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The Latest Display in<br />
Comfort Conditioning<br />
Ew DEVELOPMENTS IN vai'ious kinds<br />
NI<br />
of air conditioning displayed at the recent<br />
Southwest Air Conditioning Exposition<br />
in Dallas, Tex., covered numerous innovations<br />
to increase theatre customer<br />
comfort in both winter and summer.<br />
Attendance at the exposition, which was<br />
sponsored by the American Society of<br />
Heating and Ventilating Engineers as part<br />
of their 56th annual meeting, approached<br />
alltime records with more than 8,000 registrations<br />
during the week.<br />
According to the comments of veterans<br />
in the business, most promising advances<br />
were displayed in the development of selfcontained<br />
or free-standing heating and<br />
cooling units for theatres.<br />
On display was the heater claimed to<br />
be "the world's largest fully automatic rotary<br />
oil burner" with a capacity of 210<br />
gallons of No. 6 oil an hour, said to be<br />
sufficient to heat a 2,000-room building<br />
in zero weather.<br />
To increase indoor comfort, one manufacturer<br />
showed a portable electric dehumidifier<br />
capable of extracting as much<br />
as 12 quarts of water from the atmosphere<br />
within 24 hours. The same manufacturer<br />
now offers cooling units for rooms<br />
in ceiling, wall and floor models and a<br />
window cooler with directional grilles for<br />
creating whatever air distribution pattern<br />
is desired.<br />
Also on preview were models of a compact,<br />
self-contained air conditioner for<br />
medium-sized commercial applications<br />
with a sealed tamper-proof cooling system,<br />
as service-free as any domestic refrigerator<br />
can be expected to be. It has<br />
a newly developed V-shaped coil designed<br />
to act as an "airwringer" to give greater<br />
cooling and dehumidifying capacity<br />
through more efficient air passage. This<br />
unit is also equipped with a so-called "Atmostat"<br />
which functions as a humidity<br />
balancer and enables the condenser to<br />
wring additional moisture from the air on<br />
excessively damp days, without reducing<br />
the temperature below the comfort level.<br />
New developments in filtration seen for<br />
the first time at the show included an<br />
electrostatic precipitator in packaged<br />
form, compact and completely self-contained.<br />
Adapters, suitably baffled for<br />
correct air distribution, facilitate its introduction<br />
into any warm air furnace or<br />
air conditioning system.<br />
As was expected, gas heaters were numerous<br />
at the exposition. Because of the<br />
steadily increasing demand for steel boilers,<br />
a de luxe model shown at Dallas is completely<br />
jacketed, quiet, economical and is<br />
rated at 100,000 b.t.u. per hour. Yet it<br />
stands only 45 inches high and its cylindrical<br />
shell is but 20 inches in diameter.<br />
A twin-fuel burner which operates selectively<br />
on gas or oil, permits the use of<br />
gas under normal conditions but furnishes<br />
the higher heating capacity of oil during<br />
cold snaps. Twin thermostats are used<br />
with this system. The usual indoor thermostat<br />
normally controls the heat supply<br />
in the usual way, while a second outdoor<br />
thermostat automatically shuts off the gas<br />
and cuts in the oil when a predetermined<br />
low temperature is reached.<br />
Baseboard heating, which continues to<br />
attract a great deal of attention, was demonstrated<br />
in several ways at the exposition.<br />
One manufacturer showed a newstyle<br />
cover for securing a balanced flow<br />
of radiation and convection. This provides<br />
constant radiation, but controllable<br />
convection by means of adjustable louvers<br />
behind slotted openings in the cover.<br />
Air distribution for the more elaborate<br />
heating and ventilating systems continues<br />
to produce improvements. One of the better<br />
known specialists in this field has come<br />
forward this year with a new universal<br />
diffuser, easy to install and simple to<br />
adjust, which provides three distinct methods<br />
of distribution by a twist of the wrist.<br />
In one setting a draftless horizontal pattern<br />
is produced, such as is used primarily<br />
in cooling. A second adjustment<br />
provides an intermediate downward pattern<br />
used in heating and ventilating, while<br />
the third setting affords a direct downward<br />
discharge used in projection heating.<br />
Many exhibits of materials, supplies and<br />
equipment that are required for the installation<br />
of air conditioning equipment<br />
constituted an important segment of the<br />
exposition. New this year is an aluminum<br />
faced fiberglas insulating blanket for<br />
gravity and forced warm air furnaces and<br />
packaged unit space heaters. It comes in<br />
one-half and one-inch thickness, 36 and 54<br />
inches wide and is readily cut to pattern<br />
and easily applied in shop or field work.<br />
These two scenes from the Southwest Air Conditioning Exposition held in late January in Dallas,<br />
Tex.,<br />
indicate scope of the show where equipment for both cooling and heating were demonstrated.<br />
12<br />
Tho MODERN THEATRE SECTION
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