3 Heating Facts You Probably Didn’t Know
Fall in Ohio means football, sweatshirts, and that first morning when you finally reach for the thermostat. But keeping warm has a surprisingly interesting history. Here are three heating facts worth sharing as cooler weather moves in.
1. Heated floors were a thing long before electricity.
Think heated floors are a modern luxury? Ancient Romans were enjoying them roughly 2,000 years ago. Their heating system, called a hypocaust, sent hot air and gases from a furnace through spaces beneath raised floors. Some systems also warmed the walls. Quite the setup for people who couldn’t even plug in a coffee maker.
2. An early heating control was called a “damper-flapper.”
The name sounds made up, but the invention was real. Patented by Albert Butz in 1886, the system responded to a drop in room temperature by opening a furnace damper. That let in more air, strengthened the fire, and warmed the house. Long before you could adjust your thermostat from your phone, someone had figured out how to make the furnace tend its own fire.
3. Your refrigerator and a heat pump have more in common than you think.
A refrigerator moves heat out of the space where you keep your food and releases it into your kitchen. A heat pump uses the same basic principle to warm your home: it moves heat from one place to another. So the technology keeping your leftovers cold is closely related to the technology that could be keeping your living room comfortable.
Heating has come a long way from fires beneath the floor. As we head into another Ohio fall, Alpine Heating, Cooling, Plumbing & Refrigeration is here to help with your heating questions, fall maintenance, and keeping your home comfortable when the temperatures drop.
Wooster: (330) 263.0013
Ashland: (419) 289.1616
Mt. Eaton (330) 359.7114
Serving Wooster, Ashland & Mt. Eaton, and surrounding communities since 1993, we are a locally owned and operated HVAC contractor working with a variety of heating , cooling , refrigeration & plumbing systems. If you need service on your current system please give us a call and we'd be glad to begin the process of evaluating your needs along with your budget and coming up with a game plan for your heating, cooling & air quality needs.
