SIC 3585 Refrigeration and Heating Equipment
SIC 3585
This category includes establishments primarily engaged in the manufacture of commercial or industrial refrigeration equipment or domestic, commercial, or industrial air-conditioning units. Other equipment manufactured under this classification includes warm air furnaces, humidifiers and dehumidifiers, soda fountains, and beer dispensing machines. Similar equipment not covered by this category includes household refrigerators and freezers, and electric space heaters and portable humidifiers and dehumidifiers.
336391
Motor Vehicle Air Conditioning
333415
Air Conditioning and Warm Air Equipment and Commercial and Industrial Refrigeration Equipment Manufacturing
A trip to the local supermarket provides graphic evidence of the importance of the heating, refrigeration, and air-conditioning industry (HVAC) to modern American society. Many of the products found in the air-conditioned aisles, like fresh fruits or live fish, could never have been transported or maintained without cooling technology. The Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI) estimates that more than three-fourths of all foods consumed by Americans have been produced, packaged, shipped, stored, or preserved by refrigeration. Temperature control systems also have become common in shopping malls, commercial office buildings, schools, and hospitals. The total value of HVAC industry shipments in 2002 was $24.2 billion, down slightly from $25.0 billion 2001.
The demand for air-conditioning systems and room air conditioners is often dependent on the state of the nation's economy and the vagaries of the weather. New building construction is the most important market sector for the HVAC industry, which in turn is based on such market factors as interest, vacancy, and employment rates. During the early and mid-2000s the HVAC industry benefited from low interest rates and a healthy new-housing market, but weak economic conditions led to the stagnation of the commercial and industrial sectors.
Despite the poor health of the overall economy, shipments of central air-conditioners and heat pumps hit a record level of 6.7 million units in 2002 and passed 7.4 million units in 2004. However, most of these units were for single-dwelling housing as the industry and commercial sector continued to lag. Large unitary shipments dropped about 14 percent in 2002. However, consistent annual shipments in excess of 6 million units during the 2000s reflected an underlying stability in the industry, as compared to the early 1990s when unit shipments averaged 3.7 million annually. Heat pump shipments were up approximately 7 percent in 2004, totaling 3.52 million, compared to 3.27 million in 2003. Shipments of oil warm-air furnaces grew slightly, up 2.3 percent from 126,741 in 2003 to 129,715 in 2004. Sales during the fourth quarter of 2004 indicated an increase in commercial and industrial business.
Until the industrial revolution, refrigeration depended on the natural mediums of ice, snow, and water. The early Chinese harvested winter ice and packed it in dried straw for use in the summer. The Egyptians used porous earthenware jugs placed on their rooftops at night to cool their liquid contents by the natural process of evaporation. Since changing a liquid to a gas requires a considerable amount of heat energy, the liquid remaining in the containers became much cooler by morning. During colonial times, the ice hut was a familiar part of the landscape. It used the Chinese concept of harvesting ice to preserve food during the summer. Well into the 1800s, Americans sold ice to foreign countries as a natural refrigerant. The periodic home deliveries of ice were a commonplace experience for most Americans during the early part of the twentieth century.
The first attempts to find an industrial method to duplicate and improve on nature came in 1748 from Dr. William Cullen of Scotland. In 1851, Dr. John Gorrie, director of the U.S. Marine Hospital at Apalachicola, Florida, built the first commercial machine, receiving U.S. Patent 8080 for it. By 1880, the fledgling industry had developed reciprocating compressors which made possible such things as commercial ice making, brewing, meatpacking, and fish processing. In 1904 seventy of the industry pioneers formed the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers, officially creating a new profession.
In 1911 Willis H. Carrier presented the mathematical bases for the now-standard psychometric charts, which define the theoretical properties of heat transfer through air. His work earned Carrier the title of "the father of air-conditioning." In 1922 he invented the centrifugal refrigeration compressor. During World War II, Carrier contributed to the building of a 10 million cubic foot wind tunnel that could be cooled to -67 degrees Fahrenheit. The most notable use of the new air-conditioning technology was in the motion picture theaters of the 1920s. New York City theaters, including the Rivoli, Paramount, Roxy, and Lowe's in Times Square, lead the innovation. By the end of the decade hundreds of theaters across the country offered a controlled climate along with their feature film.
The heating industry refined the early concept of the open fire by enclosing the fire with brick or stone structures equipped with chimneys. These dirty and inefficient first efforts generally heated only the room they occupied, but could also be used for cooking and provided a central focus to the household. Throughout the nineteenth century, developments in metallurgy and forging promoted the use of remote water boilers attached to radiators by metal piping. These sturdy contrivances often used layers of asbestos to retain the heat in the water.
The warm-air furnace reduced the cost of heating, making the concept of central heating more available. Early systems were usually coal-fired, cast-iron machines that filled whole basements. They distributed the heat by means of "gravity" through large metal ducts attached to ornate grills in floors and walls. Like any other material when heated, air becomes lighter and tends to be pushed upward by the cooler air surrounding it. The gravity is actually "working" on the cooler air, pushing it down to displace the lighter warm air. Later, electric fans attached to the heaters created the first forced-air systems. Cast-iron heaters have been replaced by compact sheet-metal cabinets, which contain burner, blower, and filter.
A more integral change occurred in the fuel being burned. The early machines used coal or even wood or charcoal. Such material required large storage areas and considerable labor in feeding the furnace and cleaning out the burnt residue of cinders and ash. The fire produced great amounts of air pollution in the form of sooty smoke and smog. London's famous pea-soup fogs of Victorian days disappeared when the British parliament banned the burning of coal within the city limits.
The first technological revolution in modern heating fuel technology came with the use of fuel oil as a replacement for coal. The Gilbert and Barker company claims to have produced the first industrial oil burner in North America in 1889, but patents for several burners were not issued until 1892. These early machines were often called range burners because they were primarily used for the kitchen stove. New heat resistant metals made the use of fuel oil as a furnace fuel both practical and desirable by the late 1920s. That began a shift in consumer fuel preference that virtually eliminated coal as a domestic fuel by the late 1950s. A second fuel revolution came with the OPEC oil embargoes of the 1970s. Once cheap and plentiful, fuel oil quickly rose in price and scientists began predicting a world-wide oil shortage and depletion of reserves by the year 2000. To compensate, the industry shifted to domestically-available natural gas and, to some extent, electricity. By 1992, with the cost of generating electricity escalating, natural gas became the clear preference of most American consumers, reaching a market penetration of 65 percent, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Modern refrigeration and air-conditioning work on essentially the same principle. Both collect heat from one area and transfer it to another where it dissipates into some medium. The basic system consists of a compressor driven by an electric motor and two coils. In the first coil, called the condenser, the refrigerant gas is compressed into a liquid, discharging heat as it changes state. In the second coil, called the evaporator, the refrigerant becomes a gas again, absorbing heat from outside the coil. The essential ingredient is the refrigerant gas. Early refrigerant materials included air, water, butane, propane, ether, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, and methyl chloride. Some, like ammonia, continue to be used in large commercial applications like skating rinks and ice factories. Many of these materials were highly toxic...
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