This Was the First Air Conditioning Unit

Comments · 179

• BR

  @brianlittle717 · 1 year ago

  When was the first argument about how to set the thermostat?

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• DA

  @davel7014 · 1 year ago

  God bless this man. Air Conditioning has made life livable in areas where it would be brutal without it.

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• FI

  @filanfyretracker · 1 year ago

  Air conditioning is also part of how the movie industry fought Television. As TV was growing in the 40s and 50s the cinema needed something to get people back again, Anamorphic wide screen and color were one and AC was another. Because on a hot summer day you could now go see a movie in a cool room, Something you could not do at home back then(most people lacked an AC unit in that era). Of course once the movies became a hot day refuge we got the summer blockbuster.

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• PO

  @pony053 · 1 year ago

  I've worked for a Carrier dealer for a long time.  They have sold the product since 1945,  Thanks for posting, very interesting since my dad worked in rotogravure printing.  Sidenote:  Willis Carrier is spinning in his grave however, as United Technologies, like most big corporations has ruined his good name!

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• PE

  @peterbaxter8151 · 1 year ago

  The oldest air conditioner I have seen is in J Ward, the lunatic asylum. At the highest point in the old jail they used as a hospital is a fireplace. At the end of a vey hot day as the air cooled outside, they lit a fire in it and then closed the doors to the fire so it had to draw oxygen through vents that went to each cell. The hot air in the cell was removed and fresh, cool night air was drawn into the cell through the windows. The year this was built? 1858-1862.

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• JA

  @JAMs6504 · 1 year ago

  The single most important invention.

  4

• AW

  @awackocrank · 1 year ago

  I remember a story where a dentist in Los Angeles saw some of the earliest mechanical refrigerators built for the home being sold.  The way they were built was to have the compressor and condenser on the top of the cabinet and the evaporator would hang down into the cavity.  He bought several of these domestic units and took the working tops off.  Then he had a plenum built and the refrigerator tops mounted so that a fan would direct air past the cold evaporators and into his office and hot air from the condensers directed outdoors.  It worked.  He was exceptionally sweaty before, dripping sweat onto his patients, but with air cooling in his office his practice became more popular.   It was well worth it for him.

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• OC

  @ocsrc · 1 year ago

  Before 1950 you didn&apos;t see many people in places like Flagstaff or Phoenix <br>But the Rural Electrification Program and A/C made the southwest population grow out of control

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• JF

  @jfwfreo · 1 year ago

  One of the big early users of air-conditioners were tobacco factories in the southern US where the air-conditioners helped reduce tobacco dust and improved the quality of the products.

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• SP

  @Spokaneman2 · 1 year ago

  Grew up in Dallas in the 50’s. No AC until I was about 14. Up till then we didn’t know any better.

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• PA

  @paddybm3245 · 1 year ago

  I worked in an old Palais in Vienna that was remodeled last in the late 40s and one day I decided to check out the basement. I found a Carrier machine the size of a garage down there. My office was situated right above it and I had to sweat through many hot summers in in not knowing that the people living there had cold air in hot summers 70 years earlier.

  1

• AI

  @aidenp265 · 1 year ago

  The coolest system I’ve seen (pun not intended) is in the Fox Theater in Atlanta, GA, but in 1929, the theater still uses its two old coal fired steam boilers, its original 1930’s carrier centrifuge chiller, air wash plenum, and 20 foot tall 50 hp electric blower. In the hot southern summers when the new system gets overwhelmed, the in-house engineer throws the switch to the original 30’s system and can cool down the entire theater in less than 15 minutes

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