Xaver Lipp was born on the 5th October 1933 in Stillau/Eastern Württemberg as the son of a plumber. He worked in his father’s workshop from an early age and learned the profession of a plumber after finishing school. As a young master he takes over his father’s workshop at the age of 25 and lays the first stone for his own firm.

In the same year – 1958 – he married Irene Lipp, born Eisenbarth, and together with her he expanded the small business in Stillau. He begins with only one employee and the active support of his wife to manufacture blower and ventilation pipes. In the daytime they produce and in the evening they deliver.

In 1961 Xaver Lipp was granted his first important patent for the Lipp gutter bottom. The end piece of the gutter can be sold more than 30 million times in the following years.

With its patented tubs for oil tanks and various inventions for the production of pipes, the success story enters the next round. With brilliant folding technology, pipes and tubs could be produced quickly and in high quality.

Due to the good sales numbers Xaver and Irene Lipp decided on a larger new building in Tannhausen in the year 1967. The inauguration of the new company buildings takes place in 1968.

Xaver Lipp works and works untirable and he is granted patents for most of his technical ideas. Some of them, such as the patent for the so-called ‘channel folding machine’, are sold by the inventor to the company Reinhardt in Sindelfingen, which uses the technology for the construction of air conditioning systems.

The patent sales enable Xaver Lipp to invest in further ideas – above all the double seam technology.

With the invention and development of the double folding system, the ingenious knowledge of the inventor in the field of sheet metal forming and folding can be applied to the construction of tanks and silos. 1968 Xaver Lipp erected his first double seam silos.

At the beginning of the 1970s, the pioneer was already thinking about the realisation of biogas plants and was building various experimental agricultural plants together with the University of Hohenheim. In the following years hundreds of plants are installed worldwide.

Xaver Lipp has a car mechanic friend convert a VW Passat to biogas and shows the possibility of switching to alternative energies as early as 1978.

As more and more space was needed for the new developments, Xaver Lipp enlarged his production halls in 1976 with an extension.

In 1982 the inventor Xaver Lipp was awarded the Rudolf Diesel Medal for his groundbreaking ideas.

By realising good silo projects and participating in trade fairs, Xaver Lipp also attracts the attention of experts, who were able to welcome interested visitors from all over the world to Tannhausen as early as the mid-seventies.

In 1993 a joint venture contract with China could be signed. These partners from Henan Province had already introduced the double folding system in China more than 10 years earlier.

In the mid-nineties Xaver Lipp hands over his meanwhile very successful and internationally operating company to his son Roland Lipp.

Thus the inventor is out of the everyday business and it gives him the long-awaited opportunity to concentrate on his ideas without any restrictions.

He is constantly working on new technical possibilities, develops them and receives patents as a ‘free inventor’, which he licenses to interested companies worldwide.

The innovator refines his double folding system to technical perfection.

At the same time, he continues to work intensively on the construction and design of biogas plants and develops plant concepts that set new standards for quality, performance and cost-effectiveness.

With the invention of a special double layer metal sheet at the end of the nineties, Xaver Lipp achieved a breakthrough in the form of a new material for tank construction: stainless steel is joined to galvanised sheet metal with the use of a connecting material. The required stainless steel content is thus significantly reduced, costs are reduced, but quality remains the same. Xaver Lipp received several awards for this invention, including the Innovation Award for Eastern Württemberg in 2005.

Since 2011, the inventor has been working intensively on his new idea of producing welded storage tanks on site using an automated process.

This is the innovative further development of the double folding system and is equally unique and ingenious. Larger tank volumes can be offered and liquids such as drinking water, juices, ethanol or oil can be stored.

In several technical steps Xaver Lipp has created a worldwide unique and at the same time ingeniously simple principle of tank production. Containers from 100 to 10,000 m³ can be realised on site. Tailored to the application, various patented welding processes of this new technology are available.

Since 2016 Xaver Lipp has been senior consultant of the newly founded family business Lipp & Mayer Technologie GmbH, which can look back on more than 60 years of experience in the fields of sheet metal processing, mechanical engineering and container production through close cooperation with the inventor.

For his inventions in the field of container welding technology, Xaver Lipp was awarded in 2017 several patents.

Together with the inventor, the company Lipp & Mayer Technologie GmbH is currently further developing the know-how and unique ideas and constructing new possibilities in the field of container production and plant engineering.