The Influence That Controlling Air Temperatures Had on the Development of Our Nation
The utilization of hot water vapor to pass air in and out of heated coils led to the development of the earliest heaters to heat the air in factories. Designers began to consider reversing the steps to blow air over cold coils to lower the temperature of the air. In order to maximize output in the workplace, the new cooling machines circulated air across the cold condensers and thereby could cool the air to reduce the volume of moisture the air would maintain. Suitably, the workforce no longer had to undergo long hours in sweltering government buildings and stores. A precursor to a modern replacement air conditioners was the cooling system created by an American engineer by the name of Willis Carrier for a New York-based publishing firm. The first machine used coil chillers to decrease humidity with adjustable controls.
As the working class migrated to subtropical regions of our nation, the necessity for reducing room temperatures became significant and engineers quickly began to affirm the thought of chemically manipulating air temps. Commercial development initiated growth in the South that would dramatically affect where Americans worked and lived. Advances in air conditioning technology had an amazing chain reaction in hastening productivity and the U.S. industrial sector continued to move to the South. Heating and air manufacturing companies immediately formed to satisfy the rising demand for cooling systems and water furnace heat pumps. From then on, air conditioners have continued to improve the comfort in living quarters and companies.
One of the pioneering applications of conditioning air in the United States happened when President Garfield was nearing his demise. Engineers from the department of the Navy constructed a box-like structure that contained fabrics saturated with nearly frozen water while a fan blew hotter air overhead. The contraption lowered the the patient’s room by 20 degrees Fahrenheit but devoured over one half a million lbs. of ice in a couple of months. It just so happens that Islandaire units are considered to be a partial cause for the metamorphosis of the Southeast; and for most of us who have enjoyed its reduced temperatures in the midst of sweltering hot spells, it is a modern-day gadget that is impossible to live without.
