It’s Cool to Celebrate the Invention of Air Conditioning

While we aren’t feeling it now, we will honor the invention of the air conditioner when we hit mid-July.

But because Feb. 11 is National Inventor’s Day, it’s a perfect time to celebrate the contributions Willis Carrier made to the cooling industry in 1902.

Ironically, Carrier’s invention was unexpected and was given a “chilly” reception at first.

If you’ve ever tried to work without A/C indoors in August, you know how A/C changed the world.

The Invention

Willis didn’t set out to cool the indoors when he discovered air conditioning.

At Brooklyn’s Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographic and Publishing Company, the printer would sweat and produce blurred copies when the temperature rose. Carrier, an experimental engineer, was commissioned by the printing company to prevent this from happening.

Carrier created a method to use an industrial fan to blow air over steam coils filled with cold water. The excess humidity that was the bane of the printer’s production quality would condense on the coils.

This cooled the air and brought the temperature down. The workers immediately noticed the cooler air and began to feel some relief from the heat.

Cooler Heads

Once it was discovered that Carrier’s machine cooled office space, he decided that he should tinker with it. He needed it to be smaller and more targeted. By 1922, he had created the smaller, safer and more powerful centrifugal refrigeration compressor.

But, believe it or not, some people balked at the idea of cooling the environment. Never mind that people had built fires in their homes for centuries to keep warm, the idea of cooling a home was different. Some people thought that the notion of controlling the environment was an affront to God’s will.

Still, air conditioning was making inroads, and it would be the movies that brought cool air to the public at large.

A/C in Every Business and Home

During the summer months, movie theaters had to compete with outdoor activities. By the 1920s and 30s, they started installing Willis’s latest invention and advertised their cool air. People who were tired of the heat would pay money to sit in the cool air and watch a double feature.

But it wasn’t until the 1950s—when keeping up with the Joneses hit its peak—that in-home air conditioning hit the post-war market. It became common for people to add air conditioning to their homes in addition to the standard heating units.

Today, we can’t imagine enduring the summer without air conditioning.

At Petri Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Drain Cleaning, we’ve been in business since 1906, shortly after Carrier created the air conditioning. While we started by fixing Brooklyn’s plumbing, our expansion into HVAC service means we also have decades of experience repairing A/C.

If your heating isn’t working or you’d like to consider a new air conditioning system before the summer, call your Brooklyn HVAC experts at (718) 717-1089 or contact us online.