Simplex Boiler Stand

Westbury, N.Y. UTILITY, which was founded as The Utility Shops in 1926 by Jack Goldy in Staten Island, N.Y., has become one of the most favored and extensive chemical product lines in the plumbing and heating industries. Todays contracting professionals still rely on some of the companys original products shown below, including: Paste Soldering Flu... x, one of the companys most popular products. Later known as The Utility Labs, the company continued expanding its product offering. When Goldy passed away in 1963, his nephew, Pete Tofte, merged UTILITY with Simplex Boiler Stand, a manufacturer of cast iron specialties. The business was relocated to Brooklyn, N.Y. Tofte, W. J. Bill Kranz and Morton Sadowsky became partners in the newly renamed Simplex-Utility Distributors. At that time, the company offered nearly 40 different chemical products and over 60 metal products (representing nearly 300 skus). To ensure continued growth, the three partners sold the company in 1968 to Embassy Industries of Farmingdale, N.Y., a baseboard radiation manufacturer. Although Embassy did not retain the cast iron specialties, which they sold to OEM, they enlarged the chemical product offering and automated many of the processes. In 1971, Bill Kranz and Pete Tofte bought back the chemical business and moved it to Westbury, N.Y. The company again was renamed, to Utility Manufacturing Co. Inc. The product line consisted of nearly 50 chemical products, which included a larger offering of drain and waste system cleaners and preventives, as well as an extensive offering of thread sealants, gasket and packing materials. Of course, the signature products from the early years, like Paste Soldering Flux and No-Drip Pipe Joint Compound, also continued to be offered. Tofte retired in 1974, and the following year utility acquired Wonder-King, a Mt. Vernon, N.Y., manufacturer and distributor of chemical products for the oil heating industry. This acquisition included many well-known and respected brands, including: Fuel oil additives Hy-Dro-Sol ...Read More