March 14, 1995 DAVIS REFRIGERATION CO. DMSION OF JOSEPH DAVIS. INC. Mr. Gordon W. Root, Sr. c/o GWR Engineering, P.C. PO Box 157 Shelburne, VT 05482

Dear Gordon:

I received your Historical Report for the period July 1994 through Feb. 1995.

Project C-3 was presented at our May 23, 1994 meeting. A copy is enclosed as promised.

We are enclosing our current Chapter Schedule (1994-1995) showing Officers, Directors, and Chapter Programs for this year.

Also enclosed is a recap of our Chapters Historical Activity for the 75th and 1DOth Anniversary. We received considerable help from Atlanta on our Chapters origin, the people involved and c Society's Annual and Semi-Annual meetings held here. Unfortunately none of this fits into your "point system".

You still owe our Chapter 100 points for the 92-93 Gold Ribbon Award and 100 points for our display at the CRC. If there is a special"form" to fill out for "points" please send me a copy.

If there is anything that you need in order to complete our records for the current year, please write or telephone me at (716) 842-1500.

K~ neth E. Champagne Chapter Historical Niagara Frontier Chapter

KEC/plh Enclosures cc: Mr. Ray Johnson Mr. Joseph Ting

( ) \,___./ 120 W.Tupper Street Buffalo, 14201 PH.: (716) 842-1500 FAX: (716) 842-0124 ENGINEERED COOLING SINCE 1906

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/ /

E NIAGARA FRONTIER CHAPTER

75th _Anniver:Jary Celeb ralion OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS FOR 1994-19 CHAPTER NAME NIAGARA FRQNTIER CHAPTER #

PRESIDENT - Raymond F. Johnson

VICE PRESIDENT - Joseph Lindstrom

SECRETARY - Sam Parise

TREASURER - Roger Hoffman B.O.G. - Don Brown, Jr.

B.O .G .. Scott Crego B.O.G. - Dave Nowak

B.O.G. - Andy Kirsch

B.O.G. - Tom \Voodside B.O.G. -

NEWSLETTER EDITOR - Joseph Lindstrom r------~~~------~----~-.------HISTORIAN - Ken Champagne

SEMINARS/SHOWS/SPECIAL FUND RAISERS/MEMORABLE Hosted Chapters Region 1 Conference Centennial of Society I 75th Anniversary Chapter publ:ished history of industry in our area. ·

Student Chapter NCCC

CHAPTER MONTHLY MEETINGS & PROGRAMS

SEPTEMBER 1994: INDOOR 1\IR QUALTY

DUCT CLEANING NETHODS I DENONSTRATIONS

OCTOBER , 1994: 10124 CHAPTERS 75TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

EXHIBITS I AIVARDS I DINNER

NOVEMBER 1994: P!PROVING AIR COOLED EFFICIENCES

NIAGARA BLOIVER I NE\v TEST FAClLITIES DECEMBER 1994 12/6 I EDUCATIONAL FUND I RAFFLE I

JANUARY 1995 1/23 APPLICATION OF SMOKE & FIRE CONTROL DAMPERS

FEBRUARY 199.5 2/27 AN EDUCATION ON "BACNET" I I I :1 .· MARCH 1995 3/27 ~: GROOVED PIPING PROCEDURES FOR HV & AC I STUDENT CHAPTER PRESENTATION

APRIL 1995 4/24 ASHRAE TECHNOLOGY A\VARDS NIGHT/ STUDENT NI~HT / ALFRED / NCCC - ·- MAY S/22 1995 . INSTALLATION OF NE\V OFFICERS - it JUNE 1995. 6/31 !· - •' SCHOLARSHIP FUND RAISING / PICNIC

JULY/AUGUST 1995 CRC

NOTES TO BE INCLpDED IN REGIONAL RECORDS

. - '· ' . I - I I **PLEAS!;: RETURN COMPLETED FORM TO REGIONAL HISTORIAN BY JULY 1, 199S * I On January 19, 1919, ten members of the American Society of Heating and Ventilation Engineers petitioned to form the Western New York Chapter with the "territory to be City of Buffalo and surrounding towns in Western New York as far east as Utica, as far south as Elmira, and to include Northwestern cities such as Warren and Erie, PA." The petition was accepted at the annual meeting and Western New York became the Ninth Chapter. Planning for the 75th Anniversary started 4 years ago when we asked to have the Chapter Regional Conference in our area. This was approved and Dave Nowak became our Chairman for the CRC. Our celebration started with the May 23rd, meeting; installation of the new officers for 1994-95 at the Delaware Park Casino. Chapter historian, Ken Champagne, gave a brief review of Society's Centennial history noting that this was just the beginning of our celebration and that there would be a continuing program throughout the year. Our resident history "buff" and chairman at our 50th anniversary, John McCiive, gave a slide presentation of Buffalo at the time our Chapter was formed showing the location of the original Buffalo Forge Plant which was demolished for the new Crossroads Sports Arena about to be built. The next event was August 18-20, when we hosted the Region 1 C.R.C. Fours years of work (plus a little last minute panic) resulted in a first class conference with over 150 registered members and each Chapter having a historical display and a viewing of Society's new 4 section video on the Centennial. Society Treasurer, James Hill, and Joseph Ting, Regional Director, were two of the 178 attendees at the Presidents dinner. A certificate commemorating our Chapter's 75th Anniversary was presented by Mr. Hill on behalf of Society. Our Chapters 75th Anniversary Celebration was on October 24, 1994, at Adam's Restaurant. A social hour preceded the dinner with the final centennial history video from our society on display. Historical items were displayed dating from the turn of the century. Welcome comments were given by Chapter President Ray Johnson, and Region Director, Joseph Ting. Special guests, life members and past presidents were introduced by Chapter historian, Ken Champagne. Special guest was Edwin Woolcock, our oldest living Chapter President (1948-49). John McCiive gave a talk and slide presentation of Buffalo when local boy Willis Carrier graduated from and went to work for Buffalo Forge. Awards for C.R.C. were given by Chairman Dave Nowak. Dick Glover gave a history of the Chapters Educational and Scholarship Fund (25th Anniversary) and announced this years' scholarship recipients. Dean of Engineering, David Cond~, expressed appreciation on how our Chapter members and Alfred State College have worked together dver the years to help with teaching and the program at Alfred. The Chapters Outstanding Educator Award was presented to Dave Con e with Special thanks from many of his former students at the dinner. Photos were taken of the members who were at the 50th celebration in 1 69. The final phase is the publishing of a 75th Anniversary history of our C apter, our industry and the people in it. It contains a history of the various industries plus a biography of the pro inent people. It is hoped that more names and industries will be added as the years go by. I I f ' This talk was given by John McClive at the Niagara Frontier

Chapter's May 23, 1994 meeting, 75th Anniversary, Installation of

Officers for 94-95 held at the Delaware Park Casino.

Early developments in , refrigeration, heating,

etc. were will underway in the middle of the 19th century, but air i ' conditioning as we know it did not come together until the 1930's.

An understandable situation, however, when we look at it from the

historical perspective because basically engineers have always dealt

with the jobs to be done in their generation, and the more one reads

the history of engineering development, the more one realizes that

throughout history engineers at any particular time and place have

generally done a very good job with the materials and technology

available to them.

At the time the American Society of Heating and Ventilating

Engineers was formed in 1894, there was a well developed body of

- 1 - engineering knowledge providing good heating and ventilating

systems for buildings of that age.

Just as today, there were many competent engineers in

consulting, contracting and manufacturing working on advancing

heating systems which, at that time, were beginning to incorporate

cooling. This provided the foundation of modern air conditioning.

It is important for the present membership of ASHRAE to

realize that these men of 1894 were not only competent engineers

for their time, but quite innovative. Furthermore, there were

many of them as was finally reported in the book "Father of Air

Conditioning", published in 1952. In this biography of

Willis Carrier, there is a chronological table of events which

lead to modern air conditioning covering the years 1500 to 1952.

This is still the most authoritative source of our history and

reveals how many people contributed to the subject.

Of course, it is understandable that Willis Carrier is the

most honored name and the fact is he was the most energetic

historian of the subject, as well as the man who guided so many of

the important engineering breakthroughs. I want to emphasize,

however, that before Carrier came into our profession, ASHVE

engineers had provided the basic knowledge to build upon.

In the 1890's there were many efforts made to improve

heating, ventilating, and cooling of buildings. Alfred R. Wolf,

leading consulting mechanical engineer in , used ice

in the outdoor intake of the heating and ventilating system for

Carnegie Hall. Among other systems incorporating fan-ice air

'~, cooling was the one installed in the Auditorium Hotel in Chicago

- 2 - by Buffalo Forge Company of Buffalo, New York, which must have had significant influence on young Willis Carrier when he went to work for that company in 1902.

Carrier could also talk with the engineers who were familiar with the early version of our modern multi-zone system, which was widely used in the 1890's by Buffalo Forge and Sturdevent. This incorporated a fan driven by a steam engine discharging the mixture of return and fresh air into a large chamber, the top part of which contained pipe coils for heating air with steam and the bottom part was a bypass section. Simple dampers were located in each room mixing the two streams as required under the direction of some of the earliest thermostats invented by Johnson Controls.

It is reported that, as early as the 1880's, the Madison Square

Theater in New York City utilized a very rudimentary ice system as part of a fan coil heating system. With other developments mentioned above, our industry had a good 50 years of solid development to draw upon in the 1930's when self-contained units became a reality.

Interestingly enough, our industry did not really go in that direction at the beginning. At the turn of the century, the potential for industrial cooling was far more important and there doesn't seem to be any evidence that anyone had any great vision of small air conditioning units at that time. But the management of Buffalo Forge Company did realize that there was a potential for growth in this active heating, ventilating, and cooling field.

In 1902 they were fortunate to hire a young graduate of Cornell

Univeristy named Willis H. Carrier, a native of Angola, New York,

- 3 - just 20 miles south of Buffalo, and give him the assignment to

develop a research laboratory for that company. It was apparent

they had faith in his technical abilities and he never

disappointed anyone. This laboratory at Buffalo Forge was really

the first extensive research lab in the heating and ventilating

industry.

At first, Carrier confined his work to trying to improve

steam pipe coil heaters, then fans. Reseqrch on cooling carne

rapidly, however, as he was assigned to investigate a method of

dehumidifying air for Sackett-Wilhelms Lithography Plant in

Brooklyn, New York, where like most printers of the day, they had

been plauged by problems of off-register printing for multi-color

runs when caused the paper to stretch during ink drying

between the application of different colors. There was a need to

maintain constant humidity conditions, particularly in the summer­

time, and Carrier developed a fan coil system utilizing pipes with

coolant circulated through them. It worked, word got around, and

soon other companies approached Buffalo Forge for help. In many

ways this became the basis of industrial air conditioning, which

was a very important market to Buffalo Forge Company in the years

to follow.

Elsewhere, a "major breakthrough" in the heating industry was

taking place. While Carrier was doing research on pipe coil heaters in 1903, the "Vento" cast iron surface was patented by

John J. Spear of Wilmett, Illinois. Vento, with its multiple openings between the cast iron surface and the air, provided far better contact to heat the air than earlier pipe coils and became

- 4 - the standard of the industry well into the early 1920's. This is

significant because the emphasis was on heating, not cooling, and

Vento simply was the type of surface that could never lend itself

to circulation of chilled water or any other refrigerant. But it

was the dominant heating surface in the industry for those years, and in some ways its popularity provided an inhibiting factor to

the efforts of anyone who was considering developing a better extended surface heat exchanger that could be used for cooling also.

On the cooling side, air washers seemed to suit the needs of the growing ind~strial and fledgling commercial air conditioning industry. Carrier developed the air washer in 1904 as an apparatus for treating air. His development of "dewpoint control" enabled him to use air washers for humidity control in countless industrial applications such as the textile, tobacco industries, or chemical process work. Utilizing chilled water sprayed into the air stream for dehumidifying, air washers provided all functions, heating, humidifying, cooling, and dehumidifying through a very carefully controlled process. It would be very hard to fault this type of performance and say they should have been developing a better extended surface heat exchanger at the same time because, the fact remains that these early engineers were very successful at what they were doing and no one really needed much more in the way of heat transfer at the time. Various ways of providing chilled water were used then: ice water generated by large blocks of ice, artesian wells, and sometimes brine coils were incorporated in a spray type central station

- 5 - with Baudelot coils located below the spray chamber

as patented by Carrier in 1912.

At the same time there were many developments in

refrigeration underway, such as the carbon dioxide coil-cooling

system installed by the Kroeschell Brothers Ice Machine Company of

Chicago in the office of the famous Larkin Building of Buffalo,

New York, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's great early (1909)

accomplishments.

There is no strong evidence that there was any great urgency

to develop a better extended surface heat exchanger at that time,

except as it might have existed in the minds of Dr. Carrier and

his closest associates. Certainly, the fledgling industrial air

conditioning was doing fine and everyone had plenty of work to

keep them busy. About that time, however, developments in the

automotive industry influenced a young research engineer named

Lawrence C. Soule. Mr Soule worked for the American Radiator

Company in Buffalo, New York in 1907, conducting heat transfer

tests on pipe coils and Vento heaters. He published his original

findings in the ASHVE Transactions of 1910. He was secretary of

the first ASHVE Chapter in Buffalo, maintaining this position for

several years prior to the founding of the Chapter in 1919, and

undoubtedly was one of the active young engineers who shared ideas

at meetings in that-community where so much development was going

on. His work on pipe coils and Vento had lead him to envision a

more efficient heater using an extended surface, but he had

nothing to draw upon from the body of knowledge in general use in ·- the HVAC industry of the day. There were, however, two other - 6 - companies in the Buffalo area that were quite active in heat

transfer work ...

The first was the Fedders Corporation, begun as Fedders

Manufacturing Company in Buffalo in 1896. First established as a

manufacturer of kerosene lanterns, baking tins, and milk cans, all

products in keeping with the agricultural economy of that time,

Fedders realized within a few years the tremendous potential for

the automobile industry and designed an automobile radiator. The

company became a source of radiators for the famous Pierce-Arrow

automobile made in Buffalo. Of course, today Fedders is a major

manufacturer of self-contained air conditioning units.

In 1910, the Harrison Radiator Company was founded in

Lockport, New York, 20 miles east of Buffalo, by Mr. Herbert c.

Harrison, who was responding to a major problem of automobiles overheating during the 1900's. Harrison developed a new ribbon cellular type of radiator featuring what was later to become

famous as the HARRISON HEXOGON CORE, which became so widely used

in automobiles of the 20's and 30's. Harrison eventually became part of General Motors and is today the largest manufacturer of automotive air conditioning in the world.

Lawrence Soule did much personal experimentation and study of automotive heat exchangers during the years 1915 to 1918 and tested a truck radiator combining a series of copper tubes containing a helix of crimped copper ribbon metalically bonded to the tube by means of solder. He found this to be a more efficient lightweight heat transfer surface than Vento, and while it was not immediately accepted by the engineering community of its day, he

- 7 - was able to convince Willis Carrier and J. I. Lyle, one of the

early founders of Carrier Air Conditioning, of its practical

application.

In 1922, after Carrier had established his company, having

left Buffalo Forge under a mutually amicable agreement, Mr. Soule

joined the Carrier Air Conditioning Company where he carried on research which eventually lead to the development of the Aerofin surface, which was introduced in 1923 and marketed at that time by

Carrier, Buffalo Forge, Sturdevent, and American Blower.

The early literature of Aerofin did not promote it as a surface for cooling, bu:t. concentrated more on its lightweight advantage as a surface for heating systems. At that time "air conditioning" was still a very new idea in the eye of the general public. The first time the public became aware of air conditioning was when famous theaters throughout the country began installing spray apparatus and offering the promise of "20° cooler inside" on hot summer days and nights. For the decade beginning in 1922, hundreds of theaters across the country installed air washers or spray type air conditioning systems and, as far as the public was concerned, the age of air conditioning began.

Later, however, as the Freon refrigerants were developed and further advances in extended surface coils became a reality, it was possible for a smaller, more compact air conditioning unit to be developed, based on an entirely different design concept.

Whereas the air washer cooled and dehumidified the air directly with chilled water, the early self-contained air conditioning units used direct expansion coils and the air was cooled by

- 8 - contacting the outside surface of same.

Peripheral engineering work then went in the right direction

for miniaturization of equipment. Whereas air conditioning in

large theaters involved large fans and washers, all this had to be

scaled down for the smaller self-contained units. Subsequent development was done by others and this is beyond the scope of

this paper. Subsequent success was built on the foundation laid many years earlier by dedicated research engineers like Willis

carrier, Lawrence Soule, and many others of the early ASHVE

Chapter of Buffalo, New York.

- 9 -