History

Before we go into the specifics of air conditioning in the Gulf, we want to back track to the rather fascinating history of air conditioning. The concept of large scale cooling by conditioning the air goes as far back as the 1830’s when American physician Dr. John Gorrie created an ice-making machine that blew air over a bucket of ice for cooling hospital rooms of patients suffering from malaria and yellow fever.

The next step came from American engineer Willis Carrier who created a machine called “Apparatus for Treating Air” (wonder why that one didn’t stick on) in 1902 that used chilled coiled to cool air lower humidity to as much as 55 percent. Carrier’s next breakthrough in air conditioning came some twenty years later when he replace ammonia with the benign coolant dieline and when he decided to add a central compressor to reduce the size of the air conditions. Shortly after selling his invention to movie-theaters, air conditioners became very popular and were soon installed in major offices, department stores across America. The rest, as they say, is history.