Category: Misc

How We Stayed Cool Before Air Conditioning

Although Spring is officially in full swing here in Arizona, summer will be here before we know it. With an average summertime temperature of 103° F here in Phoenix, this is the aptly-named city for anyone who loves the heat. We may love all that sun most of the time, but much of that sun worship comes from our ability to escape the sun’s heat with cool, comforting air conditioning. When do you need air conditioning Chandler AZ? For the best HVAC solution, contact Sharp Air Conditioning & Heating.

The massive heat index that we experience year after year is no joke – people continuously suffer from heat-related injuries and even death when they can’t escape the extreme Southern Arizona weather. Most people have a hard time getting by when their A/C goes out for an hour or two, so imagine how hard it must have been to live in this and other hot climates before air conditioners were the standard in home cooling solutions.

• Caves

At a time when an air conditioner could not be conceived of, our very smart ancestors found that right here, in the middle of a vast desert landscape, was one of the coolest and most temperate places to call home: caves.

Caves are nature’s little way of providing year-round cooling to anyone smart enough to take advantage of it. From the Pueblo Indians to the Himalayan peoples of the Upper Mustang, caves have always been the temperate retreats for those who need to escape the heat and the cold without living a nomadic lifestyle.

Even today, millions of folks live in caves throughout the world. In China’s Shaanxi province, nearly 30 million people call yardangs (caves) their home. Cave living offers a whole lot of benefits, even now in a time of air conditioning Mesa AZ.

• Mud and Brick

In the Middle East, where the desert heat can be overbearing, ancient brick-making techniques and mud huts were the ideal solutions to keeping cool during the day and staying warm at night. Acting as heat absorbers, sun-baked bricks prevent all that outdoor warmth from getting inside the cool homes. Conversely, at nighttime, when the temperatures in the desert can drop 30 degrees, those same heat-filled bricks release their stored heat into the home as they absorb the cold night air.

• In-Home Aqueducts

The Romans were especially advanced when it came to developing aqueduct systems to cool off. While the aqueduct had long been in use by Egyptians and Babylonians (as well as others) long before Rome ever introduced them to their city plans, the Roman civil engineers took aqueduct building to a whole new level, creating such well-built aqueduct systems that are still in use today.

Those same aqueducts were used to funnel cold, cool water into pipes tucked away inside the walls of Roman homes, which in turn cooled off the walls and the homes to a comfortable level.

• Linen

Clothing was an integral part of maintaining the body’s discomfort from the heat as well. While today’s fabrics include non-breathable materials like spandex and polyester, clothing pre-air conditioning needs to be breathable and allow for air to circulate freely to keep skin cool and dry in the hot summer sun. Linen, created from papyrus, became the fabric of choice from ancient Egypt to the 19th century.

• Shade

Do you know why homes everywhere have covered porches? It is so people could sit outside at night time and relieve themselves from the heat their home’s trapped all day long. As porches became standard, particularly in certain areas of the country, they led to socialization habits that helped smart business owners attract customers. By incorporating porches as means of attracting those who wanted to beat the heat, these businesses helped retain customers with their shaded offerings.

• Fans

Last but not least, fans are the global standard way to provide portable air circulation for anyone, from peasants to emperors around the world. From palm fronds to folded paper fans, everyone was able to cool themselves, at least for a while, with a hand-held fan. Electric fans would not bring people relief until 1882, when New Orleans, Louisiana resident and longtime muggy summer sufferer Schuyler Skaats Wheeler could take no more heat without relief.

You can call us today for heating and air conditioning repair Mesa. We can enjoy indoor comfort in all sorts of ways, from outdoor air conditioning units to mini ductless split systems, and we rarely have to give the extreme heat a second thought. The next time your air conditioner breaks, you can rest easy knowing that the Sharp Air repair team will be there soon to give you the relief you need. Until we get there, pick up a hand fan, put on your best linen top, and maybe get outdoors and sit on your covered porch to cool off for a bit.

Contact Sharp Air Conditioning & Heating services for AC repair Gilbert at 480-695-7834.

Cooling Off: The History of Air Conditioning

Long before the days of zoned temperature controls designed to give each room your home a distinct and unique comfort level, people all around the world would dream of days when the cool air would fill their homes, jobs, and favorite hangouts. Whether you were the wealthiest person or the poorest farmer in your state, everyone was equal in their discomfort during the hot summer months.

As discussed in an earlier blog, everyone struggled to find a bit of comfort in the sweltering summer sun. From moving into caves to sitting on ice blocks, people discovered all sorts of ways to stay cool, all of which required a lot of effort and little cooling.

It would not be until the late 1800s that a New Orleans inventor named Schuyler Skaats Wheeler would create the first electric fan that let people sit back and relax as they found the sweet, breezy relief they had only dreamed of before. Nikola Tesla’s alternating current motors are to thank for the oscillating fan, allowing the whole room to benefit from cooled air.But it wasn’t enough.

As luck would have it, one very wise engineer was working on a project that would change the face of comfort forever. That engineer was Willis Carrier.

Before Carrier could put together the right combination of components to create his masterpiece, he first had to look to the inventions of the past to find the necessary workings and ideas from previous inventors who tried, like Carrier, to cool off the world.

In 1758, mega-inventor Benjamin Franklin and professor John Hadley document that when alcohol and some other dangerous liquids evaporate (which they do at a greater rate than water), they can freeze water left behind. More than 50 years later in England, inventor Michael Faraday discovers how to compress and liquefy ammonia.

Dr. John Gorrie builds an ice-maker and air blowing combination to cool down rooms of the hospital. Though he patented the idea in 1851, it would not be the success he had hoped it could be. A similar contraption was built by a team of naval engineers in 1881 to cool down the sweltering President James Garfield, who was recovering from an assassination attempt. The machine required one-quarter of a million pounds of ice each month to cool a single room, making it wildly impractical and expensive.

Then, in 1902, while working for the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographer, engineer Willis Carrier searches for a way to reduce the humidity in the printing plant. The mechanical unit pushed air through coils cooled by water and was tremendous in size. Twenty years after that, Carrier would create the centrifugal chiller to the unit, which brought down the unit’s size considerably.

That was when people took notice of Carrier’s machine, and word spread fast.

On Memorial Day weekend in 1925, Carrier’s air conditioner was unveiled to the public at the Rivoli Theater, a popular hang out in New York’s Times Square. Soon, other movie houses followed suit and installed air conditioners, drawing crowds by the thousands who wanted to spend an afternoon away from the blistering heat.

From there, air conditioners would come to shape our modern society. Find out more in Part Two of our blog! Call Sharp Air Conditioning & Heating, LLC for AC repair Gilbert.

Beat the Heat: Animal-Style

Too hot outside to comfortably recline in your poolside lounge chair while sipping your icy margarita from a chilled glass? It’s okay – you get inside your perfectly air-conditioned house and cool off to your heart’s content!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be unable to enjoy the modern luxury of an air-conditioned car, house, office, and building you walk into? It is almost hard to imagine not being able to switch on a fan or an AC and immediately feel relief from the sweltering heat, especially for those who live out southwest in the United States. We wouldn’t be able to live in this hot of a climate were it not for modern air conditioning Chandler AZ.

However, if you were an animal, how do you imagine you would keep cool in the hot sun? We see animals every day, from the bunnies in our backyards to the elephants at the zoo, all feeling the same heat we are. But, unlike our beloved canines and indoor cats who get round-the-clock shade and customized temperature-controlled air-conditioned zones in your house, wild animals must find unique ways to battle rising temperatures.

Animals have a knack for finding ways to beat the heat. Whether they live in the sweltering jungles of India or the sandy deserts of Arizona, animals will always come up with a relief solution.

Here are some ways that animals around the world tackle the age-old problem of beating the heat.

• Ears that Radiate Heat

You may not know this, but some animals have evolved to have those adorably large ears so that they can cool off. Elephants, rabbits, bats, coyotes, and even mice are a few of the animal species that use radiating heat to regulate their body temperatures. Just as animals use their layers of fat, fur, and thick skin to keep them warm in the wintertime, they use the fragile skin of their ears to release heat.

As blood travels throughout animal bodies, it carries a remarkable amount of heat. When that blood moves through the animal’s large, thin-skinned ears, it gets as close to the outside world as it can, allowing all that trapped heat to dissipate incredibly fast before it circulates back through the body more relaxed than before.

• Shedding Those Layers

Wouldn’t it be awful to wear a heavy, fur-lined winter coat all summer? That’s precisely what most animals have to deal with, but some lucky ones can shed all that unnecessary fur that traps heat. As soon as springtime hits and the temperatures begin to rise, animals like deer, bison, and rabbits have a hormone surge that results in them losing all of that unnecessary heavy fur so their skin can breathe far more quickly.

• Breaking a Sweat

Just as human animals have sweat glands, some can sweat off their heat stores. Horses are excellent sweaters, and so are hippopotamuses, who sweat a reddish substance that removes trapped heat and acts as a natural sunscreen. But cats big and small, including lions, tigers, leopards, and Mr Kitty on your lap, have only a few sweat glands, and they are in a surprising place – their paws. Felines sweat through the pads on the bottom of their feet, and they use that sweat to mark their territory (which is what Mr Kitty is doing when he kneads you with his paws). When do you require heating and cooling Mesa AZ? For the best HVAC solution, contact Sharp Air Conditioning & Heating.

• Pant It Out

You’ve seen your dog pant furiously after a good long run in the park, but plenty of other animals release built-up internal heat through their tongues. Did you know that birds pant too? When you see a bird hopping around in your backyard with its mouth open, it is their form of panting using a very elaborate air-sac-and-lung combination that helps them ditch the heat in their bodies.

• Aestivation: A Hole for One

Just like bears and other animals hibernate to avoid the harsh winter months, animals like frogs, snails, and some ground squirrels take to digging holes in the ground, creating incredible, comfortable retreats that allow them to escape the sun. These animals can stay in their burrows and live off their stored body fats for quite some time, usually long enough for the hottest months to pass and the rainy season to begin. Aestivation is especially important for desert dwellers, so you’ll likely find lots of caves and holes in the ground outside your door.

• Water It Down

Like you like to dip in your pool when it gets too hot, animals love to roll around in puddles, lakes, and swamps of the wet stuff to cool themselves off. You’ve undoubtedly seen videos of uninvited bears making themselves home in backyard pools, and they aren’t the only ones. Birds are happy to splash around in bird baths and puddles, and elephant herds will hit the water holes and cool themselves off.

When you are not comfortable with beating the heat in an animal style, then you can contact Sharp Air Conditioning & Heating, LLC AC repair Gilbert.