Industrial Electric Heating Supply · Kansas City, Missouri
Electric tank heaters, engineered to the tank you actually have.
Immersion and circulation heaters for chemical, plating, acid, oil and process tanks. Send the liquid, the temperature and the tank dimensions — you get a specification with the sheath material, watt density and kilowatt rating worked out, not a catalog page.
In business more than 50 years · founded by a chemical engineer and military veteran · family run · many large flange and tank heater builds over those years
What we need to quote
- Liquid
- And its concentration — this decides the sheath material
- Temperature
- Starting, target, and how fast it has to get there
- Tank
- Inside dimensions, liquid depth, volume in gallons, material
- Power
- Voltage and phase available at the tank
0.5 – 500+ kW · 120 – 600 V · 9 sheath materials · built to order · ships US & Canada
What we build
Five constructions cover nearly every tank. The right one depends less on the liquid than on the tank — whether it can be penetrated, whether it can be taken out of service, and how much power has to go in.
Over-the-Side Heaters
Hangs from the tank rim. No drilling, no welding, no penetration. Lifts out for cleaning. The default for an existing plating, pickling or cleaning tank that has to keep running.
1 – 24 kW
Flange Immersion Heaters
Bolts to a flanged nozzle on a closed or pressurized vessel. The highest capacity available in a single unit, and the standard construction for large storage and process tanks.
3 – 500+ kW · ANSI 150# / 300#
Screw Plug Heaters
Threads into an existing NPT coupling. The lowest-cost permanent mount for small tanks, reservoirs and hydraulic sumps with mild fluids.
0.5 – 24 kW · 1" – 2-1/2" NPT
Circulation Heaters
Heats fluid in an external loop instead of in the tank. Keeps the heater out of the chemistry, scales to hundreds of kilowatts, and can be isolated and serviced without opening the tank.
6 – 500+ kW · In-line
Custom Engineered Systems
When nothing standard fits: odd tank geometry, unusual chemistry, a specific temperature tolerance, a classified area, or a heater plus multi-zone control panel as one package.
Built to drawing
Not sure which?
Answer three questions — can the tank be penetrated, can it be taken out of service, and how many kilowatts does it need — and the construction usually chooses itself.
The specification is the whole job
An electric tank heater is not a complicated device. Almost every failure we get called about traces back to one of four decisions being made without the numbers in front of anyone. Fifty years of large flange and tank heater jobs is largely fifty years of watching the same four go wrong.
Wrong sheath material for the liquid. Titanium specified for sulfuric acid because titanium is the expensive corrosion-resistant one — and sulfuric is a reducing acid that attacks it. Stainless in chloride-bearing water. Copper in deionized water. The sheath is the only part the liquid touches, and the material answer depends on concentration and temperature, not just on the name of the chemical.
Watt density too high for the liquid. Water tolerates 60 W/in² and beyond. Heavy oil tolerates 6 to 10. Get this wrong and the kilowatt calculation can be perfectly correct while the element still burns out, because the same power was crammed into too little surface area.
Losses left out of the sizing. A heater sized only for heat-up will heat the tank once and then never quite hold it. Open hot tanks lose enormous energy to evaporation — often more than through the walls.
No protection against the obvious. Dry firing is the single most common cause of sudden failure, and a low-level cutoff is inexpensive. So is a high-limit with its own sensor.
All four are answered before quoting, in writing, so you can check the work.
Applications
Chemical Tank Heating
Caustic, alkaline cleaners, solvents, brine, process baths. Sheath selection against the actual bath at its real concentration and temperature.
Plating & Anodizing
PTFE-coated and titanium over-the-side heaters for nickel, zinc, copper, chrome, anodizing and phosphate baths, with PID and SCR control for tight bath temperature.
Acid & Pickling
Oxidizing versus reducing acid decides everything. PTFE-coated and quartz for sulfuric, hydrochloric and hydrofluoric; titanium for nitric and chromic.
Oil & Viscous Fluids
Fuel oil, lube oil, asphalt, wax and heat transfer fluids. Watt density and film temperature govern the design, not corrosion.
Water & Rinse Tanks
Process water, rinse tanks, parts washers, glycol loops. Hardness, chlorides and deionized water are what actually kill water heaters.
Something else in the tank?
Send the liquid and the concentration, or a bath analysis or fluid datasheet. Unusual chemistry is the normal case for custom work, not the exception.
Engineering reference
Published because these are the questions we get asked, and because a specification you can check is worth more than one you have to trust.
Heater Sizing Calculator
Kilowatts for heat-up plus losses, with the formula shown and worked examples for tank and flow heating.
Sheath Material Selection
Nine sheath materials against dozens of liquids, with what each one fails at — not just what it survives.
Watt Density Limits
Maximum W/in² by liquid, why exceeding it destroys elements, and how to convert a limit into required element area.
Why Heaters Fail
Eight failure modes with what each one looks like on the failed element, so you can diagnose from the part you pulled out.
Voltage & Controls
Voltage mismatch effects, single versus three phase, contactor versus SCR, sensor placement and the protection scheme.
All engineering data
Specifications, tables and formulas, free to use and free to check against your own numbers.
Send the tank, get a specification
Liquid, temperature, volume and voltage is enough to start. You will get the kilowatt rating, sheath material and watt density in writing, with the reasoning attached.