As we work towards our updated list of the “50 Largest Commercial Heat Treaters in North America-2022” we look at one company, Solar Atmospheres, headquartered in Souderton, PA, USA who has made our list every single year for the past 25 years. In our 2021 ranking we had this summary about the company; “Solar Atmospheres Heat Treating Operations. The Solar Nation heat treating plants includes Souderton PA, Hermitage PA, Fontana CA, and Greenville SC, and have in total 357,000 square feet of plant space. This does not include Solar Manufacturing division which produces vacuum furnaces.  While the down turn in the commercial aircraft business due to Covid effected the company their military business along with their health care business remained strong and the company continues to be profitable. 2019 sales were $61.2 million USD, 2020 sales were $54.3 million and estimated 2021 sales are expected to be $55 million. https://solaratm.com/“

For 2022 the company reports that sales are strong for the aircraft, space, defense, medical, petrochemical, and electronic industries and that they expect sales volume to be up approximately 5% from last years levels which would mean roughly $59 million USD in sales for the four locations this year.

Our rankings for 2021 can be found at https://themonty.com/project/50-largest-north-american-commercial-heat-treats-2021-2/ and a quick perusal will show that Solar was in 6th position last year-when we present our updated rankings for this year we will see whether this changes. One thing which will come as no surprise to anybody in the industry is that the turmoil over the past two years have affected commercial heat treaters quite differently. Some firms by dint of the industries they service have seen quite robust sales over the past year, for others quite the opposite.

The attached photo was taken at the Hermitage, PA facility and shows one of the most impressive vacuum furnaces we have ever seen, a 48′ carbottom furnace with loading at one end and unloading at the other.

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