Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Condensing Units – Commercial
In the middle years of the 20th century Tecumseh and their related Chieftain products were leaders in “unbranded” Canadian refrigeration machines appearing in the Canadian market place, as represented here by this 1/3 HP, 2 cylinder, air-cooled, open-system machine. Tucked away, out of public view, in food stores restaurants and similar applications across the nation, such machines would quietly go about contributing to historic changes in the daily lives of Canadians throughout those defining, middle years, Tecumseh Products, 1956.
Industrial Significance:
The post WWII growth years of the Canadian refrigeration industry saw a proliferation of new manufactures of small, commercial, open-system, refrigeration machines, each bargaining for a share of the growing market. Unlike Kelvinator and Frigidaire, they were essentially “unbranded” machines and readily available through an increasingly wide network of wholesalers and jobbers servicing the Canadian industry. The proliferation of manufactures, branded and unbranded, vastly increased competitive forces which, along with changes in the technology itself [closed-system, hermetic machines] would, in turn, lead to a re-alignment and restructuring of the field, as part of its new maturity.
The traditional brands of the early years of the century would soon all but vanish. With in 5 years the open-system refrigeration machine would be seriously challenged by a new generation of fractional horsepower hermetic condensing units- a vast and far reaching point of inflection and transition had arrived.
The traditional brands, would themselves be seen as starting to market unbranded, competitive lines. Kelvinator of Canada’s, London Ont. Catalogue of 1948 would market their own machines, by 1951 they had established the Refrigeration Supplies Co. in London [RESCO], which market Tecumseh products, among others
