San Antonio sits at a crossroads of Texas industry — close enough to the Eagle Ford Shale to serve midstream and upstream fabricators, home to a growing industrial manufacturing base, and surrounded by chemical and energy infrastructure that needs custom-engineered, ASME Section VIII-compliant pressure vessels built and maintained the right way. When fabricators in this region need heat treating they can count on, they call Gulf Coast Combustion.
Gulf Coast Combustion provides on-site post weld heat treatment to fabricators and plant operators in San Antonio and throughout South-Central Texas. We’re the mobile heat treating specialist — not a generalist trying to be everything. Focused, experienced, and ready to work.
Technical Resource
The Fabricator’s Complete Guide to Pressure Vessel PWHT
Everything you need to know about on-site pressure vessel PWHT — code requirements, execution standards, thermocouple methodology, documentation, and how to evaluate a heat treating contractor.
Talk to the Owner Directly
Owner, Gulf Coast Combustion
Call or text — James answers personally
No receptionist. No call queue. No waiting on a callback from someone who wasn’t on the last job.
When you’re building high-pressure, thick-walled vessels for oil & gas or chemical processing applications, waiting on a furnace can slow your whole project down — and in some cases, the vessel is simply too large to fit. Gulf Coast Combustion solves both problems.
We bring our direct gas fire combustion equipment directly to your fabrication shop. No rigging a finished vessel onto a flatbed and hoping for the best. No furnace size restrictions. No delays waiting on another shop’s heat treating schedule.
Every heat treatment performs in full accordance with ASME Section VIII Division 1 / UCS-56 or any customer-provided specification. For a full breakdown of what those requirements mean, see our post on PWHT requirements under ASME Section VIII.
No Transport
No oversized load permits. No rigging. No transit risk. Your vessel never leaves your yard.
On-Site QC Witness
Your QC team monitors chart recorder data in real time throughout the entire cycle.
ASME Compliant
Every job executed to ASME Section VIII or your customer-specified WPS and code requirements.
Full Docs Before We Leave
Heat treat record, strip chart trace, calibration certificate, execution plan — complete before GCC trucks leave your yard.
For thick-walled, high-pressure pressure vessels — the kind being built for Eagle Ford midstream operations, San Antonio industrial facilities, and South-Central Texas fabricators — direct gas fire combustion delivers uniform, controllable heat across large surface areas. Our Type K thermocouples with capacitor discharge attachment and NIST-calibrated Chino recorders monitor and document every phase of the cycle. For more on the method, see what direct gas fire heat treating is and why it matters.
We follow ASME Section VIII parameters on ramp rates, soak temperatures, and hold times on every job. Our standard soak temperature is 1,150°F ±50°F. Heat-up and cool-down rates are calculated by wall thickness. Nothing is guessed, and nothing is left undocumented.
Direct gas fire combustion, on-site, right where the vessel sits. No furnace. No transport. James Benefield is involved in every job.
Time lapse: 621,000 lb vessel, Central Texas. Direct gas fire combustion, on-site.
More From Gulf Coast Combustion
Pressure vessel PWHT is our primary work — but we also provide a full range of industrial heat treating services across the Gulf Coast and South-Central Texas.
GCC mobilizes throughout the San Antonio region and surrounding South-Central Texas, including:
Don’t see your area? GCC mobilizes statewide and nationwide. Call us and we’ll make it work.
Ready to Get Started?
Talk to James About Your San Antonio Project
Call or text the owner directly at 832-797-3428 — or reach the office at 713-425-3773.
Getting a quote from GCC is straightforward. Here’s how it works.
Send us your specs
Drawings are ideal, but vessel weight, length, width, and wall thickness get us started. Email james@gulfcoastcombustion.com or call 713-425-3773.
We price it out
James reviews your specs personally and turns around a quote fast. No waiting on a sales team.
We schedule and mobilize
GCC is available on short notice. If your timeline is tight, tell us up front — we work around fabrication schedules regularly and can mobilize faster than you’d expect.
Full documentation before we leave
Every job includes a complete documentation package: heat treat record, strip chart recorder trace, calibration certificate, and written execution plan. Your QC package is complete before GCC trucks leave your yard.
San Antonio is roughly 3 hours from our Spring, TX shop — one of our closer runs. For jobs with lead time, we plan mobilization around your fabrication schedule. For tight timelines or short notice, call James directly at 832-797-3428 and he’ll give you a straight answer on availability.
Yes. Localized PWHT on pipe spools, nozzle welds, and vessel repairs is a regular part of our work. If you have a specific repair or modification requiring heat treating, call us with the details — we’ll tell you exactly what we can do and how fast we can get there.
Our mobile equipment handles vessels of virtually any size. We have treated vessels over 120′ long and 600,000 lbs on-site. For most large vessels, furnace transport is possible — it’s just not cost effective. Oversized load permits, rigging, transit risk, and furnace scheduling all add up fast.
Yes. The Eagle Ford play and the midstream infrastructure supporting it — separators, treaters, contactors, processing equipment — is exactly the kind of work we do. Fabricators building for this market need heat treating that executes to code and moves on their timeline. That’s what we provide.
Yes, and we encourage it. Your team can monitor chart recorder data in real time throughout the entire cycle. Everything is visible and documented as it happens.
All the time. We walk first-time clients through the full process before the job starts — thermocouple placement, documentation requirements, what to expect during heat-up and hold. No surprises on job day.
By the Numbers
Soak Temperature
1,100°F – 1,200°F
GCC standard: 1,150°F ±50°F
Heat-Up Rate
400°F/hr ÷ wall thickness
Never exceeds 400°F/hr
Cool-Down Rate
500°F/hr ÷ wall thickness
Never exceeds 500°F/hr
Max Temp Differential
250°F during soak
Monitored across full vessel length
Thermocouples
Type K
TAU capacitor discharge attachment
Recorders
Chino AH Series
NIST traceable calibration annually
Gas Trains
Up to 8 million BTU
Direct gas fire combustion
Where We Work
Serving Fabricators Across Texas and the Gulf Coast
Based in Spring, TX. Available Nationwide.
Ready to Schedule Your San Antonio PWHT Job?
Call or text James directly at 832-797-3428 — or reach the office at 713-425-3773.
Email: james@gulfcoastcombustion.com
View all heat treating services including refractory dry outs, localized PWHT, consulting, and more
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