Residential Air Conditioning, Essay Example

Throughout human history, man has constantly sought new ways to change his environment to suit his needs. From the first fires built to warm our caves, to the latest in modern heating and air conditioning, we have shaped the world around us in a constant effort to improve the quality of our lives. The advent of modern air conditioning, while a relatively recent phenomenon, is a direct descendent of the endless effort we have made to improve the world around us.

There have been a thousand steps, some small, some large, towards the use of air conditioning in our homes. On the macro scale were epochal shifts like the development of agricultural; no longer would man traipse around the land at the whims of nature, hunting and gathering his meals and relying on the mercy of the fates to provide. We learned to cultivate crops, and to raise animals for meat and skins, and to make the perhaps the single most significant change in our way of lives: the ability to stay in one place. With man’s newfound permanence came the growth of homes and cities, from which followed the eventual rise of manufacturing and industry. As were so many of our modern conveniences, air conditioning was first developed for use in the military and industry, before eventually being adapted for use in our homes.

Long before efforts to cool our homes began came efforts to heat them. While an abundance of heat in the home is typically more an inconvenience than an actual danger, a lack of it can quickly prove deadly. For millennia, man burned wood and coal to heat homes and places of business; eventually, other technologies, like the burning of oil and gas, and the use of electricity, added to and supplanted these earlier methods (Whitman, Johnson, Tomczyk; 2005). With the ability to heat our homes, man was able to eventually conquer the globe, adapting the coldest of environments into liveable space.

In warmer climates, homes and businesses adapted to the environment with a variety of means. Homes were built with wide awnings, high ceilings, and large, expansive porches designed not just for sitting in the shade, but for sleeping in on hot summer nights. Huge windows and breezeways provided more opportunities for warm, stifling air to move, affording at least some small measure of relief (Whitman, Johnson, Tomczyk; 2005). With the development of electricity came the next step towards air conditioning: the electric fan. This development meant, in many cases, that people could spend more time indoors in the hottest days and nights, as the fans could move the trapped, overheated air from apartments and houses back outside, ameliorating the discomfort level at least somewhat (Ra-Jac Sales & Service, 2010).

The emergence of electricity led to the development of some early, faltering steps towards what we now call “air conditioning.” When President Garfield was lying in his deathbed, his doctors and aides utilized a rudimentary system of air conditioning that blew air through water-soaked sheets. Though remarkably effective in lowering the air temperature, it required literally tons of ice to keep the sheets cooled to the proper level (Whitman, Johnson, Tomczyk; 2005).

This method, among others, foreshadowed the eventual development of the “air conditioning” that we would recognize today, though it would still be several decades before we had readily-available systems for cooling our homes. The earliest prototypes of these systems were designed not for homes, but for business, and were concerned not with cooling the air, but with removing the humidity from the air. As it turned out, the cooling effect was a somewhat incidental, if certainly welcome, side-effect of the “de-humidifying” process.

In 1902, William Carrier, then a recent Cornell graduate, was working at a printing plant in Brooklyn. His employer had a problem: fluctuations in humidity were causing the paper in the plant to expand and contract, which led to slight, but perceptible shifts and misalignments in the printing process. Carrier devised a system that blew air across chilled cooling coils, lowering the temperature and reducing the humidity (Bellis, 2010). This system, rudimentary as it was, would lead directly to the air conditioning systems we now have in our homes.

Improvements in the design would follow over the years, but the basic concept remained the same: various chemical coolants were pumped through a system of tubes, and air was forced across these tubes; the resulting chilled air was then pumped into the surrounding environment, reducing ambient heat and humidity. Over time, highly-toxic coolants such as ammonia were replaced with safer alternatives, and improvements in efficiency and design led to ever-smaller systems; these improvements meant that air conditioning could eventually migrate from huge, industrial applications to units small enough to fit into the windows of houses and apartments (Bellis, 2010).

This migration was slowed somewhat by World War II; in some cases, cooling systems that had been installed in stores, theaters, and other businesses were actually “borrowed” for military applications, and returned for re-installation after the war (Whitman, Johnson, Tomczyk; 2005). While the start of the war slowed the development of residential air conditioning, the end of the war hastened it. The economic boom of post-WWII America meant more people could afford creature comforts, and air conditioning soon found its way into thousands, and eventually millions of homes. At first, the demand for home air conditioning far outstripped the supply; it would be years before the industry would catch up, and air conditioning would become nearly ubiquitous in homes around the country (Whitman, Johnson, Tomczyk; 2005).

The revolution of residential air conditioning would go on to substantially influence the growth and development of the U.S. in the 20^th Century. Buildings were no longer limited in design by having to allow for changes in exterior temperatures; this led to the development of modern, glass-walled high-rises and completely altered the design of homes, which no longer needed breezeways, high ceilings, and “sleeping porches.” The explosive population and industrial growth in the southern and southwestern states, from Arizona to Florida, was a direct result of the development of air conditioning (Whitman, Johnson, Tomczyk; 2005).

The air conditioning that we think of today began almost as an accident, an invention forced by necessity to control the environment in industrial applications. Soon it became a novelty that drove curious customers into theaters and department stores. And finally, as it grew within reach of the average consumer, it became not just a tool that we used to shape our environments, but something that –like many of history’s greatest inventions- also shaped us, allowing us to conquer the harshest of environments. Even the astronauts who visited the moon counted on cooling systems in their spacesuits to survive the near-boiling temperatures of the lunar surface. Though it is something we typically take for granted, it is without a doubt among the most significant inventions –for both good and for ill- in our history, opening up literally every inch of the globe for the expansive growth of humanity.

Works Cited

“The History of Air Conditioning.” Ra-Jac Sales & Services. N.p., 2010. Web. 24 Oct 2010. <http://air-conditioners-and-heaters.com/air_conditioning_history.html>.

Whitman, William C., William M. Johnson, and John A. Tomczyk. Refrigeration & Air Conditioning Technology . Fifth. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning, 2005. Print.

Bellis, Mary. “The Father of Cool.” About.com:Inventors. N.p., 2010. Web. 24 Oct 2010. <http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa081797.htm>.