ASHRAE Insights

The year 2008 is the centennial anniversary of the modern definition of air conditioning.

G. B. Wilson published a book, Air Conditioning, in 1908. This was the first engineering book on air conditioning, the term air conditioning having been used for the first time in 1906.

On page 112 he wrote that the purpose of air conditioning was:
1. To maintain a suitable degree of humidity in all seasons and in all parts of a building.
2. To free the air from excessive humidity during certain seasons.
3. To supply a constant and adequate supply of ventilation.
4. To efficiently wash and free the air from all microorganisms, effluvias, dust, soot and other foreign bodies.
5. To efficiently cool the air of the rooms during certain seasons.
6. To either heat the rooms in winter or to help to heat them.
7. To combine all of the above in an apparatus that will not be commercially prohibitive in first cost or cost of maintenance.