While “high efficiency” sounds like a relatively recent concept to the water and space heating business, a 75-year-old company has been at it since day one.

Henry Angelery, a mechanical engineer, founded Angelery Engineering Research Company or AERCO in 1949 to design a better self-contained control valve and the world’s first compact indirect-fired water heater that delivered on-demand, temperature-controlled hot water for commercial use without storage.

The company quickly became a trusted partner of the U.S. Navy, supplying water heaters in 1953 to the country’s first supercarrier, the USS Forrestal, just a few years after Angelery started tinkering in his garage.

While Angelery retired in 1975, the company continued to gain a strong reputation for more groundbreaking innovation in energy efficiency.

Over the next few decades, AERCO expanded internationally and diversified into the gas-fired water heater market as well as the boiler market, launching the industry’s first commercial condensing and modulating gas-fired water heater and boiler in 1988.

In 1998, AERCO went on to launch the industry’s most compact condensing and modulating boiler that set a new standard for the U.S. hydronics market. And in the 2000s, AERCO incorporated low NOx burners across all its products; introduced an indirect water heater featuring water-to-water heaters; and launched another industry first, remote internet-enabled boiler monitoring.

In 2010, AERCO moved its manufacturing and research facilities to Blauvelt, New York, where it continues to drive innovation to this day. In 2014, AERCO became a part of the Watts family of leading plumbing and HVAC brands when it was acquired by Watts Water Technologies.

And that’s just some of the highlights. (Check out our timeline for more details on these and other product innovations.) 

Today, AERCO offers a range of high-efficiency, low-emission commercial water heaters and boilers, including new electric boilers, and continues to hold numerous patents for its technology advancements.

To find out more about AERCO and its past 75 years, we talked with Rita McCabe, senior marketing executive, AERCO.

PHC News: What can you tell us about Henry Angelery and how he ended up founding AERCO?

McCabe: Henry Angelery was a New York City native who graduated as a mechanical engineer from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. 

He initially worked as a sales engineer selling control valves for use with shell-and-tube-type water heaters. But he didn’t think these valves worked as efficiently as they should. He decided he could make something better, so he quit his job, and with the support of his wife who ran a successful tea shop in Englewood, New Jersey, he began to work in his garage as most innovators do. 

On Jan. 1, 1949, he officially founded the Angelery Engineering and Research Company (AERCO).

PHC News: And what was the big breakthrough product he originally made?

McCabe: His first goal was designing a better self-contained control valve, and that led him to design the forbear of a type HLK self-contained control valve. But that also spurred his larger innovation, the Helitherm, which was the world’s first indirect fired water heater that delivered on-demand, temperature-controlled hot water without storage.

At that time, water heaters mostly used storage tanks to provide hot water. The Helitherm was a steam-to-water heater, that featured a helical tube heat exchanger, and it broke new ground. It also laid the foundation for many semi-instantaneous and instantaneous water-heating units that are now commonplace in the industry.

Tankless water heating was important to Henry since it provided hot water in a more efficient manor. Throughout the years, since he first developed the Helitherm, the company continued to constantly improve upon designs and launch new products that expanded upon that efficiency.

PHC News: What were some of the other big breakthroughs in the company’s formative years?

McCabe: An early breakthrough was our partnership with the U.S. Navy. It’s impressive that just four years after Henry founded the company from his garage, AERCO became a trusted partner of the U.S. Navy, which has very specific demands and requirements that products have to meet in order to be installed on their ships. In 1953, our water heaters were installed in the USS Forrestal, which was the country’s first super carrier. We still have our partnership with the Navy to this day. Currently, we have water heaters on the Nimitz class aircraft carriers as well as the first two carriers of the Ford class of aircraft carriers. And that’s led us to supplying our commercial products to base facilities of all branches of the military. 

PHC News: I want to make a jump farther in time to 1988 and talk about when AERCO entered the boiler market. What can you tell us about that beginning?

McCabe: After making a name in the semi-instantaneous water heating market, AERCO began developing gas-fired water heaters and boilers. In 1988, we launched the KC1000, which was North America’s first commercial condensing and modulating gas-fired domestic water heater and boiler.

The KC1000 became a success very quickly. Three years later, 15 KC1000 units were installed in the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona, Spain for the 1992 Summer Olympics.

PHC News: From what I’ve read on your website, AERCO seems to be a popular choice for stadiums. Tell us about Arrowhead Stadium for the Kansas City Chiefs.

McCabe: Our Benchmark boilers have heated the field at Arrowhead Stadium for nearly 10 years, including four seasons where they played in the Superbowl. A state-of-the-art heating system under the turf, powered by three Benchmark boilers, warms and softens the ground which makes the field more safe for players by lessening the potential of injuries when they get tackled. 

PHC News: I guess until I did some research on AERCO, I always thought your Benchmark line was relatively new. But that’s been a stalwart for a while now. What can you tell us about the Benchmark line?

McCabe: The Benchmark, which first came out in 1997, set a new standard for the U.S. hydronics industry as the industry’s most compact condensing and modulating boiler. The KC1000 was our very first condensing and modulating boiler, but the Benchmark really took high-efficiency boilers to a new level.

High-efficiency boilers have become the normal now, but that wasn’t the case when they were new. The industry at the time these boilers were introduced didn’t fully understand condensing gas-fired equipment. Many contractors and engineers were more comfortable working with the lower mid-efficiency equipment that they had been using. The mindset at the time was to avoid condensing products because condensing was thought to cause corrosion and tube failures, which was not at all the case.

So we had to change peoples’ minds and educate the marketplace. We embarked on comprehensive training programs at our manufacturing facility.

We partnered with the best sales representatives and trained them to transfer the knowledge of the benefits of condensing equipment.

In addition to that, condensing boilers require specialized materials for their construction, but they also needed to be built within ASME [American Society of Mechanical Engineers] standards. At the time, the ASME standards included a limited list of approved materials. AERCO worked extensively with the association and its committees over many years to make sure that we could add these new, special materials, which increased boiler efficiency and longevity, to the code list. So there definitely were some challenges along the way.

PHC News: I think our readers will be interested to know more about the fact that your products are made right at your corporate headquarters in Blauvelt, New York.

McCabe: Our original factory was in New Jersey, but we moved to Blauvelt in 2010. Because of our sales growth, we needed more space. All our designing and manufacturing for AERCO products is done at our 163,000-square-foot facility. We also developed a dedicated 12,000-square-foot engineering research lab facility. Our engineering research lab allows our engineers to build prototypes and perform all necessary tests, including pressure, performance and efficiency testing. We also do quality checks of our production models in the lab.

PHC News: The company has earned a tremendous reputation for R&D. What more can you tell us about the work done in the lab?

McCabe: Innovation and R&D are extremely important to AERCO. In 2011, the Benchmark became the first commercial boiler with oxygen sensing and O2 trim functionality, which helps to protect the burner equipment and the environment by continuously monitoring and adjusting combustion to minimize NOx emissions and maximize boiler efficiency.

The interesting thing about that is that we were told by experts that it couldn’t be done. But our engineers stuck with it, and it took them four years to perfect. They received a patent for it, and it took our competitors more than 10 years to find a workaround to our patent.

Around this time, we also developed onAER Predictive Maintenance, the industry’s first boiler IoT remote monitoring system.

Another major product was the Benchmark 6000 boiler introduced in 2012. The Benchmark 6000 is about 50% smaller than the nearest competitor, but it was built with stronger 439 stainless steel. We pioneered the 439 stainless steel material in Section 6 ASME boilers. And that’s now become the standard material for most manufacturers.

Over the years, we’ve received 15 utility patents, eight design patents and 17 documented trade secrets. We’ve been hard at work in our R&D lab trying to create the best products for our customers.

PHC News: What can you tell us about training for the trade?

McCabe: Our Blauvet headquarters also features a dedicated training facility, which includes three classrooms, plus dedicated space for live-fired units. This enables us to combine classroom instruction with hands-on experience so technicians can work on actual live-fired units.

We also have two different programs. Our AERCO Trained Technician (ATT) is a four-day on-site factory training certification course. The ATT course is comprised of modules of comprehensive classroom and hands-on instruction that cover AERCO’s boilers and water heaters in the areas of operational theory of the equipment, controllers, components, combustion calibration, startup, maintenance, communications and more.

And our four-day AERCO Master Technician (AMT) builds off the ATT course and covers more advanced service and diagnostic procedures so techs can become more familiar with the complete line of AERCO’s current product offerings.

We have additional in-person training specific to our products as well as a dedicated online Learning Management System, Watts Works.

PHC News: While it might not be brand-new news at this point, I know a big moment for the company happened when AERCO become a part of Watts Water Technologies in 2014. What can you tell us about AERCO and Watts working together?

McCabe: It’s been fantastic to be a part of the Watts family. Watts is not only one of the leaders in the industry offering customers some of the best products and brands, but as a company, it continues to drive sustainability and diversity initiatives.

AERCO has always been focused on sustainability and saving energy and is driven to create reliable, high-efficiency products. Not only do our products save as much energy as possible and produce the least amount of carbon emissions, but our products last longer. That’s better for our customers, and it also creates less waste in the landfill and constantly having to replace units.

Watts embodies a core value of sustainability and was just recently named one of America’s greenest companies by Newsweek magazine and is also recognized as one of the top 300 companies in the U.S. based on environment sustainability. 

Diversity and inclusion are also extremely important to Watts because we know our success depends largely upon our diverse multinational, multigenerational workforce. 

PHC News: What can you tell us about how the company is meeting this “electrify everything” movement that wants to move away from fossil-fueled products?

McCabe: AERCO started using steam as an energy source and we still offer steam products today. As the industry moved on to gas-powered units, we created the most energy-efficient gas units. Now with the shift to electric, we’ve expanded our portfolio again. We launched two new electric boilers this year.

The first is the Benchmark E, which is powered by electricity and our Benchmark reliability. It’s a zero emissions electric boiler and has advanced technology that you’d expect from a Benchmark, including hybrid plant capability as well as peak load management that allows operators to lower their building peak loads and operational costs by maximizing charging time during hours with off-peak electricity rates.

The second is Sequoia, which is our electric high voltage immersed electrode boiler. It delivers 99.7% efficiency, features long-life, low maintenance electrodes, and is ideal for larger commercial and industrial applications.

Innovation is just so fundamental to AERCO. Continuing to invest in research is huge for us. We have a dedicated section in our engineering lab that’s specifically allocated for next-generation heating equipment.

We’re always making sure we’re improving our product lines and thinking ahead to what’s next. Our engineers are also focused on long-term developments that are going to be very important in the next five- to 10-year timeline.