Three decades ago, when Westinghouse Electric exited its sprawling 92-acre manufacturing site that straddles East Pittsburgh and Turtle Creek, it ended a century-long legacy of supporting the power generation industry. At one time, as many as 20,000 workers filled the massive complex along Braddock Avenue, before operations moved to Charlotte, N.C., in the 1980s.

After years of redevelopment, the site now houses more than 40 businesses employing at least 1,100 people, ranging from metals fabrication to law offices to a chocolate and cookie manufacturer. 

But it wasn’t until this year that one company could say it had fully restored what Westinghouse left behind. In February, Brush Aftermarket, which provides maintenance and repair services to power plants, completed a $9.5 million investment to reestablish a so-called balancing facility.

This means Brush Aftermarket can now complete the final stage of repairs for 55-ton plant generators — gigantic cylindrical machines the size of a school bus — by confirming they exhibit a near-perfectly balanced spin.

There are just a handful of facilities in the country large enough to test the generators, said Lauren Stranick, mechanical engineer for Brush. While it cleaned and refurbished generators, the company previously had been forced to send generators elsewhere for balancing tests, normally strapped to trucks traveling to facilities in Wisconsin or Missouri.

“With the balance facility, we’re hoping to be able to do more,” Ms. Stranick said. “We’re hoping to attract customers because we’re kind of a one-stop shop now.” 

The restoration was no easy task. When Westinghouse left, it “filled the pits with gravel and poured concrete over the whole thing,” Ms. Stranick said. “We had to excavate, restore everything” and bring it up to Turtle Creek borough’s current building code.

For balancing tests, Ms. Stranick explained during a tour of the facility, the generators are lowered by crane into a deep pit below the ground floor. The pit is then covered by 50-ton plugs that keep the spinning of the generators — and any impact should any part come loose — contained.

From a control room, engineers spin the generator remotely and check various metrics on six computer monitors.

As the test works up to the full power plant speed of 3,600 rotations per minute, one monitor shows the deviation from perfect spinning. By adding small amounts of weight into threaded holes in the rotor body, engineers are able to bring generators within 0.0001 of tolerance, a measure of that deviation.

Ms. Stranick compared it to a spinning top. If spinning concentrically, a top “would just stay straight up the entire time. But you know when it starts to get a little bit of wobble? We take out that wobble.”

Prior to reaching the balancing facility, the generator is taken apart, inspected and cleaned. The rotors are composed of layers of copper and insulating tape, so workers must unwind the layers, individually clean each one, then rewind them.

Brush is busiest in the spring and fall, when demand for power is generally stable and utilities are comfortable servicing their plants. Brush normally aims to service 15 to 20 units each year, Ms. Stranick said, as utilities send in their generators for regular maintenance or for repairs.

Working around the clock in eight-hour shifts, workers can complete a major repair and cleaning in 32 days. They can conduct a visual inspection in about seven days.

Last week, a generator from a Florida Power and Light’s power plant in Fort Lauderdale sat squeaky clean and almost ready for a balance. Others sat in the workshop, grimy with grease and oil, their copper layers in the process of being unwound and scrubbed by workers. 

Ultimately, Brush Aftermarket hopes its large investment in the facility will help keep the power generation industry in Pittsburgh. 

“Westinghouse was not only an industrial leader in power generation, but also helped develop the Pittsburgh area by employing many with jobs that supported their growing families,” said Candace Lawson, an office manager for Brush. 

The company, employing 54 people in the former Westinghouse facility, is relatively insulated from short-term changes in the power sector, such as coal plant closures and competition from renewable energy. 

“We mainly work with utilities that are already in place and established with plants all over a particular region of the country,” Ms. Stranick said. “Therefore, it is rare for an entire region to close all of their plants and be replaced by alternate energy sources.” 

Daniel Moore: dmoore@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2743 and Twitter @PGdanielmoore.

First Published: April 26, 2016, 8:00 a.m.