Need help on Carrier Gas Furnace Age Please Re: Need help on Carrier Gas Furnace Age Please "not just an inspection, but an education" Democracy is two wolves and a lamb. Liberty is a well-armed lamb. During that time period, they used N = January, O = February, etc., so it's February 1988. The 2994 is the consecutive manufacturing number. The older Carrier serial numbers can be confusing. A while back Carrier switched from a letter + 2 digit year coding, to the current 2-digit week + 2-digit year. I thought that started in 1990, but I have also heard that started sometime in the 1980's. However my understanding is that for the older units/coding Carrier didn't use the letter "O" (or the letter "I") in the serial number coding, due to possible confusion over if it's a letter or number. I guess it's also possible that it's Week 08 of 1982 (0882xxx) and that older/used equipment was used. Probably the best thing to do is call Carrier. And let us know what the outcome is because I am curious if they actually did use the letter "O".

According to my research, they did, indeed, use the letter O. Now why in the hec they used the system they did (N = January, O = February, etc.) is beyond me. Perhaps because everyone else was using A = January, B = February, etc.? Unfortunately, many companies have done away with the convention of not using the letters I and O. 2 ton ac unit weightHowever, if you look real hard at other stampings on the manufacturer's plate, one can usually differentiate between letters and numbers, although I have confused G with 6, S with 5, B with 8, 3 with 8, and Z with 2, as well. ac units with solar panel Joe, I don't believe Carrier used the letter 'O' in their serial numbers during the 1980's. portable ac power billThe sequence was 'N' = January, 'P' = February, 'Q' = March, etc.

Could you have mistaken the 'Q' for an 'O'? If the serial number is Q882994 then the date of manufacture is March 1988. I could be wrong but this seems the most likely answer. Q88xxxx indicating March 1998 would seem to make more sense given the circumstances, if it's possible the first character was indeed "Q" My understanding of the Carrier S/N coding is as follows: For 1969 and earlier equipment they used a seven-digit S/N that was like egyptian hieroglyphics trying to figure out. So starting in 1970 they switched to a seven-character S/N, with a letter followed by six digits. For 1970 thru 1979 they used letters 'A' thru 'M' for the month (Jan-Dec, without the letter 'I') followed by a 2-digit year. For 1980 thru 1989 they supposedly used 'N' thru 'Z' for the month (Jan-Dec, without the letter 'O') followed by a 2-digit year. I guess they were originally thinking they would start over with 'A' thru 'M' starting in 1990 (who cares about units over 20 years old ... lol), and then thought twice about that, and switched to the present ten-character S/N with the first four numbers indicating the week-year of production.

I have heard that Carrier switched to the current ten-character S/N earlier than 1990 (some say mid to late 1980's), but I have never gotten a straight answer from Carrier ... and they just say to call if there is any issue.There was a typo is my previous posts I couldn't edit. The older Carrier S/N had a letter followed by a single digit for the year ... and not a 2-digit year (which is why you need the letter to figure out the year) ... I am absolutely amazed sometimes by how much thought goes into doing things wrong ... 1 posts, read 3,593 times 1 posts, read 2,123 times 18 posts, read 41,731 timesThe Launch of Carrier Sometimes genius arises in the most unlikely of places. For Willis Carrier, the moment of profound insight came in late fall 1902 on a cold, foggy train platform in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As he stared through the dense mist, Carrier recalled thinking, "If I can saturate air and control its temperature at saturation, I can get air with any amount of moisture I want in it.

I can do it, too, by drawing the air through a fine spray of water to create actual fog." It was an insight so counterintuitive that it still dazzles. Willis Carrier realized that he could dry air by passing it through water, using the spray as a condensing surface. By 1903, he had completed the apparatus first visualized on that foggy Pittsburgh evening, the world's first spray-type air-conditioning system able to both wash and humidify or dehumidify air. Modern air conditioning now had its fundamental building block. Soon after, Carrier conceived the idea of adjusting humidity by heating the spray water itself and controlling the dew point temperature of the air leaving the conditioning machine. With this came "dew point control" which, an early company brochure announced, was "the greatest single factor in modern air conditioning." In 1905, at the age of 29, Willis Carrier was made head of the Buffalo Forge Engineering Department, directing research and supervising all application and design.

Shortly thereafter, Carrier's staff began referring to him as "the Chief," a name given out of admiration and respect. The following year Carrier authored a catalog which offered data about his air washer and included the first psychometric chart ever published. This catalog was designed to sell equipment and educate the entire industry. It also contained a prophecy from the Chief that "comfort" applications in public buildings, theaters, churches and restaurants would one day become common. This was Willis Carrier at his best, grasping a broad concept well before his peers while efficiently solving a specific engineering problem. This "practical genius" gave the company its most outstanding competitive advantage: sales engineers could sell air conditioning for almost any application, convinced that the Chief could design a system suited to their customers' needs. Carrier's focus on sound economics and practical applications was reflected in his most famous creed, described in terms of one of his favorite pastimes.

"The 'catch' must be edible or I don't try for it," Carrier would explain. "I only fish for edible fish and test for useful data." The year 1907 would prove to be a historic one for Willis Carrier and his extraordinary invention. First, modern air conditioning leapt from the textile mill to the pharmaceutical plant with an installation at Parke, Davis & Company in Detroit, Michigan. Then, a proposal was made to the Huguet Silk Mill in Wayland, New York, guaranteeing a relative humidity of 65 percent throughout the entire year—the first promise of conditions and not simply equipment performance. The textile industry was among the earliest and most enthusiastic adopters of modern air conditioning. Here, buyers for New England Cotton work in a clean, efficient environment. However, the single most enduring advance came in 1907 with the first sale of Carrier's air-conditioning equipment to an international customer, the Fuji Silk Spinning Company in Yokohama, Japan. Installed in Fuji's Hodogaya Mill, the system reduced dust and static over 60,000 spindles, providing a showcase for modern air conditioning that astonished visitors for nearly 40 years with its positive impact on efficiency and working conditions.

Carrier's efforts in Japan would increase throughout the century to include the country's first completely air-conditioned building in 1933, and four years later, the world's first completely air-conditioned ship, the 8,000-ton liner Koan Maru. Thirty years after the Fuji installation, the Japanese Association of Refrigeration elected Willis Carrier an honorary member in recognition of his many contributions. It was also lasting recognition that this first sale in 1907 launched a global industry that continues over a century later to expand into new regions and original applications. By late 1907, management at Buffalo Forge had fully grasped the opportunity for air conditioning and moved to create a wholly-owned subsidiary, the Carrier Air Conditioning Company of America. Officially incorporated on April 18, 1909, the name was fitting recognition of Willis Carrier's leadership in this remarkable new industry. Carrier immediately landed an important contract with the Celluloid Company, a firm making film for the new motion picture industry.

As business in the textile industry expanded, the company also won contracts to install air conditioning to reduce rust on razor blades at the Gillette Safety Razor Company, in factories producing rubber, rayon, flour and baked goods, and in a Pittsburgh hospital ward for premature babies. In 1913 a system was sold to an American Tobacco Company facility in Richmond, Virginia. "I never saw such a dusty atmosphere," the Chief recalled. Going to work on the problem, he devised the first "pan outlet" to distribute air gently from the ceiling. "The results were wonderful," Carrier reported, and employees from other parts of the plant began eating lunch in the cool, clean air. In 1911, Carrier's research and development efforts came together in the single most famous and enduring document ever prepared on air conditioning. His "Rational Psychrometric Formulae," called the "Magna Carta of Psychrometrics," was presented on December 8, 1911, at the annual meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

The Chief's invitation to this meeting recognized air conditioning as a legitimate branch of engineering and Willis Carrier as its leader. His psychometric chart, used to correlate temperature and humidity in the design of air-conditioning systems, would be reproduced in college textbooks and translated into many languages. It is the predecessor of the charts used today. At the age of 35, Willis Carrier had become internationally recognized. By 1914, Willis Carrier completed an ambitious project to create a "compact, concise, and complete book on air" from which engineers could "design, specify, sell, buy, service, or operate the equipment that handles air." Carrier's work became the definitive text in the air-conditioning industry. The company that bore his name sold hundreds of installations, adding malt houses, candy and processed food, breweries and meatpacking houses to its customer list. Professional societies followed the lead of ASME and included air conditioning in their programs.