Unico System - central heating cooling system

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The Unico System - delivers quiet, draft-free heating or cooling to any room.
Unico History and Background
Unico, Inc. was founded in 1985 by a group of individuals from the HVAC field who had extensive experience selling and installing high velocity residential air conditioning systems. When Dunham-Bush, the only high velocity manufacturer at the time, decided to sell its product line a few years before, these individuals saw an opportunity for a company that could provide expert assistance in addition to its product. Unico was able to do this by hiring individuals with extensive experience in designing and manufacturing the former Dunham-Bush product.

With quality engineering and a sound product, Unico quickly gained market acceptance. From the beginning, the company mission has always been to provide the very best comfort with the widest flexibility possible. To do this, Unico offered an indoor air handler and matching duct system that would connect to most outdoor units. Even from its modest beginnings, Unico has always offered both heat pump and air conditioning models, along with an optional electric duct heater or hot water coil. Today, Unico's product, trade marked as Unico System®, offers more options than any other high velocity system.

For the first few years, Unico sold primarily to dealers and contractors. Then as the company grew, Unico also sold through selected distributors and wholesalers. Today, Unico's high velocity system is marketed throughout the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean only through a large network of distributors and wholesalers. At first, Unico manufactured its products in both Indianapolis and at its corporate headquarters in Harrisonburg, Virginia. In 1993, in an effort to centralize operations, Unico moved its main office and all manufacturing to St. Louis, Missouri.

History of the High Velocity System
In 1946, a young engineer, Calvin D. MacCracken, fresh from pioneering in the development of the jet engine, installed a revolutionary heating system in a home in River Edge, New Jersey. The system was named Jet-Heet, since its basic design followed some of the principles of the jet engine. His design used a central furnace to deliver very hot air through small insulated ducts to the room. The small ducts originated at the furnace and terminated in a wall register to give it an "octopus" look. Initial publicity was topped by an article that appeared in the December 16, 1946 issue of Life Magazine. It was reported that this article received the second highest response for Life Magazine up to that time, only being outdistanced by an article on natural childbirth.

Fourteen years after the initial installation and after 2000 similar installations, the Jet-Heet System went into quantity production. It was offered for sale to the American public in 1960. At Jet-Heet, the product line was developed providing oil and gas furnaces, with companion air conditioning units denoted Jet-Cool, with water heating attachments, thermostatic registers and the introduction of a plenum system that greatly improved the air delivery for larger, more stretched out installations.

As Jet-Heet continued to grow, it caught the eye of people who were putting together a new company for the HVAC field called Space-Conditioning, Inc. (SCI). This company had acquired such names as Iron Fireman, Warren Webster, Peerless, Round Oak, and Petro, and was integrating them into a completely new facility in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Jet-Heet was just the kind of product line that fit into the goals of this new company - to expand into the HVAC field with new and challenging products.

As the product line was assimilated into the Space-Conditioning group it evolved into the Space-Pak concept. Space-Pak became a major factor in the family of residential and light commercial products for SCI. This product line was primarily oriented toward providing central air conditioning for existing homes and buildings which had radiant heat, baseboard heat, or inadequate duct systems.

The product line was characterized by its very compact system (taking up to 1/10th of the space of most conventional ducted systems), permitted additions to existing structures without major renovation and provided an excellent degree of comfort with the concept of aspirating outlets. The greater dehumidification the system provided was a positive sales feature, particularly for people located in areas of fairly high humidity.

In 1968, SCI was acquired by Dunham-Bush, which became one of the Signal Companies (now Allied Signal). While the product continued to be profitable for Dunham-Bush, it did not fit the long term plans of the company since Signal was primarily oriented toward the commercial-industrial sector of the market. In early 1984, the Space-Pak line was sold to Hydrotherm of Northvale, New Jersey.

At the time of the acquisition, Hydrotherm took the product as it then existed without bringing on board any technical people from Dunham-Bush. In 1985, the opportunity was seen for a second company to enter the high velocity field. Unico was started with the primary purpose of providing a better product with more options, using different marketing approaches and providing the opportunity to improve upon the product by adding new features.

It has been the goal of Unico, Inc. to provide a high quality product that retained or improved upon the proven performance characteristics of the high velocity system. Unico is a company dedicated solely to producing the Unico System® and strives to continually improve the Unico System.

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