Willis Carrier of Buffalo, New York, is credited to inventing the modern air conditioner, but the air conditioner was an invention several thousand years in the making. Show Ancient EgyptBefore the common era, Ancient Egyptians used a form of air conditioning using simple methods. The Egyptians would hang wet cloth or curtains in a window or opening to a home. When a breeze would blow by, the air would come in contact with the cloth doused in cold water—thus cooling the room. Ancient ChinaIn around 200 CE, the Chinese began experimenting with inventions that are very similar to our modern air conditioning systems. They created massive manual fans that were turned using hand cranks. The air would effectively circulate around the room. Sometimes they’d install the fans near water fountains. As the water jetted up into the air, the fan would blow the cooled air through the room. Benjamin FranklinThe 18th Century brought new advancements to the world of air conditioning. Famous American and inventor Benjamin Franklin began experimenting the effects of evaporation with chemicals, such as alcohol and ether. Franklin and his partner, John Hadley, were able to conclude that the evaporation of certain chemicals could freeze surfaces and even cause frostbite. Michael Faraday and John GorrieIn the 19th Century, famous English inventor Michael Faraday used similar tests to prove that liquid ammonia could also have the same effect as liquid alcohol and ether if evaporated. At the same time in Florida, John Gorrie began experiments evaporating huge blocks of ice. Willis CarrierFinally in 1902, the first modern air conditioning unit was invented by Willis Carrier. Carrier wanted a way to cool down the rooms of a lithograph company in Brooklyn, New York. He used similar technology to that of a heater; to heat a room, one could push air through hot coils. Carrier reversed the process to push air through cold coils. This not only cooled the room, but it also lowered the humidity. Today: Modern A/C is Almost EverywhereNow air conditioners are available for everyday use in modern homes. Most modern buildings even use a more complex system, called HVAC, which stands for heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. These sophisticated systems can process an entire building’s need for all three types of air flow. Thanks to people like Carrier, Franklin and Faraday, we now lead more comfortable lives. For quality HVAC services in your Kansas City, KS home, call KB Complete at (816) 327-1709 .
Many Americans are turning to their air conditioners to combat the current heat wave. These artificial breezes are a relatively novel innovation, however, as this history of air conditioning explains. Throughout the ages, humans have gone to great lengths to keep cool, from transporting mountains of snow to putting their underwear in the icebox, as Will Oremus reported in 2011. His original article is reprinted below. Anyone tempted to yearn for a simpler time must reckon with a few undeniable unpleasantries of life before modern technology: abscessed teeth, chamber pots, the bubonic plague—and a lack of air conditioning in late July. As temperatures rise into the triple digits across the eastern United States, it’s worth remembering how we arrived at the climate-controlled summer environments we have today. Until the 20th century, Americans dealt with the hot weather as many still do around the world: They sweated and fanned themselves. Primitive air-conditioning systems have existed since ancient times, but in most cases, these were so costly and inefficient as to preclude their use by any but the wealthiest people. In the United States, things began to change in the early 1900s, when the first electric fans appeared in homes. But cooling units have only spread beyond American borders in the last couple of decades, with the confluence of a rising global middle class and breakthroughs in energy-efficient technology. Attempts to control indoor temperatures began in ancient Rome, where wealthy citizens took advantage of the remarkable aqueduct system to circulate cool water through the walls of their homes. The emperor Elagabalus took things a step further in the third century, building a mountain of snow—imported from the mountains via donkey trains—in the garden next to his villa to keep cool during the summer. Marvelously inefficient, the effort presaged the spare-no-cost attitude behind our modern-day central air-conditioning systems. Even back then some scoffed at the concept of fighting heat with newfangled technologies. Seneca, the stoic philosopher, mocked the “skinny youths” who ate snow to keep cool rather than simply bearing the heat like a real Roman ought to. Such luxuries disappeared during the Dark Ages, and large-scale air-conditioning efforts didn’t resurface in the West until the 1800s, when well-funded American engineers began to tackle the problem. In the intervening centuries, fans were the coolant of choice. Hand fans were used in China as early as 3,000 years ago, and a second-century Chinese inventor has been credited with building the first room-sized rotary fan (it was powered by hand). Architecture also played a major role in pre-modern temperature control. In traditional Middle Eastern construction, windows faced away from the sun, and larger buildings featured “wind towers” designed to catch and circulate the prevailing breezes. In late 19th-century America, engineers had the money and the ambition to pick up where the Romans had left off. In 1881, a dying President James Garfield got a respite from Washington, D.C.’s oppressive summer swelter thanks to an awkward device involving air blown through cotton sheets doused in ice water. Like Elagabalus before him, Garfield’s comfort required enormous energy consumption; his caretakers reportedly went through half a million pounds of ice in two months. The big breakthrough, of course, was electricity. Nikola Tesla’s development of alternating current motors made possible the invention of oscillating fans in the early 20th century. And in 1902, a 25-year-old engineer from New York named Willis Carrier invented the first modern air-conditioning system. The mechanical unit, which sent air through water-cooled coils, was not aimed at human comfort, however; it was designed to control humidity in the printing plant where he worked. In 1922, he followed up with the invention of the centrifugal chiller, which added a central compressor to reduce the unit’s size. It was introduced to the public on Memorial Day weekend, 1925, when it debuted at the Rivoli Theater in Times Square. For years afterward, people piled into air-conditioned movie theaters on hot summer days, giving rise to the summer blockbuster. Europeans have been slower to embrace air conditioning, but like cold beer and ice water, it’s beginning to catch on there, too. Data on air conditioning in the developing world is scarce, but it’s safe to say most Africans and South Asians still make do without it. A recent Times of India article on how to stay cool in summer recommended wearing linens and drinking lots of fluids to avoid heat stroke. The modern Indian version of iced tea on the front porch? Nimbu paani from a street cart.
The history of air conditioner started in the early days with the need to preserve foods. Foods that are kept at room temperature spoil easily due to the growth of bacteria. At temperature below 4°C (40°F), the growth of bacteria is reduced rapidly. As a result of the development in food refrigeration, other applications that follows include air conditioning, humidity control and manufacturing processes. The discovery of the principles of the absorption type of refrigeration in 1824 showed that liquefied ammonia could chill air when it is allowed to evaporate. Ice was created using compressor technology in the year 1842 by a physician named John Gorrie.  The commercially available of air conditioning applications started based on the need to cool air for industrial processes than for personal comfort. The first electrical air conditioning was invented by Willis Haviland Carrier in the year 1902. He was also known as the Father of Modern Air Conditioning. His invention was designed to improve the manufacturing process of a printing plant. By controlling the temperature and humidity of the plant, the processes were made more efficient as the paper size and the ink alignment were consistently maintained. The Carrier Air Conditioning Company of America was established by him to meet the demand of better productivity in the workplace. Today, Carrier Corporation is the biggest air conditioner manufacturer and marketing corporation in the world in central air conditioning. The discovery of Freon in 1928 by Thomas Midgley, Jr., a safer refrigerant to humans compared to the toxic and flammable gases such as ammonia, propane and methyl chloride sparks the invention of air conditioning systems for residential, industrial and commercial applications. Unfortunately, the use of CFC and HCFC refrigerants are causing the depletion of ozone layer in our atmosphere that is causing harmful rays to penetrate our earth. Newer ozone friendly refrigerants have been developed to replace refrigerants such as R-11, R-12 and R-22 to name a few. Non-ozone depletion refrigerant such as R-410a has been used in newer air conditioning systems. History Of Air Conditioner and Refrigeration
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