, Not Just Listed

Walk through EWC's manufacturer partnerships and you'll notice something: these aren't random additions to fill out a catalog. Armstrong International for steam, air, and hot water systems. Clark-Reliance for level measurement. DeZurik, A-T Controls, and XOMOX for process valves. Jerguson and Jacoby-Tarbox for liquid level instrumentation. These are the names that serious process engineers actually specify.

EWC doesn't just resell these products — they support them. The company maintains a live steam training facility with see-through traps, heat exchangers, and condensate pumps so customers can watch a real steam system operate before they commit to a solution. That kind of hands-on education is unusual, and it reflects a company that sees itself as a long-term technical partner rather than a transaction processor.

When customers trust Energy West Controls, Inc., they're trusting more than 40 years of carefully built relationships — with manufacturers who make products that hold up, and with an internal team that knows exactly how to apply them.

If you're dealing with a process control challenge, a steam system inefficiency, or a valve application that's given other vendors trouble, Energy West Controls is worth a conversation.

Stop Guessing, Start Knowing: Steam System Training for 2026

Steam systems are some of the hardest-working and least-understood utilities in industrial operations. When they run well, nobody thinks about them. When something goes wrong — a failed trap, a water hammer event, frozen lines, wasted energy — the costs add up fast. That's exactly why so many plant engineers, maintenance technicians, and facility managers across Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico are signing up for Energy West Controls' Basics of Steam and Steam System Fundamentals seminar.

What Makes This Training Different

A lot of steam training is classroom-only — slides, diagrams, maybe a video. Energy West Controls takes a different approach. Their training facility features a live steam board with glass-piped demonstrations, so attendees can actually watch steam and condensate move through a real system. You'll see  steam traps in action, observe heat exchangers operating, and watch condensate pumps do their job in real time. There's simply no substitute for seeing it live when you're trying to understand what's happening inside your own plant.

What You'll Walk Away Knowing

The agenda is thorough without being overwhelming. Over the course of a single day — 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM — the training covers everything from the fundamentals of steam generation and steam tables to condensate chemistry, pressure-reducing valves, and real-world troubleshooting. Some of the most valuable sessions focus on the topics that cause the biggest headaches in the field: preventing water hammer, selecting the right steam trap for the application, designing proper condensate return piping, and diagnosing system back pressure issues.

Whether you're new to steam or you've been working around these systems for years, there's something here that will sharpen your thinking and give you tools you can apply immediately.

Who Should Attend

If your company operates boilers, steam distribution systems, heat exchangers, or steam-driven process equipment anywhere in the Mountain West, Front Range, or Southwest, this seminar was designed with you in mind. Energy West Controls serves these territories directly, so the instructors understand the specific operating environments, altitude considerations, and industry applications that are common across the region — from manufacturing and food processing to oil and gas, healthcare, and commercial facilities.

Locations, Dates, and Cost

Sessions are currently scheduled throughout 2026 at four regional locations:

Salt Lake City, Utah — Monthly sessions running February through June 2026

Golden, Colorado — Sessions in January, April, August, and November 2026

Tempe, Arizona — Sessions in February, June, September, and December 2026

Albuquerque, New Mexico — Date pending; contact Energy West Controls for updates

Each session is $500 per person and includes a continental breakfast, lunch, and all training materials. That's a remarkably accessible price point for a full day of hands-on, expert-led technical training that could directly reduce your energy spend, prevent equipment failures, and extend the life of your steam system.

How to Register

You can register directly at energy-west.com/events.cfm. A purchase order or credit card is required at the time of reservation, and full refunds are available for cancellations made within seven days of invoicing. If you have a larger team to train or need a session tailored to your specific processes, Energy West Controls also offers advanced classes and custom on-site options — just ask when you reach out.

For questions, call 833-416-3700 or email sales@energy-west.com.

Improving Safety and Uptime with Eye-Hye® SmartLevel™ Remote Level Indication

Modern industrial plants no longer accept “good enough” when it comes to water level visibility, especially in boilers, drums, tanks, and other critical vessels. Operators want certainty, speed, and safety, without sending personnel into hot, pressurized, or hard-to-reach locations. The Eye-Hye® SmartLevel™ Remote Water Level Indication System from Clark-Reliance answers that demand with a smarter, safer, and more practical approach to level monitoring.

At its core, the Eye-Hye® SmartLevel™ system turns water level indication into a remote, continuously available data stream rather than a momentary visual check. Instead of relying on operators to walk up to a gauge glass, interpret level markings, and manually log readings, the system captures level information and transmits it in real time to where people already work. Control rooms, operator stations, and authorized mobile devices all gain clear visibility into vessel conditions, even during startup, shutdown, or upset scenarios. That shift alone changes how facilities think about level monitoring, because awareness no longer depends on physical presence.

Traditional gauge glasses still perform a basic function, but they introduce real-world problems that engineers and maintenance teams know all too well. Gauge glasses can cloud, leak, or fail under pressure. Operators must stand directly in front of hot equipment to read it, sometimes in elevated or confined spaces. The Eye-Hye® SmartLevel™ system removes that exposure from daily operations. By delivering accurate level indication remotely, it reduces the need for routine walk-downs while still keeping operators fully informed. Facilities immediately improve safety protocols without sacrificing situational awareness.

The technology behind Eye-Hye® SmartLevel™ works in a straightforward, user-friendly way. The system monitors water level and converts that information into a digital signal that displays clearly and consistently. Operators see a stable, readable level indication without glare, steam interference, or poor lighting conditions. Because the system updates continuously, changes in level become visible as they occur, not after someone physically checks the vessel. That real-time feedback supports better operational decisions and faster responses when conditions shift.

Integration plays a major role in why the Eye-Hye® SmartLevel™ system stands out in industrial environments. Plants rarely install new equipment in isolation, and Clark-Reliance designed this system to work alongside modern control architectures. Facilities can integrate the signal into existing DCS, PLC, or monitoring platforms, allowing level data to support alarms, trends, and historical analysis. Operators gain a consistent view of level alongside pressure, temperature, and flow, thereby strengthening overall process understanding and reducing surprises.

Safety improvements extend beyond daily readings. By minimizing direct interaction with gauge glasses, the system reduces the risk of glass breakage or the sudden release of hot fluids. Maintenance teams spend less time responding to level-indication issues and more time on planned work. Facilities also support compliance with modern safety standards that encourage remote indication and reduced personnel exposure in hazardous areas. These gains accumulate quietly but powerfully over time.

Operational efficiency improves just as quickly. Continuous level visibility helps operators catch abnormal conditions early, before they escalate into forced outages or equipment damage. Subtle trends become visible rather than hidden between manual checks. Plants avoid costly shutdowns caused by low-water or high-water events because operators receive clear, timely information. Maintenance budgets benefit as well, since reduced gauge glass wear and fewer emergency interventions translate into lower lifecycle costs.

For facilities in the Rocky Mountain region, access to knowledgeable local support matters as much as technology itself. Energy West Controls is the trusted regional supplier of the Eye-Hye® SmartLevel™ system, serving customers throughout Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and surrounding states. Based in Salt Lake City, Energy West Controls brings hands-on experience with industrial control systems and level instrumentation, helping customers select, apply, and support SmartLevel installations with confidence. Their regional presence ensures fast response, practical guidance, and long-term partnership rather than one-time equipment sales.

The Eye-Hye® SmartLevel™ system fundamentally changes how facilities view water-level indication. It replaces reactive, manual checks with proactive, continuous visibility. It improves safety without adding operational complexity. It strengthens reliability while reducing the everyday burden on operators and maintenance teams. When paired with Energy West Controls' local expertise and responsiveness, it becomes not just an upgrade but a practical step toward safer, smarter plant operations.

For plant engineers, facility managers, and maintenance professionals who value clear information and reduced risk, the Eye-Hye® SmartLevel™ Remote Water Level Indication System delivers exactly what modern industrial operations require: confidence, clarity, and control, right where decisions happen.

Season’s Greetings, and Best Wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Energy West Controls

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and best wishes for a happy holiday season to our customers, partners, and team. Thank you for your confidence, teamwork, and commitment throughout the year. As we enter the New Year, we look forward to building on our strong partnerships. May the coming year bring health, prosperity, and opportunity.

The Simple Physics Behind the Armstrong Nanobubble Generator—and Why It Matters in the Rockies

The Armstrong Nanobubble Generator is part of a new class of physical water-conditioning technologies that rethink how industrial systems handle mineral scale, fouling, and heat-transfer losses. Rather than adding chemicals or consuming electrical power, the device uses the energy already present in the moving water to restructure how dissolved gases behave in circulation. It installs directly in the water stream, contains no moving parts, and requires no external power source. Once the flow passes through the unit, the water itself becomes enriched with a dense population of nanobubbles that stay suspended in circulation and continuously interact with internal system surfaces.

Inside the Armstrong Nanobubble Generator, water is accelerated through finely engineered internal plates that create intense but controlled shear forces. When the flow hits these shear plates, micro-zones form where local pressure drops very quickly—briefly falling below the fluid’s vapor pressure. In these tiny low-pressure pockets, dissolved gases such as nitrogen and oxygen momentarily come out of solution. But instead of forming large bubbles that rise, merge, and vent from the system, the device's design constrains bubble formation to the nanoscale, typically under 200 nanometers in diameter. At that size, buoyancy is no longer the dominant force. The bubbles move primarily through Brownian motion, which gives them an unusual stability. They do not coalesce into larger bubbles or rise to the top and escape. Instead, they remain in circulation for weeks, creating a persistent nanobubble environment throughout the system water.

The advantage of nanobubbles lies in their behavior at surfaces. Each bubble carries a natural negative surface charge, which attracts it to mineral scale and biofilm deposits that cling to metal and polymer surfaces in piping, tanks, and heat exchangers. Their nanoscale diameter results in an enormous amount of total interfacial surface area per ounce of water passing through the circuit. As nanobubble-rich water repeatedly circulates through the system, bubbles migrate into the boundary layer near internal surfaces. There, they interfere directly with the mineral lattice and organic scaffolding that hold hard deposits in place. Over many repeated passes, the existing scale begins to soften, detach, and gradually release from the surface. At the same time, the persistent nanobubble population makes it significantly harder for new mineral crystals or biofilm colonies to establish strong adhesion. The result is not just scale inhibition—it is continuous surface renewal powered by the water already circulating through the system.

In the Rocky Mountain Region, the appeal is convenient. Water across the Rockies—whether sourced from municipal systems or high-hardness wells—often carries meaningful mineral loading. When heated or cycled through cooling loops, calcium and magnesium salts naturally precipitate from solution. These minerals cling to heat-transfer surfaces such as tank walls, plates, and exchanger tubes, forming an insulation layer that can reduce thermal conductivity, increase fuel burn, extend pump and compressor run times, and eventually require mechanical descaling. Even ultra-thin deposits can produce a measurable efficiency loss. Operators across the Rocky Mountain states know this impact is not academic. It shows up in energy bills, maintenance schedules, unplanned downtime, and lost production hours.

Because the Armstrong Nanobubble Generator operates without chemical dosing, it reduces operational complexity and protects against fluctuating water-treatment costs. Facilities that once relied on heavy inhibitor programs or frequent mechanical cleaning gain a passive partner that works quietly in the background. Mountain hotels and resorts often experience steadier hot-water availability during high-usage seasons because storage tanks and plate exchangers remain cleaner for longer. Hospitals and universities benefit from restored heat-transfer performance in domestic hot-water circuits, which supports temperature stability, hygiene goals, and reduced maintenance interruptions. Breweries, dairy processors, and food-production plants that rely on precision heating or clean-in-place systems gain protection that improves throughput, simply because less time is spent fighting deposits on critical internal surfaces.

Cooling towers and condenser loops serving data centers, manufacturing campuses, and large commercial buildings also respond well to nanobubble-treated water. By lowering deposition rates and gradually removing existing scale, these systems often achieve better performance from compressors and pumps without adding more electrical load or complexity. For many operators, that matters. Solutions that increase efficiency while remaining mechanically simple and electrically passive are easier to approve, install, and sustain.

The Armstrong Nanobubble Generator delivers a smarter, flow-powered way to keep industrial heating and cooling systems cleaner, more efficient, and easier to operate—especially in the high-mineral water conditions common throughout the Rocky Mountain Region. For facilities that care about uptime, energy savings, and reducing manual descaling interruptions, it adds continuous protection without adding complexity. Local expertise makes all the difference in turning technology into reliable performance. That’s why so many operators trust Energy West Controls of Salt Lake City, Utah. They provide the in-region sales, service, and technical support that help keep Armstrong International water and steam solutions working at their peak, backed by on-the-ground support from knowledgeable engineers who understand the systems, the water, and the challenges of operating in the Rockies.

Ultimately, the Armstrong Nanobubble Generator solves a problem facilities already live with rather than one invented for them. It leverages the physics of flow and the chemistry of adhesion, turning a system’s own water into the working agent for cleaner internal surfaces. In a region where water quality varies dramatically, and system uptime is a competitive advantage, its value becomes easy to explain: restored efficiency, fewer interruptions, and a system that continuously defends itself against mineral-driven performance loss—all powered invisibly by the flowing water already in motion.