When I think about the benefits of indoor heating, ventilating, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVACR), basic comfort and convenience are what first come to mind. But what an enormous oversimplification! In truth, the fields of HVACR have been prime movers, allowing for the formation and growth of countless industries.
I’m partway through the book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, by Steven Johnson, but I have already jumped to the back to read through Johnson’s list of important inventions of the western world in our common era. One entry alerted me that the designer of the first modern air-conditioning system, Willis H. Carrier, has a name that continues on through the company he created, and the associated story speaks volumes to me as a writer and editor.
What drove the development of Carrier’s inaugural A/C system in 1902 was a quality control concern at a printing plant, Sackett and Wilhelm’s in Brooklyn, NY. It was summertime, and I wouldn’t doubt that the living was sweaty. Paper is sensitive to changes in humidity; it is vulnerable to swelling, curling, or stiffening, tendencies that will impact its interactions with machinery and with inks. Carrier’s early design, along with his refinements throughout the early third of the 20th century, brought together air circulation and ventilation, temperature control, humidity control, and air cleansing.
But the benefit to printing and publishing doesn’t end with creating the climate suitable for paper and ink. Jump to the new ways air conditioning forwards the work of the publishing business, and has even made “publishing” ubiquitous everywhere on the World Wide Web. Here at Forester Media, while we do produce printed copies of our six magazine titles, the bulk of our day-to-day work is done through interactions over the Internet, and the material that moves within those information highways, along with our digital archives, demand the ’round-the-clock work of data centers that must be kept cool.
Inventions, like a room full of servers, tend to stack up upon one another. HVACR advances have clearly allowed for growth and innovation in industries like pharmaceutical testing and manufacture, where temperature has to be kept within tight parameters. Health care and hospitals must have finely-tuned HVACR for operating rooms and labs, as well as for overall mitigation of disease spread. Refrigeration has completely changed the ways that food moves from place to place. Think of all the cookbooks that would not have been written, and the cooking programs that could never have been produced, if chefs could only use what was regionally available. The Carrier website points out that the burgeoning of the film industry, with all its summertime blockbusters, would not have been possible without A/C. Archiving of heritage films and digital storage falls under the HVACR banner, too.
Not only are the products and processes we rely upon cradled in thermally controlled environments as much as we are, how well we work is impacted by temperature. A study published in 2006 by the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, conducted as a joint effort with Helsinki University of Technology, found that workplace performance is most effective when temperatures are between 69.8°F and 71.6°F, with the highest productivity being seen at around 71.6°F. The exact desired temperature is bound to vary from person to person, but suffice it to say, we are comfortable, therefore we produce. Among our goals at Business Energy is to keep our readers informed about technologies that allow our HVACR needs to be carried out as energy efficiently as possible.
The side of HVAC I have not yet touched on, and the one we’re most concerned with this time of year, is heating. When the humble flesh of our team goes from relatively mild California to attend January’s AHR (Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration) Expo in chilly Chicago, it will certainly be my focus. As with A/C, heating is about more than personal comfort, and products and processes that create heat and contain heat have been essential to the growth of some industry sectors. I point you to our Boilers and Hot Water Special Supplement, where you’ll read about on-demand hot water heaters, upgrades in pumping, on-board boiler controls, thermal blankets for steam systems, and a great deal more.
Whatever you are doing today and in the next few days, whether the activities be work or play, ask yourself if HVACR is contributing not only to your comfort, but also to the building blocks of your undertakings. And then, drink a toast to HVACR—hot or iced!
Nancy Gross is the editor of Business Energy.
