Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1945)

i • :-H J! ■ « | : •; < i: 3 ta; YOU DO NOT HAVE SUCH FACILITIES NOW, WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT m The Demand for Air-Conditioning After the War r : : N 33 Operators of theatres have xperienced and overcome during the war ery difficult tasks of "keep on with the low," with very little help in the way of ;pair parts for vital operations, and certainly uiintenance of any character has been very luch curtailed. This, of course, also applies 3 their heating, ventilating and air conditiontig systems as well as to other facilities. While 1 lose with refrigerating equipment have been Ijble to give their patrons some summer f. poling, they have been sorely pressed at times "Either for the Freon-12 gas, which was restricted, or for essential repairs. It has been ?ported that many such systems are still inperative due to a lack of refrigerant. But these are matters which will end with ne war. What then will be conditions which .e will need to take into his calculations? The theatre operator may well be asking imself what is going to happen when maerials are released and the manpower situation relieved. What type of system should be interested in? How should he weigh "Tosts? Should he plan now, or wait for new ^•ost-war "magical" devices? "I,jaf The writer believes that a survey of owners >f air-conditioning systems will reveal that, | .bove all, reliability of performance of the hquipment is of utmost importance. We think such a survey would show that '".iostly repairs, the cost of service men to fix ' Tj.eaks and make adjustments, has proved to >e a very expensive operating item, and at Times, even though expense was no object, Tervice men could not be found to do the ' Vork properly. The writer believes, therefore, that it has >een firmly established by experience that • ven though a complete air-conditioning syspm may cost a little more in the first place, ~'J t would be very wise to make the necessary investment rather than to keep paying out ''from year to year a large sum for repairs, naintenance and replacements. USE OF PREWAR METHODS Irrespective of much publicity passed out 1 during the war years, of the many new things : 1 'developed for war weapons, we do not see anything in view that promises any decided improvement in the handling of air, or in the means for cooling the air by refrigeration in •summer. Our experience during the war in j Jthe air-conditioning industry has indicated 'l 'that we are serving the war plant with essen' tially the same equipment that was available 5 i before the war, and this equipment is doing A ■ Well, here is the probable post-war situation, as seen by the head of an air-conditioning engineering organization long familiar with the theatre field. Very likely, this is the picture to fit into your postwar planning. By A. C. BUENSOD its duty effectively in maintaining temperature and humidity conditions where required in war manufacture. In fact, due to the shortage of critical materials, such as, for instance, steel and copper, we have had to use duct work fabricated of substitute materials like cement, asbestos board, plywood, and so on. All of this substitute material for duct work will, in the writer's opinion, be eliminated and we will revert to the standard practice of using galvanized steel sheets for duct work because, first of all, it has the structural strength and can be easily formed to suit the physical building construction conditions. With the restriction of copper we were forced to eliminate copper heating and cooling coils, and even were restricted in the amount of copper that could be used in various parts of the machinery. Aluminum was similarly restricted in the manufacture of refrigerating machines. As soon as these materials again become available, we feel quite sure they will all go back into use according to practice before the curtailment was necessary. Some of the restrictions on these materials have been removed, and the air-conditioning industry has already gone back, where permitted, to the use of the old materials. The industry will similarly resume use of the same full-housed supply fan that was common before the war. We will have spray washers of the central station type in which water is recirculated to wash the air and in summer time is chilled in order to obtain cooling for dehumidiflcation. The duct work will wind around the theatre and will be built of galvanized steel sheets. The air distributing system will be the same as has been used for many years. In the past twenty years many types of air distribution have been employed. Some have caused drafts, due to too much air in one spot, which becomes a mass of cold air ; some have been of high-velocity type, causing cold air to strike patrons like a stiff breeze. After the war the distributing system will be downward, distributing the air from overhead (as the better prewar systems have done) and introducing it into the theatre without drafts or "clammy" sensations, so that the audience will experience only a feeling of comfort. The refrigerating machines which are necessary to use when an artificial cooling means is required, have not had any improvement during the war, either in performance or in reduction of size. Some publicity has been advanced that manufacturers will sometime in the future be able to reduce the size of the very small units which are used for room coolers and also for "packaged" selfcontained, small-capacity commercial units; but all of this is still in the planning stage, and if any developments result from this planning, it will take many years to place them in production and make the necessary tests so that they are proven. POST-WAR COOLING In the meanwhile, war manufacturing has utilized almost to full capacity the plants of refrigerating manufacturers, with their output practically the same type of equipment, with the same performance characteristics as equipment suitable for theatre work. Quite naturally there have been developments in very low-temperature refrigerating machines, and also in very large centrifugal type machines for certain unusual problems that confronted the air-conditioning industry in the war effort ; but in the writer's opinion these hardly will offer much advantage for the range of equipment that the theatre will use. We thus shall have available the largecapacity refrigerating machines of the centrifugal type, which will be suitable for the large houses, ranging in tonnage from 1'50 tons up. We shall have the smaller lowpressure, hermetically sealed water chilling machines in ranges from 50 tons up to 200 tons, which, in the nature of their design, being fully enclosed, are inherently adapted to being controlled automatically by the conditions dictated by the load conditions of the theatre. This type of machine requires no skilled operator for its proper functioning and is a decided advantage where the municipal {Continued on page 22) BETTER THEATRES, MARCH 3, 1945