_Over the course of our 26 years in business, we have had the pleasure of working with some of the country's finest and most thorough plant operators. Aside from excellent water chemistry in their boiler plant, squeaky-clean floors and immaculate boiler tubes, these plant operators also have one thing in common: they are prepared for the worst.

Quick connection taps for a rental boiler and/or rental chiller can be found in America's best central and physical plants. These operators know that even when you have your ducks in a row, disaster can strike. In the event that these operators suffer a catastrophic plant failure, they can be back online the same day with a rental unit.

Most customers, however, will have to spend days offline while their rental unit is being tied into their plants. Facility-wide shutdowns can sometimes be necessary to make rental unit connections. How much downtime can you afford? Be prepared with a Power Mechanical rental hub.

Trust us... You'll thank us later!

It's that time of the year again for boiler plant operators across America.

The days of summertime boiler shutdown and layup are officially over. Plant operators across America are engaging in having their boilers inspected and the "bugs" worked out for a successful wintertime start-up. But how prepared are they really?

Disaster can strike at any time, and competent plant operators need to be prepared for an unexpected shutdown. Two topics are of extreme importance: freeze protection and contingency planning.

Freeze protection, either of a plant boiler or a rental boiler, needs to be of the utmost importance. If your plant loses steam, your attention needs to be focused squarely on returning the plant to full capacity operation. You will not have time to repair steam and water lines damaged by freezing in the event of an unexpected shutdown. All lines exposed to ambient conditions need to be insulated and heat traced with both steam and electrical heat trace. This triple-coverage method of protection will protect your plant in the event of a shutdown involving power loss.

Contingency planning for catastrophic boiler damage also needs to be at the forefront of plant operators' preparations for winter entry. If your boiler experienced tube or refractory failure, what would your back-up plan be? Power Mechanical stands by with a full fleet of rental boilers, rental deaerators and rental heat exchangers for when disaster strikes.

One of Power Mechanical's main function as a business is to provide quality, second-hand, refurbished used steam boilers to customers all over the world. Whether a customer is looking for a second hand boiler for redundancy in their plant, or to make into a lead performing asset, Power Mechanical is ready with America's largest inventory of used boilers. One question remains: Who should buy a used boiler? Used boilers are an excellent cost-cutting method for plants and customers in all

 types of industries. A used boiler can cost less than 50% of the cost of a new unit and can be made available for sale in a fraction of the time that a new unit takes to build. Not only does this save the end user money, but it also saves wasted materials. Recycling used process equipment offers a cradle-to-cradle approach to steam production. Some of the more common applications for a used boiler are: 1. Plant redundancy 2. Avoidance of a rental or temporary boiler 3. New steam plant start-ups looking to cut costs. 4. Customers looking for short term steam production for feasibility assessments.
There are several other uses for refurbished, used steam equipment as well. Why wait? Contact us to find out how we can save you thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of dollars on steam equipment.

The past eight days have been very troubling times for the Commonwealth of Virginia. On August 23, 2011, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake rocked the Commonwealth, its epicenter striking directly in the center of our capital city, Richmond. Shock-waves reverberated throughout the East Coast, and power facilities were knocked offline due to the seismic activity.

Then, less than five days later, Hurricane Irene ripped through the East Coast, leaving miles of destruction in its wake. Over 250,000 Americans were left without power and the death toll rose into the double digits. East Coast industry was knocked off of its feet and left in a state of panic as production lines halted due to lack of electricity, the absence of cooling and no steam power available.

Power Mechanical was the first company onsite at several locations to assist in the recovery. With thousands of horsepower of rental steam boiler capacity staged and waiting, thousands of tons of rental chiller cooling capacity and a full fleet of rental air conditioning units ready to ship at a moment's notice, Power Mechanical was prepared for such an unusual series of natural disasters. Governmental locations and Fortune businesses contacted us for a disaster contingency plan, and rental assets were staged for shipment.

Power Mechanical has now launched its very own blog, appropriately titled The Steam Blog. We are committed to keeping this blog for several reasons

1. To share our deep knowledge of both boilers and chillers with the global community for free, in an attempt to repay all of those mentors that have helped us so much along our own journey to success.
2. To promote the usage of best practices in an attempt to reduce the consumption of fuel, electricity and other expensive and sometimes harmful resources.
3. To demonstrate to prospective clients our willingness to be the "go-to" company for all things related to boilers, chillers and cooling towers. We are more than happy to share our staff's wide knowledge base, forged through years of hands-on experience, in order to save our prospective clients time and money.
   

We hope that you take the time to browse through our blog if you have time. Or, if you feel so inclined, click on the RSS Feed button to the right and have an e-mail sent over to you automatically whenever The Steam Blog is updated.

We are also now active on Twitter ( @RentalBoilers ) and YouTube. You may also find a bunch of pictures from some of our more interesting projects to the right of the Steam Blog, or by visiting our Flickr Account.