Warm Air Research House

Urbana, United States

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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Heritage registerNational Register of Historic Places↗

The Warm Air Research House, a Colonial Revival residence completed in 1924 at 1108 W. Stoughton Street in Urbana, Illinois, served as a pioneering testing facility for residential heating technology. Designed by architect Loring Harvey Provine and graduate student Clarence Andrew Kissinger, the house was built through a joint commission by the National Warm-Air Heating and Ventilating Association and the University of Illinois Department of Mechanical Engineering to address the American heating industry's lack of standardized testing procedures. At a time when warm-air ventilation systems were still considered novel, the facility tested domestic heating methods and later, beginning in 1932, air conditioning and cooling systems. Research conducted there yielded practical innovations including storm windows, forced-air heating systems, and advances in heating duct design and placement. The university sold the house in 1946 as its utility declined with the post-war trend toward smaller homes. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.