During last Fall’s outage season, Preferred Engineering assisted with the installation ofa set of brand-new Hot/Cold Leg Loop Plugs. The process went smoothly thanks to anoutstanding product as well as excellent cooperation and planning with our customer todevelop and document a streamlined approach. While loop plugs may not require frequent installation, their role in nozzle isolation forPressurized Water […]
Custom Auxiliary Bridges Just Make Sense
Power stations have a variety of refueling and maintenance functions and the space available to accomplish them varies widely across facilities. That’s why custom solutions are the only way to go when designing auxiliary bridges that enable those refueling and maintenance tasks to happen. Custom-engineered bridge solutions not only consider the dimensions of your facility but also the […]
Preparing for Upcoming Outage Season
As we head into the Fall 2025 Outage Season, we’re pleased to share with you our Outage Season Lessons Learned and Best Practices. This is an in-depth document capturing the key lessons, best practices, and engineering insights gained during the Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 outage seasons. This report underscores Preferred Engineering’s commitment to supporting your team in […]
Advancing Low NOx Combustion with Natural Gas & Biogas Piping Trains
Preferred recently completed a Natural Gas and Biogas Piping Train, designed and manufactured in-house, and paired with our API Ranger Burner. This system is built to meet the highest performance and environmental standards, featuring: ✔ Ultra Low NOx emissions for regulatory compliance and environmental responsibility✔ 10:1 turndown capability on both natural gas and biogas for precise load control […]
Dual-Fuel Flexibility and Performance
With Preferred’s SPEC COM Burners and fuel blending technology. Preferred’s Combusion crew continues to push the boundaries of performance and flexibility in industrial combustion systems. A recent project involved outfitting two (2) Superior 1400 HP firetube boilers with Preferred’s advanced low NOx SPEC COM burners and gas blending skids. Each boiler is rated for approximately 48,300 lb/hr of […]
Combustion Solutions for Ultra-Low NOx — A Custom Application
At Preferred Utilities, Combustion Crew continues to deliver advanced combustion solutions tailored for specialty and industrial applications. Recently, a customer approached us with a challenge: their SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) system required flue gas temperatures of 700°F to function effectively, but their Thermal Oxidizer was only producing 200°F. Without proper temperature elevation, the ammonia injection process would not […]
Foreign Material Exclusion (FME) Keeps Things Where They Belong
Effective Foreign Material Exclusion (FME) is essential to successful maintenance and outage planning at both boiling water reactor (BWR) and pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear plants. Keeping things out of where they shouldn’t be is just as important as putting the right things in the right spot! Tools, debris, and other foreign materials don’t belong in sensitive reactor […]
Reintroducing the Draft Regulator with Linear Actuator: A Legacy Product Backed by Preferred
Following our acquisition of Hays Cleveland, we are pleased to reintroduce the first updated product in the Hays line: the Draft Regulator with Linear Actuator. This unit is a direct replacement for the Hays Cleveland R-9502-1012, combining draft control, sensor, and actuator into one compact, proven solution. And now, it’s backed by Preferred’s 105 years of industry experience […]
Burner Management Series V: Common Flame Detection Methods:
Knowing when a flame is present in a boiler furnace is a fundamental safety function of the burner management system. If a flame is present and the BMS does not detect it, there will be nuisance trips and the boiler cannot operate reliably. Alternatively, if the flame detection is too sensitive and does not recognize when there has […]
105 Years of American Ingenuity: The Legacy of Preferred Utilities
105 years of American engineering and manufacturing.As others have taken American manufacturing overseas or across borders, Preferred made deliberate efforts to keep our manufacturing in the states, and even further, to source American. Part of this commitment was driven by global supply chain realities especially in the past 5 years, but much of it came down to principle. […]