AIR CONDITIONERS

air conditioners

air conditioners

The idea of air conditioning started before a machine was created to produce the cooling effect desired. The first attempt at building an air conditioner was made by Dr. John Gorrie (1803-1855), an American physician, in Apalachicola, Florida. During his practice there in the 1830s, Dr. Gorrie creating an ice-making machine that essentially blew air over a bucket of ice for cooling hospital rooms of patients suffering from malaria and yellow fever.

Throughout the centuries, people have devised many methods of manipulating the heat and humidity of the air surrounding them. Ancient Egyptians, Indians, Greeks, and Romans hung wet mats over doors and windows (wind blowing through the mats was cooled by evaporation), while their rulers were cooled by slave-operated fans. Leonardo da Vinci invented a water-driven fan in the middle ages. In the nineteenth century, the textile industry used various devices to humidify factory air; South Carolina physician John Gorrie (1803-1855) invented an air-conditioning and refrigeration machine; and In New York City, both Carnegie Hall and the Stock Exchange building had air-cooling systems around the turn of the century.

In 1881, when President James Garfield was dying, naval engineers constructed a box-like structure containing cloths saturated with melted ice water, where a fan blew hot air overhead. This contraption was able to lower a room by 20 degrees Fahrenheit but consumed half a million pounds of ice in two months' time.

A close ancestor to the modern air conditioner units was first made in 1902 by an American engineer by the name of Willis Carrier. The machine at that time was called "Apparatus for Treating Air" and was built for the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Co. in Brooklyn, New York. Chilled coils were used in the machine to cool air and lower humidity to 55%, although the apparatus was made with enough precision that the humidity level desired was adjustable.

Willis Haviland Carrier invented the first air conditioner in 1902. This was designed to boost the working process control in a printing plant. Carrier¡Çs invention controlled temperature and humidity. The low heat and humidity helped keep the paper dimensions and ink alignment the same. Later his invention was used to populate productivity in the workplace. The Carrier Air Conditioning Company of America developed for the increasing demands. Gradually, air conditioning was used to help increase comfort in homes and cars. Residential sales increased rapidly in the 1950's.

None of these systems was ...