Archive for July, 2010

With rising temperatures all over the world, we are hard pressed to get by without air conditioning. It is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. But when you think about it, air conditioners really haven’t been around for long.
The first form of air cooling was created around 1841 by John Gorrie when malaria and yellow fever swept the world. He was a doctor in South Carolina that believed cooler air would help reduce fevers so his patients would get well faster. He had snow shipped in from the mountains which he suspended from the ceiling in a basin connected to a pipe that went through the roof. As the air around the snow was cooled, the air contracted creating a vacuum and pulling air from outside through the pipe. This created cool air flowing throughout the room. Doctor Gorrie realized that shipping snow was impractical, and even impossible in the winter, so he then invented a man-made ice maker. After he died, his efforts in air conditioning also died.
Air conditioners as we know them were first created in 1902. Willis Carrier needed a way to cool and remove humidity from a printing plant so pages wouldn’t wrinkle. He found a way to use coils to remove moisture and cool the air before creating the first mass air conditioner manufacturing plant. The first unit was installed in 1914, but air conditioners were too bulky and needed too many chemicals to be practical in homes.
In the early 1930’s Carrier invented a unit to cool movie theaters that cost between $10,000 and $50,000. Even during the Great Depression, theater owners made sure to invest in an air conditioner! By the late 30’s, window units were available.
In the early days, air conditioners were considered a luxury that most business owners wouldn’t buy. Throughout the 1940’s and 50’s studies were conducted to show that worker productivity increased in buildings that were air conditioned. By 1957, people stopped believing that air conditioning made workers lazy; close to 90% of companies attributed higher productivity to air conditioning.
Not even 60 years after the first modern air conditioner was invented, it had already become a necessity! Nowadays, we can’t even imagine a life without it. We are so dependent on air conditioning that we have to become more energy efficient just to avoid energy crisis. Maybe if we all remembered that our grandparents didn’t have in home air conditioners, we would be a little more willing to cut out energy consumption.