Our History

We became SPX Cooling Tech in 2005, but our company is more than a century old. We’re formed from some of the most successful companies in the cooling industry: Marley, Recold, Ceramic, Balcke, Davenport and Hamon Dry Cooling.

Balcke & Co. was founded in Germany in 1894 and became a world leader in cooling towers in the early 1900s. Marley was founded in the United States in 1922 as the Power Plant Equipment Company before becoming The Marley Company in 1926. Recold was founded in 1932 in Brea, California. These companies invented and patented most of the industrial cooling tower innovations and technologies in use today.

Among the firsts that we’ve accomplished are:

1920s: Spray nozzles; atmospheric deck tower

1930s: Concrete hyperbolic natural draft cooling tower; mechanical draft cooling tower with induced fan

Our History

Among the firsts that we’ve accomplished are:

1920s: Spray nozzles; atmospheric deck tower

1930s: Concrete hyperbolic natural draft cooling tower; mechanical draft cooling tower with induced fan

1950s: Air cooled condenser; underflow design cooling tower

1960s: Crossflow design using film fill; air-cooled heat exchanger; 100-ton evaporative condenser

1970s: Largest fan in the world; multi-fan mechanical draft cooling tower

1980s: Combined wet/dry cooling tower; natural draft wet cooling tower with integrated flue gas desulphurization; complete indirect dry cooling system

1990s: Timber construction for multi-cell hybrid cooling towers; complete cold end system

2000s: Liquid natural gas heating tower; circular mechanical draft cooling tower with natural draft assistance

2010s: Fully integrated plume abatement system; six-module crossflow cooling tower offering up to 50% greater cooling capacity