Knowing Your Neighbors: S.O.S. Leak Repair

Save Our Steam fixes industrial steam pipes for companies across the country

DULUTH, Minn. – Jim carter is used to working under pressure.

It’s been his business’s calling since the 1970s.

“Basically what we do is we fix leaks under pressure,” He explains.

And his work can be done anywhere you find steam and water under pressure – refineries, power plants, chemical plants, you name it.

Jim and his team are called on for big fixes.

“They’ll call us in – if they get a leak, rather than shut the plant down, we can fix it under pressure,” Carter said.

The business is called S.O.S. Leak Repair.

The name makes sense – S.O.S. stands for “Save Our Steam.”

Their technology allows them to fix leaks that would otherwise be very costly.

“An unscheduled shutdown is not something they want to do at all,” Jim said. “For us to be able to come in, and they can stay operating is a big deal for them.”

Jim Carter and his dad started the business in the Twin Cities, but moved the operation north in the late 80s, and they’ve been working out of Duluth ever since.

“I like it here,” he says, candidly.  “I moved up here about ’87 or ’89, something like that. I was getting a lot of work here from the refinery to the local paper mill; it was a good place to raise my kids.”

What Jim and his company does is unique; there are only a handful of businesses in the whole country fixing leaks under pressure this way.

S.O.S. serves clients in a total of 15 U.S. states.

“Everybody doesn’t need us every day,” Carter explains.  “The refinery doesn’t need us every day. So it doesn’t matter if we’re here or there. I got enough guys that we can just triage around the country and take of these things. Duluth is just a nice place to live.”

It’s an innovation that’s allowed Jim and his company to serve this community, and dozens of others for more than 30 years.