Commercial Water Heating Timeline

• In the 1870s, an English inventor named Maughan introduced the concept of heating water instantly by burning fuel. A Norwegian inventor, Edwin Ruud, followed up in 1889 with a fuel heater incorporating storage and commercialized the idea in the United States.

• Nineteenth Century inventors George Babcock & Stephen Wilcox introduced a safe fuel fired boiler which made steam from water. The distributed steam had many uses including heating water. Twentieth century innovators such as John Cleaver introduced the packaged boiler concept thereby enhancing the commercial viability of the application.

• In 1902, Willis Carrier invented air conditioning, a method of transferring heat from where it is objectionable to where it was unobjectionable. One such AC method is the vapor compression cycle. This cycle was later reversed to be used in heating and is commonly known as a heat pump.

• In the later part of the twentieth century, adaptations to normal air conditioning systems allowed the system to reclaim some of the heat normally discharged. These are commonly known as heat reclaim systems.

• CoTherm's Renewable Energy Water Heating system is a twenty-first century innovation producing a buildings’ domestic hot water at the final use temperature while simultaneously furnishing 10-30% of the buildings’ air conditioning. Through this process, no fossil fuel is used and very little additional electricity is expended.