Air Conditioning

Air Conditioning History

Moving heat through a machine to provide air conditioning is still quite modern, however the cooling of buildings has been around for years. Going as far back as the Ancient Romans, they were known to have circulated Aqueduct water through the walls in some houses to cool them. Back in those days the constant flow of water came at a huge expense and was only viable to those of extreme wealth. In those days Air conditioning was a total luxury. In the 2nd century a Chinese inventor called “Ding Huan” of the “Han Dynasty” invented the rotating fan for Air conditioning. The fan had 7 Wheels at a length of 3 meters in diameter and was rotated manually.

There were advances then in 747 when another Chinese inventor called Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty had the Cool Hall built in the well known imperial Palace. The “Tang Yulin” Describes it as having water- powered fan wheels for conditioning air aswell as rising jet streams or water from the fountains.

Medival Persia also had buildings that had cisterns and used wind towers to cool the buildings during the hotter seasons. ( The cisterns back in those days were large open pools in the centre of courtyards and were never underground.)Cisterns were used to collect rain water, also the wind towers had windows in which it could catch the wind and force it down and usually sent over the cistern to cool the air. After travelling over the cistern it would travel through a downwind cooling tower. The water from the cistern evaporated, cooling the air in the building.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 11:02 am and is filed under History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.