Bolair Fluid Handling Systems is a leader in the two-component spray and dispense industries. Founded in 1982 in Ontario, the specialty equipment provider has been making a significant impact throughout Canada for over 40 years, with Western Canadian branches in Alberta and British Columbia. In 2020, Construction in Focus featured the second-generation family company, detailing its history and secrets to success. This month, we sat back down with Vice President and Owner Gregory Haddow to hear the news since then.
“We’ve been very fortunate that we’ve been able to continue to grow our company over the years, especially since COVID, in overall revenues, which is really good for us,” Haddow says. “We’ve added additional quality staff to help with the growth and to service customers.”
Bolair has also intensified its focus in certain areas over the last few years. “We’ve entered more deeply into the waterproofing market in construction,” he says. The company’s waterproofing solutions are particularly helpful when it comes to high-rise buildings, because the positioning of these structures often poses a challenge.
“They put up buildings that are so close together you can’t get to the outside to do your typical foundation waterproofing,” he says. “So, we are actually working with different chemical companies and have grown that business where they’re able to actually do the waterproofing from the inside.”
Bolair’s business model allows the company to partner with outside entities to offer a superior waterproofing solution. “The advantage of our offering is we don’t sell the actual material ourselves,” he explains. “We’re able to team up with various suppliers because they have different technologies in terms of their chemical.”
The company has also made its waterproofing solution far more convenient than the traditional approach. “We’ve added on mobile spray rigs for waterproofing now,” says Haddow. Mobile spray rigs for foam insulation and protective coatings were already a major selling point for the company. “Now, we’ve been able to add on mobile spray rigs for the waterproofing industry, which typically hasn’t been [available]; it’s usually been a machine in the back of somebody’s truck or van.”
The company’s original mobile spray rigs remain a big seller. These solutions cover a wide range of applications for spray foam insulation and protective coatings applied to everything from water towers and sewage treatment facilities to pipelines and much more. “We continue to be Canada’s largest spray rig manufacturer,” he says.
The fact that Bolair’s mobile spray rigs offer a turnkey solution has been one of its biggest selling points. The company builds an entire system within a trailer or truck, giving customers a complete solution on the go. This includes all the equipment needed for a particular application as well as extra bells and whistles. In addition to generators, air dryers, compressors, and the power equipment required for the intended job, the company’s mobile spray rigs are fully insulated, lined with an easy-to-clean surface, and include customized add-ons ranging from work benches, cabinets, and toolboxes to air conditioners and diesel heaters. Of course, all of its mobile spray rigs are built to withstand the intense conditions of Canadian winters.
Naturally, safety always comes first, and Bolair builds its mobile spray rigs to meet CSA/ESA electrical standards determined by Canada’s Electrical Safety Authority. The team also installs everything into the spray rigs that an operator would need in an emergency situation, including first aid stations, eye wash stations, fire extinguishers, and breathing systems.
Bolair is enjoying a particularly strong position within the fireproofing market. This industry requires a specific and somewhat different approach than is typical for applying protective coatings. “Similar machines, but added checks and balances in terms of temperature checks, ratio checks, circulating material,” Haddow explains. There has been a notable increase in demand for fireproofing equipment recently. “We’ve had some good success in the last couple years, especially this year,” he shares. Always a big seller in Western Canada, the demand has now shifted east to include more of the country.
The demand for powder coating has also been on the rise in recent years. It “seems to be coming back,” he says, “and that’s because of—I believe—the desire to have low VOCs and reduce solvents.”
The application has several key advantages: “Powder coating is good because it’s dry. It goes on as a powder… is easy to spray, is clean and good for the environment. So, we do see some increased opportunities there, and we have seen growth.”
Fortunately, Bolair is well placed to provide powder coating solutions. The company is an approved dealer of Gema powder coating products and enjoys a leading position when it comes to selling Gema products throughout Alberta and British Columbia.
Bolair recently held a technology day in its Edmonton branch to showcase its new, fully electric coatings proportioner. “It’s just been launched by our manufacturer Graco, and I believe we’re one of the first companies, at least in Canada, to launch it and have a big tech day around it,” says Haddow.
This electric-powered proportioner marks an exciting new direction for the industry. “Up until now, they’ve all been pneumatic or air-driven,” he says. “While electric power has been utilized to a certain degree for spray foam and coatings applications, these have always been lower pressure machines. They’re not designed for spraying 100 percent solid coatings.”
Going electric has clear cost benefits. “Compressed air is expensive,” Haddow says. The lower cost electric machines are ideal “for companies that historically don’t own or don’t rent large air compressors. The smaller, more mobile size is another advantage, as they don’t have to tow around large compressors.”
After delivering market-leading solutions for more than four decades, the team does not plan to rest on its laurels and is always looking for ways to improve, ensuring that the company’s success will extend far into the future. “One of our main goals is to be more efficient in what we do,” Haddow says. “We’ve already added some automation to streamline and make us more efficient, more responsive to customers.” And this is only the beginning; the company plans to increase the use of automation throughout its operations, “whether that be in our inventory or our accounting systems.”
Bolair’s commitment to the customer will continue to be the company’s underlying motivation, regardless of what technology it adopts. “One of our big initiatives is to continue, and to do even better at, serving our good customer base,” says Haddow. “We have a very, very large customer base, and we continually get new customers, and by default, you work hard to sell to those new customers and keep them happy. But we want to make sure that we continue to look after our current customers, which is very important to us because they’re the ones that have been there from day one.”
With a plan to win new customers while maintaining loyalty to long-time patrons, Bolair is well positioned to add more decades to its 40 years of success.
