Norco Continues to Expand

Boise, ID - Norco recently completed the construction of two new innovative buildings. Norco's commitment to growth and superior customer service are manifest through these remarkable structures.

The 47,000 sq. ft. branch in Meridian, Idaho is the largest of Norco's 37 retail stores. Its unique showroom design, innovative energy-saving features, and workflow accommodations are certain to attract the attention of any consumer or distributor.

Thanks largely to suggestions and feedback from Norco employees, this building's design will better serve its customers and provide a safe and healthy workspace. Blueprint modifications such as lighting, ventilation, cabinetry design, colors, dock placement, a live welding instruction room, showroom layout, and even ideas for the bathrooms were implemented because of the suggestions from employees. Indeed, the new store in Meridian can appropriately be described as "the store the employees designed."

With more focus being placed on energy-efficient buildings, Norco determined to save energy costs by installing skylights in the warehouse of the new Meridian branch. As the sun's lighting and energy floods the warehouse floor, the lighting system in the building will dim out and save power. Norco also installed a system that will evacuate hot air from the warehouse in the summer and pull in the cool evening air; effectively cooling the building during the evening, making for a more comfortable building and lowering cooling costs. The added cost of these systems will pay for themselves in just a few years, and continue to save money well into the future.

The new 52,500 sq. ft. production plant in Boise houses Norco's largest of 4 fill plants, a fully-staffed cylinder maintenance facility, and NorLab, Norco's specialty and calibration gases division.

This facility's industrial gas filling unit utilizes a Weldcoa Surfill automatic fill island with 7 fill heads and 16 bays. The fill island is used to fill industrial Oxygen, Argon, Nitrogen, Helium and Shielding gas mixtures. Norco also uses a PDC diaphragm compressor in this new facility, allowing them the capability to fill Argon, Helium, and nitrogen to 6000 psig.

Norco's medical Oxygen, Nitrogen and Air are filled on a Weldcoa manual fill island with six fill heads and 12 bays, with one fill head for Oxygen USP, Nitrogen NF and Medical Air USP for pressures up to 3000 psig on one side of the island and duplicate fill heads on the other side for filling oxygen, air and nitrogen at pressures up to 5000 psig (4500 psig for oxygen).

The NorLab Specialty Gas division is equipped with three state of the art gravimetric fill stations, dedicated manifolds for filling specialty grade pure gases, and aluminum or steel disposable cylinders from 29 liter to 221 liter capacity. The 1250 sq ft laboratory is equipped to analytically confirm pure gases up to 99.9999% and certified and primary mixtures.

The cylinder maintenance facility is equipped with two shot blasters, a paint booth, a four jacket hydrotest with automatic inverter driers and ultrasonic testing.

These new buildings strengthen Norco's mission to provide superior customer service by being on the leading edge of technology. Norco, headquartered out of Boise, Idaho, is the nations largest privately owned welding, safety, medical and gas supplier, currently operating over 50 branches in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Utah and Wyoming.