The following article was published in ASHRAE Journal, June, 2002.

© Copyright 2002 American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-

Conditioning Engineers, Inc. It is presented for educational purposes only. This article may not be copied and/or distributed electronically or in
paper form without permission of ASHRAE.

100 Years of Air Conditioning

By Bernard Nagengast, Member ASHRAE

n 1902, heat and humidity was ruining a publication being printed in Forge. Lyle realized that a solution to
I color in Brooklyn, N.Y. At that time, the art and science of air condi-
tioning was just beginning to evolve. Solving this printing problem lead
accurate humidity control would open
up a sales opportunity in industrial ap-
plications. Lyle asked Carrier to find the
to the start of industrial process air conditioning, as nurtured by a young answer.
Carrier later recalled the uniqueness
engineer named Willis Haviland Carrier.
and difficulty of his task, “We went at
the subject backwards. A more normal
Carrier had recently graduated from The Sackett-Wilhelms Printing and Pub- approach, the front way, would have been
Cornell University and was working at lishing Company in Brooklyn, N.Y., was to humidify the air and control its mois-
Buffalo Forge Company, a manufacturer known for its high quality color print- ture content at a level higher than in out-
of fan-type heating systems. He was busy ing, which involved feeding paper door air. But here we were, designing a
with heating system and fan design prob- through printing presses multiple times, system to hold the moisture content at a
lems but soon realized that data for fan each color printed separately. If the heat specified level that was lower than in air
and steam heater sizing was inadequate, and humidity changed during the pro- out of doors. We started the hard way.”1
inaccurate or non-existent. cess, the paper size changed slightly, Carrier set up experiments to see what
Research in this area began to consume causing some colors to print slightly off would result in effective humidity con-
his spare time, which was limited because the mark, resulting in “off-registry.” trol. First, he tried using calcium chlo-
his job required him to work ten hours a Off registry caused much waste, and ride brine as a hygroscopic agent.
day, six days a week. Carrier convinced sometimes the presses couldn’t be run at “I rigged up a burlap cloth on two roll-
Buffalo Forge management that accurate all on very humid days. Sackett-Wilhelms ers. A fan pulled air through the cloth.
data meant saving money by reducing the asked consulting engineer William Timmis The cloth was wetted continuously with
amount of “cut and try” engineering. They if he could solve the printing problem.
allowed him to assemble a small research Timmis recognized that the answer was About the Author
facility to do experimental engineering. to accurately control the humidity within Bernard Nagengast is a consulting engineer
in Sidney, Ohio. He is a member of the ASHRAE
Carrier’s experimental facility was certain limits. Since this had never been
Historical Committee and is co-author of
hardly operational when he was asked done before, he contacted J. Irvine Lyle ASHRAE’s centennial history book: Heat & Cold:
to solve a unique engineering problem. at the New York sales office of Buffalo Mastering the Great Indoors.

Timeline of Air-Conditioning History

pr co sp 1 “a te 19 En to “ 1 m
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g l s ty : W
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t
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oo e es t a ty ic h e ra y er ge
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m ec la e to r th or v
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id an ,” s rs io di
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a l of

44 June 2002|ASHRAE Journal

 Air Conditioning

a saturated solution of cal- placed side by side. The

cium chloride brine. Every- supply ducts were provided
thing except the fan was at the base with mixing
manually operated. As I dampers and connected to
thought the tests would not a divided horizontal duct
take more than four or five forming two distinct ducts
days…. Manpower was for two supplies of differ-
cheaper for a short test; a man ent characteristics of tem-
to dip brine from a barrel and perature. The vertical re-
pour it over the cloth, and a turn flue or ducts all con-
man to turn the rollers.”1 nected to one main return
Although the test re- duct and thence ran to a
vealed some new relation- fore-cooler chamber and
ships to Carrier, the experi- from there to the chambers
ment was suspended when First air-conditioning plant at Brooklyn, N.Y., printing company. in which the cooling coils
Carrier realized that the ex- were placed.”
iting air was dehumidified, but contained of the printing plant, where the Timmis performed tests in September
minute salt spray droplets, an unwelcome multicolor printing presses were located. 1904 that showed a reduction in relative
contaminant in a printing plant. The cooling plant was retrofitted to an humidity from 86 to 63%.3
Next, Carrier constructed an appara- existing “hot blast” or fan-type heating The Carrier archive records at Cornell
tus to cool the air below its dew point. system, and was supposed to maintain University indicate that the dehumidifi-
Air was fan-induced over a cast iron 80°F (27°C) and 55% relative humidity cation plant did not work as well as ex-
steam heater. Cold Lake Erie water was in summer. pected, possibly because of circulation
substituted for steam. Using weather bu- To reach the design condition, Carrier problems in the pipe coils and airside
reau data, Carrier decided on a dew point installed galvanized pipe coils before the problems. Apparently, these drawbacks
to obtain the humidity level he wanted, fan. The coils were designed to provide could not be addressed satisfactorily and
and designed a system, through experi- 60 tons (211 kW) of cooling, half from the system was removed. The Sackett-
mentation, specifying the amount of de- cold well water and half from mechani- Wilhelms system is not featured in
humidifying surface, its operating tem- cal refrigeration. Carrier’s first air-conditioning catalog is-
perature, the quantity of air and the re- At first, well water was used alone, the sued in 1908, although other printing
sulting air temperature. refrigerating plant not being installed plant installations are featured.
Carrier turned over the design to Lyle, until 1903.2
who convinced Sackett-Wihelms to Timmis, who initiated the printing The Significance of Sackett-Wilhelms
buy the system, which was the first sys- plant job, described the airside of the Carrier said later that he “realized that
tem designed to maintain a constant hu- system, “Circulation of the air was by the design was not the final answer for
midity level. means of an engine-driven plate fan de- controlling the moisture content of the
signed to give an air change every 15 air, so began working toward a design that
The Dehumidification Plant minutes. The system was arranged for would be the answer.”4 He continued to
Carrier’s dehumidification plant was recirculation by means of vertical flues theorize and experiment, which led him
intended to condition the second floor and the supply and return ducts were to develop successful dew-point control

Air-Conditioning History (1930 – 1950)

C
of &C 193
pe a t 1 co h Ca 19 an lo l 1
rso ir- he 94 n u r d ng ivin 95
H Ke 0: na on ins 2:
c di m o 4
lin 8: ha e g 0:
ou lv F
i l d ta W tio idit a T ve r in in M
i
st na rst co iti lla ar ni y e m su air ajo
on to c m on tio tim ng co ove xti or m -c r
. r C ar fo in n e a nd r le w e m on st
a rt g o O b i s le er d ud
o. ir . T sy r
m rd ar tio tre ork isu , it y
fo o c he ste a e ga ns ss e re enj ion sh
r J nd m n r i n , m fu rs o ed ow
oh iti ban s s fa -3 u L ing a te tr l s tim y
n on is ol ctu 8 b i s
ki m ik
n e e. the ho s fa
H ed
am b lif ely re an su g pe in ir me m
te fo o s e. air rat N fo s ili
m y d r fn - ur o od sle es
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Jr. 19 an or
45 d e
.
ASHRAE Journal|June 2002 45
as a means of accurately controlling hu-
midity levels in air. He had achieved this
by 1905, and received a patent on the
apparatus. By 1906, Carrier had pub-
lished the first psychrometric chart in a
Buffalo Forge fan catalog.
Carrier later commented on his 1902–
03 experience in designing the dehu-
midification system for the printing
plant, “These early experiments,
prompted by a problem based upon a
comparatively small printing establish-
ment, started the trend of investigation
through which many of the fundamental
laws of evaporation, of humidity control
and of heat transfer were established...”5
Commenting upon the experiments
with calcium chloride to dehumidify air,
Carrier said, “...when calcium chloride,
or any other substance, absorbed mois-
ture out of the air an exactly correspond-
ing amount of latent heat was released in
the form of sensible heat. ... the observa-
tion of this one phenomenon led to a
train of thought, which eventually was
to become important. This experiment
disclosed the inter-relation of latent and
sensible heat in the air when its moisture
content was altered without the addition
or subtraction of external heat. It also led
to complimentary experiments upon the
process of evaporation of water into air
and, finally, into the development of the
principles upon which air conditioning
was founded.”6
The Sackett-Wilhelms installation
has been touted as “the first scientifi-
cally designed air-conditioning sys-
tem” or even “the first air-condition-
ing system.” However, the true signifi-
cance of Carrier’s first air-conditioning
job is that it started his thought and
experimentation process that ulti-
mately resulted in his greatest accom-
plishments: perfection of dew point
control and development of the psy-
chrometric chart.
As Carrier said, “...I worked on the first
problem of air conditioning, that of hu-
midifying and dehumidifying a litho-
graphic plant in Brooklyn. I then tried
cooling coils and calcium chloride in
laboratory experiments which, although
giving a great deal of fundamental data
with reference to moisture in the air and
its general pervasiveness, resulted tan-
gibly only in ruining two perfectly good
pairs of expensive shoes worn by my two
assistants just out of college.
“In 1906, however, four years later, the
first real air-conditioning installations
were installed based on practically the
same principles of equipment and opera-
tion used today.”7
The Sackett-
Wilhelms
Printing and
Publishing
Company in
Brooklyn, N.Y.
References
1. Ingels, M. 1950. “Willis Carrier, the fa-
ther of air conditioning.” Typed manuscript at
Department of Manuscripts and Archives,
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Acces-
sion 2511, p. 59.
2. Lewis, L. 1964. “Sacket-Wilhelms Print-
ing and Publishing Co. 1902, A technical re-
view of some heretofore unpublished
information.” Accession 2511, Department of
Manuscripts and Archives, Cornell University,
Ithaca, N.Y.
3. Anonymous. 1914. “New York (ASHVE)
chapter discusses control of atmospheric condi-
tions in printing establishments.” The Heating
and Ventilating Magazine 11(1):48.
4. Ingels, M. 1949. Letter to Samuel Fletcher,
Vice President, Sackett & Wilhelms Lithograph-
ing Corp., November 14. Accession 2511, De-
partment of Manuscripts and Archives, Cornell
University, Ithaca, N.Y.
5. Carrier, W. H. 1929. “Air conditioning —
its phenomenal development.” Heating and Ven-
tilating, 26(6):116.
6. Carrier, W. H. 1936. “Progress in air con-
ditioning in the last quarter century.” ASHVE
Transactions. 42:323.
7. Carrier, W. H. 1934. “Bright future of air
conditioning.” Heating and Ventilating,
31(5):24.

Air-Conditioning History (1969 – 1999)

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46 June 2002|ASHRAE Journal