AMERICANS AT WORK - AIR CONDITIONING

[Music] When winter strikes with icy winds and snow, the center of interest becomes the weather. Everybody talks about it. Everybody takes action to keep warm. In summer, keeping cool is the problem. The fight against extremes of weather is led by those Americans at work who build air conditioners. Their goal is to create an indoor climate to keep you comfortable, healthy, and efficient in every season, in every corner of the land, from Augusta, Georgia to Augusta, Maine. From Houston, Texas to Fairbanks, Alaska. [Applause] Today, we like to do business with people in comfortable surroundings. [Music] Whether we travel from one temperature zone to another or just around town, we've come to expect freedom from unpleasant heat or cold. Now, within the past decade, the air conditioner has moved into the home. [Music] In a factory where air conditioning equipment is built, women plan especially significant role. Workers who assemble compressors must have sure, nimble fingers. Women with their smaller hands are particularly adept at this exacting type of work. Components here, like pistons and pins, are small but vital. The heart of an air conditioning unit is the compressor. The blood it pumps a chemical called a refrigerant. Under pressure from the compressor's piston stroke, the refrigerant flows through the system through an expansion valve assembled and checked with care. The chemical is allowed to move into an area of lower pressure. Here it vaporizes with a sharp drop in temperature. As it circulates through coils of copper tubing, it cools the air around it simply by drawing the heat out of it. Heat always flows toward cold. All machine work generates heat. Removing excess heat and moisture from machines and materials is called industrial air conditioning. Air conditioning to make a man's home more pleasant is called comfort air conditioning. For comfort, the worker must build a unit to give a room a year round temperature in the 70 to 80° range and a humidity of not more than 50%. [Music] Another important aspect of comfort is freedom from irritating sounds. The good union member brazes the muffler with painstaking attention to his job. He knows a noisy air conditioner will be rejected by quality control. The earliest air conditioners were probably palm leaf fans. They were quiet enough but tiring to the arm. Many skills go into the making of a unit because it must do many jobs. To some, air conditioning means simply cooling. This is of course its primary job. But a true air conditioner brings comfort throughout the four seasons by controlling temperature, humidity, and ventilation. It makes a room or a house easier to keep clean by cleansing the air of dust particles. It helps those who suffer from asthma, allergies, or sinus trouble by filtering from the air, pollen, smoke, and bacteria. In a leak test, the worker keeps a sharp eye out for telltale bubbles from the compressor. The manufacturer of air conditioners calls for people trained to work with a wide variety of materials. Large quantities of aluminum and literally miles of copper tubing are used by the industry. Refrigerant circulates through the tubes drawing the heat from all air near them. The more tubing, the more air can be cooled depending upon the needs of the user. Some of the tubes must be straightened for use in the cooling coils. Others need to be curved into carefully formed patterns. These are the tubes that lead the refrigerant from compressor to cooling coils and back again. This is a job for sure trained hands. [Music] [Applause] The placement of the tubes in the coils is important. They are staggered to force air flowing through to twist and turn and thus remain in contact with the coils longer. Air flowing straight through would move past the tubing too quickly to remove sufficient heat and moisture. [Music] Heat applied at this stage means cooling later on. And just as the heat used here is carefully controlled, so can the heat of a room be controlled by the finished product. [Music] Assembled and painted, the compressor is almost complete. Workers apply the finishing touches to asssure an effective unit. It's not the heat, it's the humidity. We'll take them both away for you. say these makers of air conditioners. [Music] The air conditioning unit begins to take shape. The union member who serves this industry calls on traditional manufacturing techniques to build a product so modern it has almost no traditions of its own. The need is as old as the alternately shivering and sweltering race of mankind. The remedy for the average man's home has just arrived. [Music] Comfort for the users of air conditioners. Maximum safety for the people who build them for us. To operate this punch press, the worker must push both buttons simultaneously. There is no way for hands to be cut as she adds grills to the unit using safety engineered equipment. [Music] Union and management work together to promote a vigorous safety program. All women workers wear safety caps to protect their hair. All workers, men and women, wear safety glasses to protect eyes from slivers or chips of metal. When refrigerant is added to the system, the air conditioner is almost complete. Most units use one of the chemicals from the hydrocarbon group. [Music] The appearance of the unit is important. Since it fits in a window facing into the room it cools, it must be attractive. A woman's touch is needed for these final nicities. Although air conditioning for the home is a recent development, already one in every 10 homes has it. [Music] Final wiring and connections make the unit ready to plug into the electrical outlets in a home, but it must be tested first. [Music] Quality control is essential. Before the conscientious union member can let a unit pass as approved, he must check its response to various temperature ranges. [Music] An air conditioner for the home must pass a stringent noise test. Noise level was no problem for pioneer air conditioners around the turn of the century. The first units sought to improve conditions for materials and machines, neither of which were bothered by noise. Long before anyone thought of applying refrigerating principles to human comfort, a textile engineer striving to free his yarns from moisture problems coined the phrase air conditioning. This was in 196. The real test of any unit is how comfortable it can make the people who use it. But there are ways to measure how well it will work before it leaves the factory. Through ages of struggle against the weather, man has learned one lesson well. It is far easier to stay warm in cold weather than to keep cool in a scorching humid summertime. The air conditioning worker checks the cooling cycle of a unit with particular care to see how much heat and moisture it is taking out of a test chamber. And he checks to see how much cold it can remove when its reverse cycle warms the chamber. [Music] Some room air conditioners weigh less than 100 lb, but most workers find it wiser to lift them with an electromagnet. The experienced packer makes sure the unit reaches you in good condition. Ready for immediate installation in your home. Ready to help you stop sweltering. Ready to give you the priceless gift of a good night's sleep on the hottest night of the summer. [Music] The weather, one day a friend, the next a fierce, unrelenting foe, but always present and always changing. Now we have an ally to give the weather of our indoor life evenness and moderation. [Music] Some scorching day when you step into an airond conditioned movie, restaurant, store, office, or home, recall some of the people who chase away the heat and humidity. The weatherman has no control of the weather outside. But the builders of air conditioners can control it inside for your comfort, health, and efficiency. They don't do it with magic or with mirrors. They do it with the knowhow that has made them proud to bear the title organized members of the International Union Allied Industrial Workers of America. AFL CIO Americans at work for you. [Music] Americans at Work presented as a public service by the AFL CIO. Next week, another story of Americans at work. Americans whose skill and effort help keep our country great and strong.