Traveling crews · Data centers & cold storage · Texas
Industrial Welding in Texas
We roll a full mechanical welding crew into Texas for data-center cooling piping, cold storage and refrigeration work, and food-grade stainless. AWS-certified welders, OSHA-trained, insured and bonded.
In short
Sons of Thunder is a traveling, crew-based industrial welding and fabrication outfit that runs data-center and cold-storage mechanical scope across Texas.
Texas is the hottest build market in the country, and the work behind those headlines is mechanical. As of early 2026 the state had roughly 84 operating data centers totaling about 3,800 megawatts, with an additional 6.5 gigawatts under construction, more than any other state. Dallas-Fort Worth has climbed to the third-largest data center market in the U.S. at around a gigawatt of colocation with vacancy under two percent, and the megacampuses are even bigger: Vantage's $25 billion, 1.4-gigawatt Frontier campus in Shackelford County will run ten buildings across 3.7 million square feet on a closed-loop chiller system, the OpenAI/Oracle Stargate campus in Abilene is part of a roughly $500 billion program with 1.2 gigawatts committed and 450,000 GPUs, Meta is investing $10 billion near El Paso, and Google has outlined a $40 billion West Texas expansion. The AI racks inside those buildings run direct-to-chip liquid cooling, which means miles of chilled-water and glycol loop piping, pump skids, heat-exchange tie-ins, and mission-critical mechanical piping that has to be welded clean and pressure-tested on a tight schedule. Cold storage is booming on the same logistics map: a 14-million-cubic-foot facility opened in Lockhart in spring 2025, a 268-acre logistics-and-cold-storage park up to 3.8 million square feet broke ground at Laredo, and operators like Houston's Texas Frio are running ammonia/CO2 cascade systems with stainless-steel piping. That refrigeration and food-grade work needs process and cooling piping, sanitary stainless welding, supports and hangers, and skid fabrication. And the Gulf Coast petrochem corridor keeps generating shutdown and turnaround welding and plant maintenance work, with ExxonMobil turnarounds at Beaumont and Baytown and more than $480 million in chemical-plant maintenance tracked for early 2026. We are not chasing everyday job-shop welding from Texas local shops. We come in as a specialty field welding crew or a mechanical-contractor overflow crew, run our scope, and roll out. We will tell you straight what we can take on. Built to Serve. Welded to Last.
The opportunity
Texas, by the numbers
- 6.5 GWTexas data-center capacity under construction (most in US)
- $25BVantage Frontier campus, Shackelford County, TX (1.4 GW)
- #3Dallas-Fort Worth U.S. data-center market rank
- 14M cu ftNew Lockhart, TX cold-storage facility (opened 2025)
What these builds need
The mechanical scope we run
Builds like the Texas data centers and cold-storage facilities above typically require the kind of mechanical scope we run as a traveling crew. We don't claim a role on any named project; here's the welding and fabrication those projects generate:
- Data center process piping and cooling piping welding: chilled-water and glycol loop piping, closed-loop liquid cooling tie-ins, and mission-critical mechanical piping for direct-to-chip AI racks
- Pipe spool fabrication plus pump skids, supports, hangers, and structural steel for chiller plants and mechanical rooms
- Cold storage welding and refrigeration-system support: process and cooling piping, supports, and skids for industrial refrigeration systems
- Sanitary stainless welding and food-grade stainless: stainless process piping fabrication and install for refrigerated warehouse and food-distribution builds
- Field welding crews that travel to the jobsite, plus mechanical-contractor overflow crews to keep your schedule on track
- Shutdown and turnaround welding and plant maintenance welding for the Gulf Coast petrochem corridor
Metros we cover
Across Texas
- Dallas-Fort Worth
- Houston
- San Antonio
- Austin
- Abilene
- El Paso
- Laredo
- Lockhart
- Sherman
- Beaumont / Port Arthur
- Corpus Christi
- Waco
Good to know
Texas — FAQ
Do you actually travel to Texas for work?
Yes. We're a traveling specialty crew based in Northwest Indiana and Southwest Florida, and Texas is a core market for us because of the data-center and cold-storage build-out. We mobilize a full crew, not a lone welder, and run our scope on site across DFW, Houston, San Antonio, Austin and the rest of the state.
What kind of Texas projects do you target?
Data-center mechanical work and cold-storage / refrigeration / food-grade work, mainly. That means chilled-water and glycol loop piping, closed-loop liquid cooling piping, refrigeration support piping, sanitary stainless, pipe spool fabrication, and supports, hangers and skids. We also take shutdown and turnaround welding and plant maintenance welding along the Gulf Coast petrochem corridor. We're not trying to outbid local Texas shops on everyday welding.
Can you run as an overflow crew for a Texas mechanical contractor?
That's a big part of what we do. When a mechanical contractor in Dallas, Houston or anywhere in Texas is stacked up on a data-center or cold-storage schedule, we come in as an overflow field welding crew to add capacity and keep the job moving. We'll scope it honestly and tell you straight what we can take on.
What certifications do your welders carry?
Our welders are AWS-certified, and our crews are OSHA 10 and 30 trained. The company is insured and bonded. We handle full-scope work from design through fabrication to field install.
What does data-center cooling piping work involve?
AI data centers run direct-to-chip liquid cooling, so the mechanical scope is heavy on chilled-water and glycol loop piping, closed-loop cooling tie-ins, pump skids, heat-exchanger connections, and the supports, hangers and structural steel that carry it all. It's mission-critical mechanical piping that has to be welded clean and pressure-tested on a tight schedule, which is exactly the kind of field welding our crews are built for.