Industry: The Cool Age

To the men who market air conditioning, the world is full of wide open spaces waiting to be enclosed and climatized. They have sold central cooling to 200 homeowners in Alaska, induced Saudi Arabia’s King Saud to provide air conditioning for 2,000 of his siblings, sons, sweethearts and hangers-on in the royal palace at Riyadh. An air-conditioned big league baseball stadium is going up in Houston, and $487,000 worth of cooling gear is being installed in the White House. Last week Carrier Corp., the industry’s leader, landed an order to cool 180 new Chicago subway cars, and the Hartford Gas Co., which sells metered cooling and heating to office buildings, started operating the world’s largest air conditioner—4,500 tons of cooling capacity.

All in all, 1963 will be the hottest year in history for the 20-company U.S. air-conditioning industry. Helped by an early and muggy summer, a nationwide building surge and the U.S. consumer’s healthy buying itch, sales this year will top $1.6 billion. Air conditioning is being built into virtually all the U.S.’s new office skyscrapers, hotels and hospitals, well over half of its tall new apartments, 40% of its factories, 17% of its houses and 8.5% of its schools.

Aid for Allergies. The fastest growth is in the U.S. home, where one family in six now has some air conditioning. Central air conditioning will go into 375,000 homes this year, 20% more than in 1962. Half of all the buyers are families earning less than $10,000 a year. Though central air conditioning costs about $1,300 v. $140 to $290 for bedroom units, the industry has convinced many that the central units last longer, reduce both allergies and housework by filtering out pollen and dust. In office buildings, the trend is toward the central “zonal” unit controlled separately by each tenant.

The industry has sold educators the idea that air conditioning makes classrooms usable the year round, and can cut construction bills by reducing window space. A Florida school board found that it cost $767 per pupil to put up a non-cooled school v. $751 for a cooled school. Manhattan is building an air-conditioned and windowless school in Harlem in hopes of cutting losses from windows smashed by vandals.

Foreign Interest. Other markets are also fast expanding. Torrid countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America are impressed by the way such hot U.S. cities as Phoenix and Houston (which claims to be the fastest-growing big city in the U.S.) have grown faster by cooling artificially. Exports of air-conditioning equipment will hit $100 million this year. At home, 14% of all new car buyers will spend from $232 to $538 apiece on air conditioners for their autos. Two-thirds of the ’63 Cadillacs are air-conditioned, and 12% of all Chevies and Galaxies. Even the churches are air conditioning themselves; more and more Americans expect to be kept cool everywhere.