Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
The purpose of an air conditioner today is rather obvious, which is to make a hot room cooler. But that was not the problem Willis Carrier was trying to solve in 1902. A 25-year-old engineer working for the Buffalo Forge Company, he had been asked to deal with a very different problem at a printing plant in Brooklyn, New York, which was the problem of humidity.
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SO, WHAT WAS GOING WRONG?
Changes in humidity were affecting the paper used for colour printing at the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company. The paper would expand and contract as moisture levels changed, which made it difficult to line up different colours on the same sheet, while excess moisture also interfered with the ink.
For a printing company, this was not just an uncomfortable workplace; it was a production problem, and Carrier began working on a system that could control the moisture in the air. On July 17, 1902, he completed the drawings for what became the first modern air-conditioning system.
HOW DID COOLING THE AIR SOLVE A HUMIDITY PROBLEM?
Carrier’s system passed air over coils containing cold water. As the warm, humid air came into contact with the cold coils, moisture condensed out of the air. The air leaving the system was therefore both cooler and less humid, and that was the important part.
Carrier was controlling the amount of moisture in the air, not simply trying to lower the temperature. The first system was designed to maintain about 55 per cent relative humidity at the printing plant. The equipment was installed during the summer of 1902, with an ammonia compressor added the following spring to handle the demands of a full summer of operation. And it worked, as the paper became more stable, which allowed the printing process to run more reliably.
THEN PEOPLE REALISED THE AIR FELT BETTER
The workers at the plant were not the original reason for the invention, but there was an obvious side effect. The same process that removed moisture from the printing room also lowered its temperature, which changed how people thought about the technology.
Carrier soon began developing systems for other industries where temperature and humidity mattered. Textile mills were among the early users, because humidity could affect the manufacturing process, and eventually, other industries followed.
The idea of using air conditioning for human comfort took longer. In 1904, mechanical cooling was used at the St. Louis World’s Fair, which gave the public an early experience of cooled indoor air. In the 1920s, better systems began appearing in theatres, where keeping audiences comfortable became a major commercial opportunity.
IT TOOK DECADES TO REACH THE HOME
Carrier’s early machines were large industrial systems. In 1913, Carrier engineers sold a residential air-conditioning system to Charles Gates for his mansion in Minneapolis, although Gates died before the house was occupied. Smaller and cheaper systems took decades to develop.
By the time air conditioning became widely available in homes after the Second World War, its purpose had changed in the public imagination. The machine that had begun as a way to keep paper from behaving badly was now something people associated with summer comfort, which is why the history of air conditioning started in a printing plant, not a living room. Carrier was trying to control humidity, so a printing press could work properly, and cooling people came later.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
