Summary

Black and white silver gelatin photograph taken looking east inside the Machinery Hall of the Power House, Building 11, Kodak factory, Coburg, November 1958.

In this image, the common mains pipework for the condenser water (not lagged) and chilled water (lagged) are being installed along part length of the hall. Take-offs and isolating valves are visible for each of the two yet-to-be-installed centrifugal refrigeration compressor shell, tube heat exchangers, and their pumping systems. For the factory start-up period 1959-60, two electric motor driven 1.6MW (450 ton) centrifugal refrigeration compressors with their condenser and chilled water heat exchangers, were installed to the left of these mains. They provided sufficient capacity of 3ºC chilled water, which was circulated to the first production buildings via the services gantry. These mains were later extended east to connect with two Worthington steam turbine driven 3MW (850 Ton) refrigeration compressor and heat exchanger sets to meet the increased demands for chilled water after 1960-61. They were also extended further west to accommodate a York chiller set in approximately 1980.

Just visible at the far end of the hall, three temporary packaged oil-fired boilers are being connected to the 70KPa steam main (not visible here), which was also connected to the factory buildings via the services gantry. Following the planned building of the Boiler Hall and the installation of two oil-fired refractory boilers during 1960-61, these temporary boilers were removed from the site and the space was then occupied by two steam driven turbine alternator sets.

Kodak manufactured and distributed a wide range of photographic products to Australasia, such as, film, paper, chemicals, cameras and miscellaneous equipment. Its client base included amateur and professional photographers as well as specialist medical and graphic art professionals who used photography, x-ray and other imaging techniques.

This photograph is part of the Kodak collection of products, promotional materials, photographs and working life artefacts collected from Kodak Australasia in 2005 after the manufacturing plant at Coburg had closed down the year before.

Description of Content

Large pipes and valves mounted in steel racks are visible part way along a steel framed and trussed roof machinery hall. The high windows are supplemented with rows of fluorescent lighting. The outline of under-floor service trenches for underground pipes and cabling are visible with covers removed from the intersection of cross trenches. One worker can be seen handling insulating material for covering certain pipes, while another tradesman can be seen using a metal grinder.

Physical Description

Black and white silver gelatin photograph printed on light weight paper, landscape format.

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