About Combustion Engineering Akron Ohio

, Inc. (CE), founded in 1912, was one of the dominant names in American industrial power generation for most of the twentieth century. CE designed and manufactured boilers, steam generators, and nuclear reactor components for utilities, refineries, and heavy industry across the country. ABB acquired the company in 1990. By then, CE had left a substantial asbestos litigation footprint — one that is still generating lawsuits and trust fund claims today.

The reason is straightforward: the high-temperature systems CE built and serviced required materials that could withstand extreme heat without failing. For decades, asbestos-containing materials were the industry’s answer to that problem. Insulation, gaskets, packing, and refractory materials throughout CE’s product lines reportedly contained asbestos-containing materials — companies that have since been dismantled by asbestos litigation and replaced by bankruptcy trusts holding billions in compensation for victims.

CE’s Akron facility was reportedly central to the company’s manufacturing, engineering, and field installation operations. Workers at this facility, as well as field crews dispatched to customer sites throughout Northeast Ohio and beyond, may have encountered asbestos-containing materials routinely — during fabrication, installation, and maintenance of boiler systems and related industrial equipment. The duration and frequency of that potential exposure, across years or decades of employment, is precisely what makes former CE workers a recognized high-risk population for mesothelioma and related disease.

General Equipment at Combustion Engineering Akron Ohio

The equipment below represents the systems and infrastructure documented or typically present at this facility during the era when asbestos-containing materials were specified in industrial construction. This is general facility-equipment reference — not a legal attribution of any specific product, manufacturer, or exposure event to this facility. Material-category and manufacturer information is addressed in the AsbestosIndex Product Crosswalk linked under the records table below.

Industrial Boilers View crosswalk › Process Piping View crosswalk › Pipe Insulation View crosswalk › Block Insulation View crosswalk › Valves View crosswalk › Gaskets View crosswalk › Pumps View crosswalk › Heat Exchangers View crosswalk › Cooling Equipment View crosswalk ›

Documented Asbestos Evidence

The records below are verified, state-documented asbestos removals at this facility. Each entry represents a regulated abatement project where the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) was notified under federal NESHAP rules, the work was logged, and the asbestos-containing material was confirmed and removed under regulated conditions. These are not allegations or estimates — they are paper records tying documented asbestos-containing material to this specific site.

No Ohio EPA NESHAP abatement notifications have been identified for this facility in current public records. Per the framing above, absence of state-agency documentation should not be read as absence of asbestos — only as absence of a formal, regulated abatement event meeting reporting thresholds. Workers who recall encountering pipe insulation, block insulation, gaskets, or other asbestos-era construction materials at this facility may still have viable claims regardless of whether a state record exists.

Material Categories in Documented Records

The materials documented above (and similar asbestos-containing materials commonly encountered in records of this type) appear in the AsbestosIndex catalog with historical manufacturer and trust-fund information. Click a category to view manufacturers historically associated with that material:

Thermal System Insulation View crosswalk › Asbestos-Cement Board View crosswalk › Pipe Insulation View crosswalk › Roofing & Flashing View crosswalk › Spray Fireproofing View crosswalk › Floor Tile & Mastic View crosswalk › Ceiling Tile View crosswalk › Gaskets & Packing View crosswalk ›

Who May Have Been Exposed at Combustion Engineering Akron Ohio

The degree of asbestos exposure risk was not uniform across CE’s workforce. It tracked closely with how often a worker physically disturbed asbestos-containing materials — cutting, grinding, removing, or working in the dust cloud created by others doing the same.

Insulators faced among the highest lifetime exposure burdens of any industrial trade. Workers in this classification may have applied, removed, and replaced asbestos-containing pipe covering and block insulation — products like calcium silicate pipe insulation and insulation — on a daily basis throughout their careers. Members of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 in St. Louis and Local 27 in Kansas City who worked on CE systems or comparable equipment are a well-documented high-risk population in Ohio asbestos litigation.

Pipefitters and steamfitters working on CE-equipped systems may have been exposed through asbestos-containing gaskets and packing materials installed in flanges, valves, and pump connections. Workers from UA Local 562 in St. Louis and Local 268 in Kansas City who serviced this class of equipment regularly handled products from manufacturers like gaskets and packing — a company whose asbestos trust fund has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to workers in exactly this situation.

Boilermakers working directly on CE boilers and combustion systems may have encountered asbestos rope gaskets, refractory cements, and insulating board as standard components of the equipment they built, repaired, and overhauled. Members of Boilermakers Local 27 in Ohio who worked on CE installations are among the claimants who have pursued compensation through both litigation and trust funds.

Electricians are frequently categorized as “bystander” workers in asbestos cases, but that designation should not be mistaken for low risk. Electricians working in industrial spaces where insulators, pipefitters, and boilermakers were disturbing asbestos-containing materials may have inhaled the same fiber-laden air. Asbestos-containing electrical components compounded that risk. There is no safe level of asbestos exposure, and bystander cases have produced significant verdicts and settlements in Ohio courts.

Machinists and fabricators who cut, drilled, or shaped asbestos-containing components during manufacturing operations may have generated concentrated respirable dust — affecting not only themselves but other tradespeople working in the same area. This category of exposure is well-documented in CE-related litigation.

Building maintenance workers and custodians at industrial facilities are often overlooked in exposure assessments, but they are not overlooked in successful litigation. Workers who swept floors, disturbed deteriorating asbestos-containing floor tiles, or worked near thermal system insulation in a state of disrepair may have experienced repeated low-level exposures over many years — a pattern that mesothelioma research has consistently linked to disease development.

Critical Filing Deadline & Next Steps

Ohio law gives mesothelioma and asbestos-disease claimants 2 years from the date of medical diagnosis to file a personal-injury lawsuit (ORC § 2305.10). For wrongful-death claims after an asbestos-related death, the filing window is 2 years from the date of death (ORC § 2125.02). The two deadlines run on separate tracks — preserving one does not extend the other.

The personal-injury clock runs from diagnosis, not from exposure. Mesothelioma latency is typically 20 to 50 years, so workers exposed in the 1950s–1980s are being diagnosed today.

Practical first steps

  1. Document what you remember. Pay stubs, W-2s, union cards, photographs, coworker names, and dates of employment. The WorkChain widget on this page can save a copy you can email yourself.
  2. Preserve medical records. Pathology reports, biopsy results, imaging, and pulmonary-function tests are central to both civil claims and trust-fund filings.
  3. Identify household members. Spouses who laundered work clothing and children of plant workers are eligible for secondary-exposure claims when diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease.
  4. Speak with an asbestos attorney with Ohio experience. The first conversation is free and confidential. Asbestos trust-fund claims and civil claims run on different tracks — both can be pursued in parallel.

Asbestos-Related Diseases

Asbestos fiber exposure can cause several specific diseases that typically appear decades after the original exposure. The latency period — the gap between exposure and diagnosis — usually runs 20 to 50 years. That's why workers exposed in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are receiving diagnoses today.

Mesothelioma

A rare, aggressive cancer that affects the lining of the lungs (pleural mesothelioma), abdomen (peritoneal), or heart (pericardial). Mesothelioma is almost exclusively caused by asbestos exposure, which is why a mesothelioma diagnosis often points directly to historical workplace exposure. Average latency from first exposure to diagnosis is 30-50 years.

Asbestosis

A chronic, non-cancerous scarring of lung tissue caused by inhaled asbestos fibers. Asbestosis causes progressive shortness of breath, persistent cough, and reduced lung function. It does not improve with treatment, and it is a recognized basis for compensation under most trust schedules and civil claims.

Lung Cancer

Asbestos exposure significantly increases the risk of lung cancer, particularly when combined with a history of smoking. Asbestos-related lung cancer is compensable under the same trust schedules and civil claim avenues as mesothelioma.

Other Recognized Diseases

Pleural plaques, pleural thickening, laryngeal cancer, ovarian cancer, and certain gastrointestinal cancers are also recognized as asbestos-related under various trust schedules and case-law authorities, though eligibility and proof requirements vary by claim type.

If you have any of these diagnoses and you worked at this facility, lived with someone who did, or were exposed in any documented capacity, you may have a claim worth pursuing. Speak with an attorney before assuming you don't qualify.

Cross-State & Regional Corridor Workers

Workers whose careers touched CE equipment are not the only population affected. Missouri and the surrounding region hosted comparable heavy-industrial facilities where asbestos-containing materials were reportedly in widespread use. The Labadie Energy Center and the Portage des Sioux Power Plant in Missouri, along with Monsanto Chemical in Sauget, Illinois, and Granite City Steel in Granite City, Illinois, represent the type of facilities where workers may have encountered the same manufacturers’ products under similar conditions. Many of these workers have pursued — and recovered — compensation through the same trust funds and litigation channels available to former CE employees.

Data Sources

Information about facility equipment, industrial materials, and occupational records referenced on this page is drawn from publicly available sources where applicable, including:

If specific equipment or product claims in this article are sourced from a non-public database, the source is identified parenthetically within the text above.