2025 marked a year of significant progress for H.A McEwen (Boiler Repairs) Ltd, strengthening both its service offering and the way it operates.
Demand increased as the year progressed, the order book remains strong heading into 2026, and the business continued to deliver dependable support in environments where uptime is critical and downtime carries significant cost.
The focus throughout the year was on building capacity without compromising quality, improving responsiveness to client needs, and operating with the consistency expected of a trusted engineering partner. Achieving that meant investing in people, reshaping internal structures, and adopting systems that improve visibility, control, and service outcomes.
Organisational change:
structuring for sustainable growth
A central theme of 2025 has been reshaping the business to support sustainable growth. Historically, like many engineering-led organisations, a small number of people carried responsibility across design, pricing, delivery, and day-to-day operations. Over the year, responsibility has been distributed more evenly across the team, reducing bottlenecks, speeding up decisions, and improving consistency.
Managing Director, Alasdair McEwen, explains: “Restructuring the business has given me the headspace to focus on relationships with customers, support them properly, and think about where we take the business next.”
Operationally, one of the most meaningful changes has been moving away from a single pooled workforce to clearly defined service, repairs, and projects teams. For customers, this has resulted in smoother coordination, fewer delays, and a more joined-up service experience, even when priorities shift quickly in live production environments.
Repairing and retubing a boiler underneath a train station in Manchester.
Staying strong where it matters:
rapid response and specialist capability
Responsiveness remains a key differentiator. In industrial and commercial environments, failures create immediate operational pressure, and the company’s ability to react quickly, backed by technical knowledge, strong supplier relationships, and experienced engineers, continues to underpin client confidence.
Equally important is the breadth of engineering capability. Many boilers in service today are decades old and require traditional repair methods no longer taught as standard.
“We work on a wide range of boilers,” Alasdair says. “from brand new to decades old, all varying in size and shape and presenting many different challenges when it comes to repair. The expertise that we have gained over the years not only in repairing industrial boilers, but also historic steam boilers, has definitely meant we are able to undertake projects that some other organisations wouldn’t entertain.”
“Over the course of the last year, we have reviewed how we train our engineers,” Alasdair continued. “We are putting a new system in place, and creating our own educational programme to teach the specialist engineering skills we require, because you simply can't go to college and do a course that covers what we do.”
From heritage-informed forming and fabrication techniques to modern systems and controls, preserving and passing on these skills has become a priority, so McEwens can continue to address problems that many providers cannot.
Digitising the workflow
In 2025, McEwens made a step-change in how work is managed, tracked, and reported. In a highly regulated environment, the business invested in a connected software stack supporting delivery from initial enquiry through to job completion.
Project management, quoting, orders, and delivery are now handled in a single system that improves estimating accuracy and operational visibility while reducing cost overruns for clients. Planning and scheduling have also been strengthened, allowing engineers to be reallocated quickly when priorities change.
Cloud-based site reporting further streamlines delivery by enabling engineers to capture information on-site and share it instantly with the office. Reports are tailored to McEwen’s specialist workflows, rather than relying on generic templates.
Project Highlights
A custom-built Hotwell tank and platform in Lancashire (left), and preparing to lower a new boiler into the boiler plant at Calderdale Industrial Museum (right).
The year saw many projects that featured our range of capabilities. In May, we undertook a major boiler plant upgrade at Calderdale Industrial Museum in Halifax, replacing the existing steam boiler with a more efficient system to supply steam to the museum’s historic stationary steam engines. The works involved the complete pre-fabrication of the boilerplant and ancillaries at our Farling Top works, before installing it at the museum.
February saw our design team draw up a bespoke hotwell tank and platform for a specialist chemicals manufacturer in Lancashire. This custom solution required precise engineering to accommodate workshop operations. Positioned to straddle the roller shutter entrance, the platform allows company vehicles access below the hotwell tank.
In Manchester, a boiler housed deep below a major train station needed significant repair due to leaking tubes. With access an issue, and a full boiler replacement too disruptive for the site, our engineers were able to save the boiler by carefully cutting away the rear smokebox and tube plate at the rear of the boiler. After fitting new tubes and seal welding the tube ends, we reassembled the boiler, conducted NDT testing for defects, and successfully hydrostatically tested it before re-commissioning.
Strategic partnerships
Strategic partnerships have been another defining feature of 2025, particularly within the healthcare sector. Through collaboration with trusted organisations, McEwens has supported significant volumes of work covering statutory inspection preparation, non-destructive testing (NDT), and ongoing service activity across multiple UK healthcare trusts.
“Those partnerships have been a huge part of our year,” Alasdair explains. “They’ve allowed us to take on a lot more work, without stretching ourselves too thin. Without doubt, that collaboration has been one of the biggest drivers of growth for us in 2025.”
Looking ahead: building capacity for 2026
While 2025 has been defined by restructuring and partnership-led growth, it has also laid the groundwork for what comes next. With site expansion already underway, including increased workshop capacity and potential new office space, the focus remains unchanged: scale in a way that protects quality, improves responsiveness, and strengthens long-term client service.
The business enters 2026 with a clearer structure, stronger operational control, and better tools to support growth, while remaining grounded in what clients value most: dependable expertise, rapid response, and consistent delivery.
