Innovative Products
KZCO Inc. began in 1976 with one product, but it was a good one, the dependable Hydra-Halt.
Originally K.Z.Company, the Hydra-Halt was invented in 1975 by two brothers, Keith and Kevin Ziegenbein, to use on the family farm. When the Hydra-Halt was released, it was an instant success, replacing manual valves on fertilizer applicators with new hydraulic remote control. Despite this, customers preferred to have an electric valve. All existing electric valves in the Ag market were solenoid type, and were simply not dependable. A ball valve was the key; it had to be motorized and it had to be water-fertilizer and chemical proof, as the Ag market is simply one of the most demanding applications in the world. And so our journey began…
KZCO was the first in the Ag industry to bring an economical motorized ball valve concept to market.
The Electra-Halt was introduced in 1982 after four years of research and development. Over the next decade, KZCO introduced a wide variety of other Ag and Industrial products. In 1992, the Electra-Halt II was introduced, or EH4 for short, and the Electra-Halt product line expanded into thousands of new valve types, sizes, motors and wiring options. In 1997, the EH3 and QC3 valves were added, bringing the mathematical combination of available valves options into the millions.
KZCO has continued to expand its product line with the introduction of the QX4 and the 89 series valves in 1999, and new controllers, the Tri-Lite and Dial-a-Matic in 2000.
To better inform customers of the value of their valves in the industries they served and to better represent the product line, in 2007 KZCO created the brand KZValve. By 2010, the newest controller series was designed and developed, the TSL-Plus and Dial-a-Matic Plus controllers. The Tru-Torq MX Series Valve line was introduced in 2012, and in 2013 it was the EH7 actuator along with the TX2 series valve family. More recently in 2015 the ZIPValve, which includes the EH8 actuator, was introduced as the latest addition to the KZCO Precision Plumbing family. KZCO uses the engineering philosophy of “form follows function, and price follows quality”, but price is important, so every KZCO product is designed to achieve rigorous standards for quality, and maintain an economical price.
The family farm has grown into a flourishing corporation, alive and growing on a tangent all its own.
The family farm has grown into a flourishing corporation, alive and growing on a tangent all its own.