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James Alex Trane (April 29, 1857 – January 24, 1936) was a Norwegian-American inventor and industrialist. He was the co-founder of Trane.[1]
James Alex Trane was born as Jens Alexander Martin Trane in Målselv, Norway.[2] He was an immigrant to the United States who settled in La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1864, finding work as a steamfitter and plumber. In 1885, he opened his own plumbing shop.[3]
Besides being a steamfitter and a plumber, James Trane was also an inventor. He designed a new type of low-pressure steam heating system, Trane vapor heating. Reuben Trane, James' son, earned a Mechanical Engineering degree (B.S. 1910) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and joined his father's plumbing firm.[4]
In 1913, James and Reuben incorporated The Trane Company.[5] By 1916, the Tranes were no longer in the plumbing business, but rather were focusing their attention on manufacturing heating products.[6]
In 1925, Reuben Trane invented a new type of heat transfer device known as the convector radiator. It consisted of a new style of heat exchanger in a sheet metal cabinet—a highly efficient, lightweight replacement for the bulky, slow-responding castiron radiator. In 1931, The Trane Company developed its first air conditioning unit, the Trane unit cooler, and in 1938 its first centrifugal refrigeration machine, the Turbovac.[7]
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