History

The Smedegaard story began in 1942 when Tage Smedegaard and his partner, who had successfully started a business together manufacturing fire fighting equipment, decided to split and go their separate ways.

On 1st Sept. 1942 Tage Smedegaard started his own company in a small office employing only three people. He subcontracted the manufacturing of fire fighting equipment and at the same time developed his first pump. As sales increased the subcontractors were unable to cope and a decision was made to start manufacturing.

In Sept. 1943 an old factory building was purchased in the Glostrup area of Copenhagen which, at that time, was in open countryside. Today it is a developed industrial area and still includes the much expanded Smedegaard factory.

Smedegaard quickly diversified into other areas including building construction equipment and motor vehicles. However, it continued with the fire fighting pumps and other glanded pumps for water circulation.

In 1949, whilst developing the pump division, Tage Smedegaard made contact with a Swedish company called Pump Industries. This company was connected to a Swiss company who had designed and produced a glandless circulator called “Perfecta”. He became very interested in this pump and wanted to manufacture and market the product in Denmark.

In 1956 he obtained a licence from Switzerland, through the Swedish company, to enable production of the glandless circulator in Denmark. Smedegaard was already manufacturing a glanded pump for the heating market and soon realised that the glandless pump was far more suitable for this purpose and sales rapidly increased.