Why New England's Toughest Slurry and Solids Applications Demand the RF Valve SKG Knife Gate

If you run a wastewater treatment plant in Massachusetts, a paper mill in Maine, or a power station anywhere across New England, you already know that ordinary valves don't last in abrasive, corrosive service. Slurries eat through seats. Solids jam gates. Downtime costs pile up fast. That's exactly why we at Piping Specialties, Inc. (PSI) represent the RF Valve SKG — a knife gate valve purpose-built for the punishment these applications dish out every day.

We've been supplying valves, instrumentation, and engineered mechanical specialties to industrial and municipal customers throughout New England since 1975. Over those decades, we've learned which products survive in the field and which ones end up as expensive scrap. The RF SKG consistently proves itself in the harshest conditions our customers face.

What Makes the RF SKG Different

Most knife gate valves rely on conventional packing and metal-to-metal seating. The RF SKG takes a fundamentally different approach. Its full-port bore is formed by two heavy-duty elastomer sleeves — one on each side of the gate. When the valve is fully open, those sleeves press together, creating a smooth, unobstructed flow path. No metal contacts the flowing media in the open position, which dramatically reduces wear from abrasive slurries and extends service life.

When the gate closes, it slides between the two sleeves and progressively separates them. Once fully closed, the blade forms a bubble-tight seal against the upstream sleeve, delivering bidirectional shutoff with zero downstream leakage — regardless of which direction the media is flowing. That packingless, pass-through design keeps debris and solids accumulation away from the sealing surfaces, which is one of the most common failure points in competing knife gate designs.

The sleeves themselves are reinforced with embedded stiffener rings (J-ring design on the flanged model) that maintain sleeve roundness and prevent premature deformation. A 360-degree groove along the inner sleeve surface provides axial flexibility, helping the sleeves accommodate thermal expansion and pressure fluctuations without cracking or distorting.

Built for Safety and Easy Maintenance

The RF SKG's wraparound yoke design fully encloses the gate blade, spindle, and clevis. This isn't just a cosmetic choice — it protects operators from moving parts and shields internal components from slurry splatter, extending the valve's operational life. Steel proximity switch covers are standard, protecting mounted accessories from damage during transport and daily operation.

For maintenance crews, the real standout feature is field-replaceable elastomer sleeves. When it's time to swap sleeves — and with any knife gate in heavy service, that time will come — the RF SKG lets your team do it on-site without special tooling. That translates directly into shorter outages and lower maintenance costs compared to valves that require removal from the line or factory service for sleeve replacement.

Lockout provisions in both the open and closed positions, along with visual position indicators, are built in. These features support OSHA lockout/tagout requirements and make valve status immediately apparent to operators on the plant floor.

Flexible Actuation and Accessories

The RF SKG's top bracket is designed from the factory to accept manual handwheel, manual bevel gear, pneumatic, electro-mechanical, or hydraulic actuators — no field modifications needed. That makes it simple to upgrade from manual to automated operation or to switch actuation types as your process requirements evolve.

The valve is compatible with a full range of accessories from industry-leading manufacturers, including solenoid valves, proximity and limit switches (mechanical or magnetic), electro-pneumatic and pneumatic positioners, filter/regulators, pressure switches, junction boxes, gauges, purge ports with flush-out connections, and manual overrides. Fail-open and fail-close positions are available via mechanical or air spring configurations.

Specifications at a Glance

The RF SKG is available in both flanged (SKG F) and wafer (SKG W) configurations. The flanged version covers sizes from 3 inches up to 26 inches. The wafer version ranges from 2 inches to 24 inches. Both handle operating temperatures up to 390°F and working pressures up to 150 psi (10 bar), with higher pressures available on consultation. Flange standards include ASME B16.5 Class 150, AS2129 Table D and E, PN10, and PN16.

Body construction is fusion bonded epoxy powdercoated ductile iron with epoxy-coated mild steel yoke plates, providing excellent corrosion resistance. Gate blade materials include 316L stainless steel, Teflon-coated, or Duplex 2205 stainless — selected based on the specific media and process chemistry involved. Elastomer sleeve options include natural rubber (NR), EPDM, nitrile (NBR), and fluoroelastomer (FKM/FPM), chosen to match the chemical compatibility and temperature requirements of each application.

RF Valves also offers fully engineered solutions with customized gate materials, sleeve compounds, and other modifications tailored to unique process demands.

Where New England Customers Put the RF SKG to Work

Across our territory, we see the RF SKG solving problems in a wide range of industries:

Municipal Water and Wastewater Treatment. New England's hundreds of treatment facilities deal with grit, sludge, lime slurry, and chemical feed lines daily. The RF SKG's bubble-tight shutoff and self-cleaning design make it a reliable isolation valve on clarifiers, digesters, dewatering equipment, and chemical dosing systems.

Pulp and Paper. Maine and northern New England remain home to active pulp and paper operations. These mills handle calcium carbonate, kaolin clay, lime, white liquor, green liquor, and black liquor — all highly abrasive or scaling media. RF Valve's self-cleaning pass-through design eliminates the seized valves and cheater bars that are all too common in these mills.

Power Generation. Coal-fired and biomass power plants across the region use knife gates on fly ash slurry, lime slurry, scrubber slurry, coal sludge, and cooling water systems. The RF SKG's zero-leakage shutoff and corrosion-resistant construction hold up where conventional valves fail within months.

Chemical Processing. New England's chemical and specialty manufacturing facilities handle corrosive media that destroy standard carbon steel valves. The RF SKG's combination of epoxy-coated body, stainless or duplex gate blade, and chemically resistant elastomer sleeves offers a cost-effective alternative to full alloy valves.

Food and Beverage Processing. Facilities processing sugar slurries, starch, grain, and other bulk solids benefit from the RF SKG's full-port design and clean shutoff characteristics.

Life Sciences and Semiconductor. While these industries typically require specialty sanitary or ultra-pure valves for primary process lines, knife gates still play a supporting role in utility systems, waste handling, and bulk chemical delivery.

Desalination. Coastal New England installations treating seawater rely on the RF SKG's corrosion-resistant materials to handle brine, concentrate, and intake water with high solids content.

Why Work with Piping Specialties

When you buy an RF Valve SKG through Piping Specialties, you get more than a valve in a box. Our factory-trained application engineers help you select the right body style, gate material, and sleeve elastomer for your specific process conditions. Our PSI Controls division can design and assemble the complete automated valve package — actuator, positioner, switches, solenoids — tested and ready to drop into your system. And our PSI Services division provides field support including valve automation, repair, calibration, and turnkey installation.

With offices in Portland, Maine, and Danvers, Massachusetts, we're positioned to provide responsive local support across all six New England states. We maintain extensive inventory and can typically ship within one business day.

Whether you're replacing a valve that keeps failing in a grit line, upgrading manual isolation valves to automated service, or specifying knife gates for a new treatment plant, we can help you get the right RF Valve SKG for the job.

Contact Piping Specialties, Inc.

Portland, ME: 207-878-3955
Danvers, MA: 978-774-1300
Toll Free: 1-800-223-1468
Email: sales@psi-team.com
Web: psi-team.com

Why Tough Industries Trust Pinch Valves When Everything Else Fails

If you've ever tried to control the flow of a gritty slurry, a stream full of abrasive powder, or a nasty corrosive chemical, you already know the problem with most valves: they clog, they wear out, or they seize up in a matter of weeks. Pinch valves were built for exactly these headaches, and once you understand how they work, it's easy to see why so many plants keep coming back to them.

How a Pinch Valve Works

A pinch valve is one of the simplest devices in the whole valve family. Instead of a metal ball, disc, or gate sitting in the flow path, it uses a flexible rubber sleeve, sometimes called an elastomer tube. To shut the valve, you squeeze or "pinch" that sleeve closed, either with air pressure or with a mechanical mechanism that pushes two bars together. Open it back up and the sleeve springs to a full round bore.

The clever part is what the media touches. Only the rubber sleeve ever contacts whatever is flowing through the line. The body of the valve, the actuator, and all the moving hardware stay completely isolated from the process. That single design choice is behind most of the advantages that follow.

The Advantages That Make People Switch

The biggest selling point is how well pinch valves handle abrasive and slurry-type media. Sand, tailings, fly ash, cement, and other punishing materials tend to grind ordinary valves to dust. A pinch valve just flexes around them, and when the sleeve finally wears, you replace one inexpensive part instead of the whole valve.

A few other things stand out:

Full-bore flow. When the valve is open, the sleeve creates a smooth, unobstructed passage the same size as the pipe. That means very little pressure drop and nowhere for solids to snag or build up.

Self-cleaning behavior. There are no seats, cavities, or dead pockets where material can pack in and set hard. Every time the valve cycles, it flexes any clinging solids loose.

Tight shut-off, even with solids present. The sleeve wraps around trapped particles and still seals, something a gate or ball valve struggles to do.

Low maintenance and low cost. With no packing glands, no seat seals, and only one wear part, upkeep is refreshingly simple. Swapping a sleeve is often a ten-minute job.

Corrosion resistance. Because you can match the sleeve material to the chemistry of the media, pinch valves stand up to aggressive fluids that would eat metal valves alive.

Where Pinch Valves Get Used

You'll find pinch valves anywhere the process is dirty, gritty, or chemically demanding. A short tour of the most common jobs:

• Mining and mineral processing lean on them heavily for slurries, tailings, and thickener underflow. This is arguably the industry that pinch valves were made for.
• Water and wastewater treatment plants use them on sludge, grit, lime slurries, and other lines that clog conventional valves.
• Cement, aggregates, and bulk-solids handling operations rely on them for dry powders and pneumatic conveying, where the smooth bore keeps material moving.
• Power generation facilities put them to work on fly ash and bottom ash handling, two of the most abrasive duties in any plant.
• Chemical processing uses them for corrosive and reactive fluids, since the sleeve can be tailored to the chemistry.
• Food, beverage, and pharmaceutical lines take advantage of hygienic sleeve designs that offer clean, crevice-free flow and easy sanitation.

The Markets Driving Demand

The primary markets for pinch valves track closely with those applications. Mining and mineral processing remains the largest and most established, followed by municipal and industrial water and wastewater, which continues to grow as treatment standards tighten worldwide. The chemical and petrochemical sector is a steady consumer thanks to the corrosion advantages, while cement, power generation, and pulp and paper round out the heavy-industry base. On the more specialized end, pharmaceutical, food and beverage, and dredging operations make up a smaller but reliable share, drawn to the sanitary and solids-handling strengths.

Pinch valves aren't the right pick for every line, but for tough, abrasive, slurry-heavy, or corrosive service, they're hard to beat. They flow freely, seal tightly, shrug off wear, and cost little to maintain. For engineers wrestling with media that chews up standard valves, the humble rubber sleeve often turns out to be the most durable solution in the plant.

IN NEW ENGLAND, TURN TO PIPING SPECIALTIES

When it comes to specifying the right pinch valve for your application, the choice of supplier matters just as much as the valve itself. Piping Specialties, Inc. is the trusted New England representative for RF Valve pinch valves, bringing decades of hands-on flow-control expertise to plants across the region. Whether you're battling abrasive slurries in a mineral processing line, moving fly ash at a power station, or dialing in a corrosive chemical feed, their team can help you match the right sleeve material, actuation, and sizing to your process—and back it up with the local support and quick turnaround that keep your operation running. If pinch valves sound like the answer to a problem that's been chewing through your equipment, reach out to Piping Specialties, Inc. to get the RF Valve solution built for the job.

Piping Specialties, Inc. Named New England Distributor for RF Valve and Associated Brands

Piping Specialties, Inc. (PSI) of Portland, Maine has been appointed as the New England distributor for RF Valve, one of the flow control industry's most respected names in specialty valve technology. The partnership extends across RF Valve's full portfolio of brands — Vent-O-Mat, aiRFlex, RF-SKG, and RF-INSAMCOR — and positions PSI as the go-to resource for industrial, commercial, and municipal customers throughout the six-state region.

For engineers, procurement teams, and facility managers across New England who have been navigating a fragmented market for specialty valves, this appointment brings a significant consolidation of expertise under one roof.

What This Means for New England Customers

RF Valve has built a strong international reputation around three core product categories: pinch valves, air release valves, and knife gate valves. Each product line addresses specific and often demanding flow control challenges — the kind that show up regularly in wastewater treatment plants, industrial processing facilities, pulp and paper mills, chemical handling systems, and municipal water infrastructure.

Until now, accessing this depth of product knowledge and technical support required customers to navigate multiple channels. With PSI taking the helm as the regional distributor, that changes. Whether a municipality is specifying air release valves for a new water main project or a food processing plant needs a reliable pinch valve solution for a slurry application, there is now a single, knowledgeable point of contact for all of it in New England.

The RF Valve Brand Family

Understanding what PSI now represents requires a closer look at the brands under the RF Valve umbrella.

RF Valve is perhaps best known for its flagship pinch valves, which operate at working pressures up to 300 PSI. What sets these apart is a patented no-stretch tube fold design — expansion arches that flex rather than stretch during closure, resulting in significantly longer sleeve life — combined with the SMART Valve™ Wear Sensor Indicator Wire, which alerts maintenance teams that a tube is worn before it fails. In industries where downtime is expensive, that kind of predictive maintenance capability is genuinely valuable.

Vent-O-Mat specializes in combination anti-shock air release and vacuum break valves for water, sewage, slurry, and tailings applications. The brand is recognized for its anti-shock surge control technology, which has become a critical specification in municipal water and wastewater projects. Vent-O-Mat products can be manufactured to comply with Buy America, the American Iron and Steel Act, and Buy American requirements — a meaningful consideration for publicly funded infrastructure projects throughout the region.

aiRFlex rounds out the pinch valve offering with a more cost-accessible option for low-pressure applications. The non-stretch design is the key differentiator here: it extends elastomer tube life two to three times compared to conventional air-actuated pinch valves, which translates directly to lower operating costs over time. Like the flagship RF Valve line, aiRFlex also includes the SMART Valve™ Wear Sensor Indicator Wire, so maintenance teams have advance warning before a tube reaches the end of its service life. The valve handles liquids and powders alike, making it a practical choice across a wide range of light industrial and commercial applications.

RF-SKG knife gate valves are purpose-built for slurry and demanding media. When fully open, no metal parts contact the flowing media — a design choice that dramatically reduces wear and extends service life in abrasive environments. The bi-directional shut-off capability with zero downstream leakage makes these valves a natural fit for pulp and paper, mining, and chemical processing operations.

RF-INSAMCOR brings heavy-duty sealed knife gate valve technology to the portfolio. Designed for abrasive slurries, sludge, scaling media, and bulk solids, these valves feature a ductile iron and stainless steel body with a leak-proof molded rubber seal ring. When the application is truly demanding, INSAMCOR is the answer.

Why Piping Specialties, Inc.?

PSI has been a trusted name in fluid handling and flow control across New England for decades. The company has built its reputation by pairing deep product knowledge with responsive, application-specific technical support — something that matters enormously when specifying valves for complex systems where the wrong choice can lead to costly failures or premature replacement.

The selection of PSI as the RF Valve distributor for the region reflects a shared commitment to long-term customer relationships over transactional sales. PSI doesn't just sell valves; they help engineers and facility managers find the right solution for each application, then back it up with the kind of support that keeps systems running reliably over time.

Serving the Full Range of New England Markets

The scope of the agreement covers industrial, commercial, and municipal markets — which essentially means PSI can now address the full spectrum of flow control needs across the region. Municipal water and wastewater utilities will find particular value in the Vent-O-Mat and RF Valve air release products, while industrial customers in food processing, chemical handling, power generation, and pulp and paper will benefit from the knife gate and pinch valve lines.

For anyone sourcing specialty valves in New England, this appointment consolidates access to a world-class product portfolio through a regional partner that already understands the region's unique project requirements, seasonal considerations, and regulatory environment.

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For more information about RF Valve's full product line, visit rfvalve.com. To speak with Piping Specialties, Inc. about your New England project requirements, contact PSI directly.

Smarter Valve Control: Emerson TopWorx™ from Piping Specialties, Inc.

When your process demands precision and uptime, the right product — paired with the right support team — makes all the difference.

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Across the process industries — from water and wastewater treatment to food and beverage, pulp and paper, life sciences, and power generation — one thing remains constant: valves need to work, and operators need to know exactly what they're doing at all times. That's where Emerson's TopWorx™ portfolio steps in, and where Piping Specialties, Inc. (PSI) of Portland, Maine, becomes your competitive edge.

Emerson TopWorx™ is a leading manufacturer of discrete valve controls and GO Switch® position sensors — engineered to provide precise, reliable feedback in the most demanding process environments.

The TopWorx lineup covers everything from entry-level valve position indicators to intelligent smart positioners and proximity sensing systems. The TopWorx DVR Switchbox — a compact, corrosion-resistant valve position indicator with a patented cam design — delivers clear open/close feedback with minimal footprint, ideal for confined spaces and outdoor installations. For applications requiring advanced diagnostics, the TopWorx PD Series Smart Valve Positioner brings non-contacting sensor technology, HART communication, and hazardous area certification together in a compact, intelligent package.

Whether you're managing a municipal treatment plant, running a regulated pharmaceutical process, or optimizing a continuous production line, TopWorx products help your team see what's happening — in real time — and act with confidence.

• Valve position feedback
• DV Series switchboxes deliver reliable local indication across process, pipeline, and utility applications.
• Smart positioners
• PD Series positioners with HART and hazardous area ratings for intelligent, precise valve control.
• GO Switch® sensors
• Non-contacting proximity sensors for consistent position detection in harsh or explosive environments.
• Harsh-duty engineered
• UV-rated enclosures, stainless components, and corrosion resistance built for the long haul outdoors.

What makes TopWorx™ technology even more powerful is having a local team that truly knows how to apply it. Piping Specialties, Inc., established in 1975 and headquartered right here in Portland, has spent nearly five decades earning a reputation as one of the Northeast's most trusted distributors of valves, process controls, and engineered mechanical specialties.

PSI isn't a catalog house — it's a technical partner. The team includes factory-trained application engineers, field service technicians, and in-house design and CAD capabilities, meaning PSI can help you engineer the right solution, not just ship you a box. And with offices in Portland, ME and Danvers, MA, PSI serves all of New England — from Maine to Connecticut, from Vermont to Rhode Island — with the responsiveness of a local partner and the product depth of a national distributor.

PSI serves power generation, pulp and paper, water and wastewater, food and beverage, life sciences, chemical processing, HVAC, and semiconductor industries throughout the Northeast.

If you're specifying new valve automation, troubleshooting an existing installation, or looking to upgrade your position sensing and control strategy, PSI's team is ready to help. Reach out today to put Emerson TopWorx™ technology — and four decades of Northeast expertise — to work for your facility.

Contact your TopWorx™ representative Piping Specialties, Inc. (PSI) 36 Rainmaker Dr., Portland, ME 04103 Toll-free: 1-800-223-1468  ·  Direct: 207-878-3955 psi-team.com

When Off-the-Shelf Just Won't Cut It: How Warren Controls Solves the Toughest Valve Challenges in Industry

Not every industrial application fits neatly into a catalog. Processes run too hot, too cold, too corrosive, or too variable for a standard valve to handle reliably. That's precisely the problem Warren Controls of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania has spent decades solving — and it's what separates them from the vast majority of valve manufacturers competing in today's market.

Warren Controls has built its reputation on a straightforward but powerful premise: when a customer comes with a difficult application challenge, the answer should be engineering, not compromise. Their custom engineered control valve solutions are designed from the ground up to meet specific process conditions, operational demands, and budget realities that generic products simply cannot address. The company's design experience and flexible production capabilities have produced equipment that satisfies requirements across an impressive range of industries — chemical processing, food and beverage, general industrial service, marine, power generation, pulp and paper, petroleum refining, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and district energy systems.

That breadth of market coverage is not accidental. It reflects decades of problem-solving across demanding and varied environments, each one teaching Warren Controls' engineers something new about what precision control really requires. Whether the challenge is a highly corrosive media in a pharmaceutical application, steam management in a district energy network, or specialized valve configurations for naval and marine programs, the company has the institutional knowledge to engineer a solution that performs reliably in the field.

What Custom Engineered Really Means

It's worth asking what "custom engineered" actually means in practice, because the term gets used loosely in the valve industry. At Warren Controls, it means starting with a customer's application data — pressure, temperature, flow rate, fluid characteristics, space constraints, actuation requirements — and designing a valve assembly that is purpose-built for those conditions. It means going beyond selecting from a standard product matrix and instead applying genuine engineering judgment to arrive at something that works.

The company operates from a modern 60,000 square foot industrial complex in Bethlehem, PA, which gives them the production flexibility to move from concept to finished product without the delays and compromises that come with outsourcing fabrication. That in-house capability is a meaningful differentiator. Many competitors design on paper and manufacture elsewhere, which creates gaps in quality control and extended lead times. Warren Controls' integrated approach means their engineers stay close to the product throughout the process.

Their track record with OEM customers and end users alike reflects this commitment. They have also earned a strong reputation supporting U.S. Military programs, supplying valves built to MIL specifications for naval applications — a market where quality, traceability, and engineering precision are non-negotiable requirements. Meeting military standards consistently takes a level of manufacturing discipline that carries over into everything else the company produces.

Why This Matters Across So Many Industries

The industrial segments Warren Controls serves share a common thread: they all operate processes where a valve failure is not just an inconvenience but a potentially costly or dangerous event. In chemical processing, a valve that can't handle aggressive media creates safety risks and unplanned downtime. In pharmaceutical manufacturing, contamination control and cleanability are critical concerns that standard designs may not adequately address. In power generation and district energy, precise control of steam and hot water systems directly affects efficiency and system reliability. In pulp and paper, the combination of abrasive slurries and demanding cycle rates can quickly destroy a valve not designed for the application.

Warren Controls approaches each of these environments with a combination of product line depth and custom engineering capability. Their offerings span industrial process control valves, building automation control valves, mechanical level controls for deaerators and boilers, naval and marine valves, regulators, and a range of specialty products and accessories. That portfolio, combined with the willingness to modify or create entirely new configurations, gives end users and engineers a single source for solutions that are difficult or impossible to find elsewhere.

Engineering Support That Goes Beyond the Catalog

One of the things customers consistently point to is the quality of technical support Warren Controls provides before, during, and after a sale. The company offers online industrial control valve sizing worksheets, valve specification documentation, technical bulletins, installation and operation manuals, detailed drawings, 3D models, and ValveWorks — their proprietary valve sizing and selection program. For engineers working through a complex application, having that depth of resources available from the manufacturer is a genuine advantage.

It's the kind of support infrastructure you'd expect from a company that has been refining its approach since its founding in the early 1950s in Warren County, New Jersey — a history that spans multiple generations of industrial evolution and an enormous variety of real-world applications.

Serving New England Through Piping Specialties, Inc.

For engineers, contractors, and facility managers throughout New England, access to the full Warren Controls product line is available through Piping Specialties, Inc., headquartered in Portland, Maine, with an additional location in Danvers, Massachusetts. Piping Specialties distributes the entire Warren Controls product lineup and provides comprehensive service support across all six New England states. Their regional expertise and application knowledge make them the go-to resource for anyone in the Northeast looking to specify, source, or service Warren Controls valves for any industrial or commercial application.

Top 3 Reasons to Do Business with Piping Specialties, Inc. / PSI Controls in New England

When a valve fails at 2 PM on a Friday — on a power plant that can't wait until Monday — you find out fast who your real partners are. For industrial operations across New England, that's the kind of moment that separates a vendor from a team you can actually count on.

That's exactly why so many engineers and procurement managers keep coming back to Piping Specialties, Inc. / PSI Controls. If you're weighing your options and wondering why choose Piping Specialties, Inc. / PSI Controls over the next rep/distributor on your list, here are the three reasons that keep coming up — from water treatment and pulp & paper, to food and beverage, chemical processing, and beyond.

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Reason #1: You Get Real Engineering Expertise, Not Just a Parts Catalog

A lot of distributors can hand you a spec sheet. PSI can tell you why that valve is the wrong choice for your application — and what to use instead.

Piping Specialties has been at this since 1975. Their team includes factory-trained application engineers, shop personnel, and field service technicians who have worked across power generation, life sciences, pulp and paper, wastewater treatment, and more. They also have in-house design and CAD capabilities, which means they can help engineer a solution, not just fulfill a purchase order.

That depth matters. Industrial process environments are too complex and too unforgiving for guesswork. PSI's engineers understand the difference between what a customer asks for and what a customer actually needs — and they're willing to have that conversation before anything ships.

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Reason #2: Extensive Local Inventory Means You're Not Waiting on a Freight Carrier from the Midwest

Downtime is expensive. If your production line is down or your treatment plant is out of spec, "it'll ship in three to five business days" is not an answer.

PSI operates out of offices in Portland, Maine and Danvers, Massachusetts — strategically positioned to serve all of New England without the delays that come with sourcing from a national warehouse 1,000 miles away. Their inventory depth means most orders ship the same day, without expediting fees or emergency air freight charges.

They've put that promise into action in real situations. When a New England power plant needed an emergency valve on a Friday afternoon, PSI had it shipped the same day — and the valve was received and installed by Saturday morning. That's not luck. That's what local inventory and a motivated team actually look like.

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Reason #3: One Partner Handles the Whole Project — From Spec to Startup

Coordinating between a valve distributor, an instrumentation supplier, and a separate field service contractor is time-consuming and leaves too much room for things to fall through the cracks. PSI is structured specifically so you don't have to do that.

The company operates as three integrated divisions. Piping Specialties handles valves and mechanical specialties. PSI Controls focuses on automated valves, process instrumentation, and control systems. PSI Services covers field work — valve automation, repair, calibration, and turnkey project support. That means one relationship covers design consultation, system assembly, delivery, and on-site service.

For industries with tight regulatory requirements — pharmaceutical, food and beverage, chemical processing — that kind of integrated accountability isn't a nice-to-have. It's how you avoid the finger-pointing that happens when something goes wrong and every vendor says it's someone else's problem.

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The Bottom Line

The reasons to work with Piping Specialties, Inc. / PSI Controls aren't complicated: deep technical knowledge, product availability when you need it, and a structure built to support you from initial spec through commissioning and beyond. They've been doing this for nearly 50 years because they treat every customer relationship like a long-term partnership — not a transaction.

If you're ready to talk through your next project or just want a second opinion on a tricky application, reach out to the PSI team at psi-team.com or call 800-223-1468. Their engineers are used to getting the call when things get complicated.

The Level Measurement Company That Industrial Engineers Trust When It Really Matters

There's a question that practically every industrial process has to answer, dozens of times a day, across thousands of facilities around the world: how much material is in that vessel, and where exactly is the level? It sounds simple enough, but in reality, level measurement is one of the most technically demanding challenges in industrial instrumentation. Fluids foam. Solids bridge and coat. Temperatures spike and pressures fluctuate. Hazardous materials demand failsafe reliability. For engineers who live with these challenges every day, one name has stood out for decades as the company that genuinely gets it right — AMETEK Drexelbrook.

Founded in 1963 and headquartered in Horsham, Pennsylvania, Drexelbrook built its reputation on a single, transformative idea: that there was a better way to measure level than the technologies available at the time. The company pioneered RF admittance level instrumentation, coining the very term "RF admittance" to describe an approach that went beyond simple capacitance measurement. By developing its proprietary Cote-Shield technology, Drexelbrook solved one of the industry's most persistent headaches — the problem of conductive material coating the sensor and causing false readings. That breakthrough alone set the company apart, and it's been setting the standard ever since.

Today, AMETEK Drexelbrook operates as part of AMETEK Level Measurement Solutions, a division of AMETEK, Inc., a global industrial technology leader with approximately $7.5 billion in annual sales. Being part of AMETEK gives Drexelbrook the engineering resources and global reach of a major corporation while maintaining the deep application expertise and product focus that made it great in the first place.

What Does Drexelbrook Actually Make?

Drexelbrook's product portfolio is genuinely comprehensive, which matters because no single measurement technology works well in every situation. The company offers point level switches and continuous level transmitters across multiple technology platforms — RF admittance, ultrasonic, open-air radar, magnetostrictive, and guided wave radar. That breadth means a Drexelbrook engineer can honestly recommend the best technology for your specific application rather than shoehorning your problem into the one solution they happen to sell.

The RF admittance product line remains the crown jewel and is widely considered the industry's gold standard for difficult applications involving viscous fluids, slurries, foamy materials, and coating-prone substances. For non-contact applications, the USonic ultrasonic transmitters feature patented SmartGain technology that automatically ignores false echoes from tank obstructions and agitator blades — no manual tweaking required. The open-air radar transmitters use FMCW technology for highly accurate continuous measurement even in vapor-heavy or turbulent environments.

One product that deserves special mention is the Universal Water Cut Meter, which measures the water content of crude oil flowing through a pipeline. It's a niche application, but a critically important one for the oil and gas industry, where accurate water cut measurement directly impacts production accounting and revenue calculations. Drexelbrook's decades of capacitive measurement expertise make it one of the few companies capable of doing this reliably.

More recently, Drexelbrook has moved into Industrial IoT with the BrightTEK wireless tank monitoring system, which includes satellite uplink capability for remote or off-grid locations. That's a meaningful evolution for a company with roots in analog instrumentation.

Who Trusts Drexelbrook?

The customer list reads like a map of heavy industry. Oil refineries, petrochemical plants, pharmaceutical manufacturers, food and beverage processors, pulp and paper mills, water and wastewater treatment facilities, power generation plants, mining operations, cement manufacturers, steel mills — if there's a vessel with a level that needs measuring, Drexelbrook has probably solved that problem for someone in that industry already.

In safety-critical applications, Drexelbrook's commitment to reliability really shines. Many of their instruments carry SIL 2 certification, with SIL 3 capability in redundant configurations, as well as FM, ATEX, and IECEx approvals for hazardous-area use. Features like AutoVerify and Manual Certify allow operators to confirm that their level switches will actually respond when called upon — without interrupting the process or pulling the sensor. For high-level alarms on storage tanks or overfill protection systems, that kind of confidence isn't a luxury; it's a legal and ethical requirement.

A Reputation Built on the Hard Stuff

What's most telling about AMETEK Drexelbrook's reputation isn't what they say about themselves — it's the applications engineers trust them with. When process conditions are harsh, when the material is problematic, when the consequences of a bad reading are serious, that's when experienced instrumentation professionals reach for Drexelbrook. More than 60 years of application data, a genuine commitment to recommending the right technology for each job, and products built to perform in conditions that would defeat lesser instruments — that combination is why Drexelbrook remains the reference standard in industrial level measurement.

If you're evaluating level measurement solutions for a demanding application, drexelbrook.com is the right place to start.

Serving New England: Piping Specialties, Inc. / PSI Controls

For customers throughout New England, local expertise and support are available through Piping Specialties, Inc. / PSI Controls, the authorized regional representative for AMETEK Drexelbrook. PSI Controls supports the full Drexelbrook product line across all applications — from straightforward point level switches to complex continuous measurement installations in demanding process environments. Whether you're specifying a new system, troubleshooting an existing installation, or looking for guidance on which technology is right for your application, PSI Controls brings both the product knowledge and the regional presence to help you get it right. For New England facilities in chemical processing, water and wastewater, food and beverage, power generation, and beyond, PSI Controls is your first call for AMETEK Drexelbrook solutions.