Domestic air conditioning is not considered to be one of the vital components of everyday comfort. It is necessary to have effective heating and air conditioning to enjoy a good night’s sleep and a productive day indoors. Being able to feel comfortable and safe is important to our sense of wellbeing. Modern air conditioning has taken over a century of work from scientists, inventors, and designers. So, before you switch on your AC, you might be interested to know a little history behind your unit.
The Timeline of Central HVAC Systems:
1758- Professor John Hadley and Benjamin Franklin were at Cambridge University when they discovered that volatile liquids, for example, alcohol can evaporate quickly enough to cause water to freeze. In England, the inventor Michael Faraday discovered this same principle approximately 60 years later.
1830- Dr. John Gorrie built a cooling system for use in a Florida Hospital. The machine produced ice and cooled the room by blowing air over it.
1881- When President James Garfield was shot during an assassination attempt, the medical team thought that keeping him cool would aid his recovery. A team of engineers designed a cooling system which had a fan blowing over a box that was filled with ice and clothes soaked in cold water.
1902- Willis Carrier created the first air conditioning system in New York. This system is considered to be the base model for modern HVAC systems. The system designed by Carrier was able to lower the indoor temperature by up to 20 degrees and could also control humidity. The system used coil coils of water rather than ice, so the air passed over the coils was cooled.
1906- Stuart Cramer, a North Carolina textile mill engineer, developed a method of adding humidity back into the air using ventilation. Cramer coined the term “air conditioning”.
1931- J.Q Sherman and H.H Schultz designed and built the first air conditioner systems for homes. Unfortunately, the massive cost meant that these units were almost exclusively for the wealthy.
1939- Packard automobiles become the first vehicles available with an air conditioning system. Unfortunately, this AC system was not what we have come to expect in modern cars. The system could only be controlled from outside the vehicle or under the hood. Dashboard controls would still be decades away.
The 1950s- Since the end of WWII, the resulting economic boom meant that over a million homes were outfitted with domestic individual air conditioning systems.
The 1970s- The small air conditioner units offered by Sherman and Schultz were expanded and developed as central air conditioning systems for the whole home. The systems used the ventilation system inside the home to distribute air which was conditioned by passing over coils filled with refrigerant.
Modern Air Conditioning:
Since the 1970s, there have been numerous developments in domestic air conditioning. Modern system feature zone controls, programmable thermostats and timers, and app compatibility. This means that homeowners can customize their air conditioning to perfectly suit their requirements and personal preferences.