About Us
Drake Chillers has been manufacturing industrial process chillers since 1972 and offers a complete line from 1 ton to 200 tons air-cooled and water-cooled chillers.
Drake designs custom process chillers to meet a customer’s particular needs when a standard chiller won’t work. By maintaining a cost effective, yet dependable product line with many custom features, our client base has grown to include many industries and applications.
With over 50 years of experience, we bring our expertise and engineering experience to every chiller we design, fabricate, and test to make sure we’re providing reliability and ease of operation without sacrificing either.
Our systems can be built to handle varying loads, multiple pieces of equipment, narrow temperature bands, near freezing water, low exiting temperatures, low and high ambient conditions, high return temperatures, corrosive environments, and many others. Drake Chillers is the industry leader in the design and manufacturing of industrial process chillers and are available for quick delivery. Our business is built on creating custom engineered solutions for your specific cooling needs, outstanding after-the-sale technical support and customer service.
Drake is sold through most refrigeration wholesalers, so that you are working with suppliers and contractors that you know and trust. With representatives located throughout the United States and Central and South America so you can get the support you need for all stages of the project.
Drake Chillers humble beginnings go back to 1972.
At this time, Ronald S. Drake was living in Port St. Lucie, on Florida’s Treasure Coast. During the steamy summer months, outdoor swimming pools in this part of the country can feel more like a hot bath than a cool oasis. Raised in Michigan, Ronald longed for the refreshing waters of the lakes near his hometown. While tinkering in his garage one day, he came up with the idea of using a chiller to cool down Floridian pools to a more inviting temperature. This spark evolved into Drake Refrigeration, going strong at 50 years and counting.
Ron was born in Coldwater, Michigan, in 1924. He served in the United States Air Force before settling in southern Florida. He was a very hands-on person that was involved in all parts of the operations, from product application to engineering design, refrigeration theory to sales and service. Ron was a strong believer at always putting the customer first, and accomplished this by delivering equipment that met their needs and was not overly complicated to operate. He believed in providing a robust, well-engineered and -designed product that the end user could rely on, regardless of climate or location.
From 1972 to 1995, Ron was the face and voice of Drake Chillers. His forward-thinking and innovative approach built this company into the industry leader in the chiller and refrigeration industry. While the outdoor swimming pools of south Florida were a fine place to start, Ron saw the need for chillers in other industries as well, transforming Drake from a local cooling company into an international refrigeration powerhouse. Building on what Ron Drake founded back in 1972, we continue to operate under the time-tested and -proven methods and vision that Ron put in place a half century ago.
In 1995 Ron sold the company, passing the torch on to the next generation of chiller professionals. Two years later, the company was relocated to its current location in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. Several of the chillers that Ron was involved with manufacturing are still in service today, including two located locally at the Chaddsford Winer
