Take a stroll through HVAC history in our Heating Museum. This section of our website preserves history and answers that so-important question: What the heck is that thing? Whenever you run across anything unusual, chances are you’ll find the old literature about it right here.
This is an excerpt from Transactions of the Society of Heating and Ventilation Engineers from 1920. "It is the purpose of this article to bring together all of the data w...
Here is a superb account of the early history of comfort heating, written by our friend Bern Nagengast for The Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration NEWS.
This is a speech that E. N. McDonnell, founder of McDonnell & Miller, made on May 29, 1940 to the Heating & Piping Contractors National Association in defense of steam he...
A Practical Manual of Steam and Hot-Water Heating was written by Edward Richmond Pierce in 1911. This will give you a glimpse into what heating was like during that time ...
William C. Wolfe's circa-1879 patent for a water feeder shows an invention that is remarkable simple and fully automatic. It's probably one of the earliest feeders to app...
Turbonics offered this unusual steam system, which Iron Fireman had come up with years before. It was called SelecTemp and offered self-modulating zone heating. Thanks to...
Here's a good source for the ratings of old H.B. Smith radiators. It starts on page 56.
The McAlear Vacuum Air-line Heating System was one of the early vacuum steam heating systems. See their catalog here.
The Building Technology Heritage Library (BTHL) is primarily a collection of American and Canadian, pre-1964 architectural trade catalogs, house plan books and technical ...
Thanks to Bob Polizzi for finding not only photos of T.J. Sullivan's vacuum regulator in place, but also its patent, which explains the entire operation of a device that ...