An Ode to AC Inventor, Willis Carrier®

Without the father of modern day air conditioning, where would the HVAC industry be? Perhaps we’d be servicing homes with industrial-sized fans instead of central heating and cooling systems. They’d get the job done for sure, but certainly not as quietly, conveniently and effectively as the units we use today! For that reason, today we’d like to celebrate Willis and all he did for the industry.

 

Who was Willis Carrier^®?

In short, he was an engineer, an inventor, and an all around genius! He was born on November 26, 1876, in Angola, NY and passed away on October 7, 1950, in New York City — but not before leaving a long legacy behind! One that lives on today in the Carrier^® company, of which we’re a proud authorized dealer and installer.

What made him interested in air conditioning?

Willis completed his engineering degree from Cornell University in 1901 and began working at Buffalo Forge Company, a respected supplier of forges, fans and hot blast heaters, that same year. In 1902, just one year later, he set out to solve a production problem at the Sackett & Wilhelms Lithography and Printing Company in Brooklyn, New York. His task? To figure out how to control the humidity in an indoor environment — something that had never been done before.

When did genius strike?

The idea for the first air conditioner first came, as many great ideas do, when Willis was least expecting it. He was standing on a train platform one foggy Pittsburgh morning when he realized that if he could just figure out how to pass air through a fog of sorts, he could dry it out and dehumidify it. It wasn’t long after that the first set of cooling coils was installed in the plant — he called it his “apparatus for treating air,” and had it officially patented on January 2, 1906.

Willis Carrier^® went on to found the Carrier^® Engineering Corporation in 1915 and was awarded honorary doctorates from both Lehigh University (1935) and Alfred University (1942) before he passed. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1985 and was named one of TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century” in 1998.

As you can see, Willis Carrier^® has a profound and long-lasting impact on the HVAC industry, and for that, all of us here at Tyler can’t thank him enough!

Tyler Heating, Air Conditioning, Refrigeration LLC is a full-services heating and cooling contractor serving Fairfield County, New Haven County, and the surrounding areas. For more information on our available HVAC services, call 203-378-4700 or request a service appointment online today.