Type GmbH & Co. KG Headquarters Heilbronn, Germany | Founded 1896 | |
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Key people Hans Hesselbacher
Florian Bälz
Andrea Bälz Website www.baelz.de www.baelzna.com | ||
W. Bälz & Sohn GmbH & Co. is a family-owned company located in Heilbronn with a tradition of more than 100 years. One of its focuses is on saving energy and simplifying steam and hot-water installations. The company headquarters is in Heilbronn. Subsidiaries are located in larger towns in Germany as well as in Vienna (Austria), Paris (France) and Beijing (China).
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History
W. Bälz was founded in Düren by Wilhelm Bälz in 1896 and is still today under direction of the family. Before establishing the company, Wilhelm Bälz had manually produced products of copper for domestic and industrial needs in the workshop of a retail store. He founded the company W. Bälz in Düren. Wilhelm Bälz moved to Heilbronn in 1914 with his part of the company.
In the first decades, the company specialized in planning and constructing steam installations for the manufacturing industry. As a result, in addition to copper production of iron and steel was added. Due to the aftermath of World War II, Wilhelm Bälz was obliged to abandon almost all businesses of the company. During the air attack on Heilbronn on December 4, 1944, the company buildings on the Koepffstrasse were totally destroyed.
After the end of World War II, business was slowly restarted and the destroyed buildings were gradually raised again. With the aid of Wilhelm's son, Helmut Bälz, the company developed heat exchangers and electrically and pneumatically operated valves mainly for steam and thermal oil applications, developing the closed steam/condensate circuit back then. Among other products and technologies, the vertical heat exchanger in combination with the closed steam/condensate circuit was conceived by Bälz and patented.
In the early 1960s, the ejector with a controllable nozzle and actuator was developed and introduced in HVAC plants. Bälz has continued to file numerous patents on elements of ejector technology and on their specific applications in installations. In the 1970s, Bälz received several commendations from the government of the German state Baden-Württemberg for ejector technology as a product of special economic value. In 1978, the Bälz Foundation was established in order to sponsor engineering education at universities in Germany in the field of practical control engineering, especially of building technology.