7 groundbreaking innovations over the years

1. The heater that revolutionised Swedish homes

In 1926, CTC founder and CEO Gunnar Tellander invented a completely new type of heating coil that provided a new way to get hot water. The crucial component was spiral-spun copper pipes, in which tap water was created. 

Heating water in a water heater using a battery had several advantages. First of all, it ensured that the hot water was always fresh when it came out. Previously, water had been heated in a container where it had been left to go bad. Other advantages were that only one heat source was needed to heat both hot water and domestic hot water. The heating battery was also very resilient and durable. The invention was a great success for CTC and laid the foundations for the future. 

In the 1930s, CTC developed the system so that the heating battery could be integrated into the home's boiler. This meant that a single product could both heat the house and produce hot water. CTC's new integrated boilers became dominant in the following decades and a green CTC boiler, fuelled by coke, wood or oil, was a standard feature in new homes for a long time.

2. The double boiler

In the 1950s, oil became a popular alternative for heating. It was cheaper than coke and wood, and also more convenient as you did not have to manually "feed" the boiler every day. Early on, CTC boilers could be converted from wood to oil or vice versa, but in the 1960s, so-called double boilers were developed, with separate fires for each type of fuel. The oil burner could then always be in place, and started by means of a switch. This was a welcome innovation for many.

3. The Ljungberg channels

In 1968, CTC employee and inventor BG Ljungberg developed a new sheet metal profile that formed so-called channels for the heat in the boilers. Since a boiler consists largely of transferring heat to the boiler water, in what is called the afterfire surface, it is important that the transfer is as smart as possible. Ljungberg's new standardised channels in the form of sheet metal profiles were a great improvement.  

On the one hand, they required minimal welding, but they also made it easy to adapt the boiler's finishing surfaces to different capacities and needs. After thorough testing in CTC's labs, the Ljungberg channels became standard in most products because they made the boilers more cost-effective and compact.

4. First eco-labelled boiler

Another important milestone in oil boilers was the CTC 1100 model, launched at the 1992 Stockholm Plumbing Fair. The CTC 1100 was much more compact and environmentally friendly than previous boilers, with a heat exchanger for hot water preparation. The boiler became very popular, and the product was the first in Sweden to be certified with the Nordic Ecolabel.  

5. The first heat pumps in Sweden

CTC developed its first heat pumps early on. The first exhaust air heat pump was launched as early as 1981. In 1985, CTC was the first in Sweden to introduce an air-to-water heat pump to the market with the new CTC Rebell. In the 1990s, however, interest in heat pumps waned as the price of oil plummeted, but CTC was the pioneer in heat pumps.

6. Intercooler

In the first part of the 2000s, CTC made a decisive choice for the future, when it decided to switch from oil boilers and fossil heating to heat pumps. A partnership was then established with heat pump specialist Mekaterm. The first to be produced in the Ljungby factory was a series of mountain heat pumps (CTC EcoHeat). CTC had a strong desire to increase the efficiency of the heat pumps and Hans Ljung at Mekaterm came up with an idea to integrate the cooling into the already existing evaporator exchanger. He filed a patent application, which was granted in 2004. Tests showed a clear improvement in performance and the technology was introduced on all of CTC's mountain heat pumps. The system was launched under the name Intercooler.

7. Unique CTC EnergyFlex

Since CTC's major breakthrough in the early 2000s, several advances have been made in the development of efficient heat pumps. Perhaps the greatest innovation is the unique EnergyFlex. The foundation of EnergyFlex is a CTC heat pump, but EnergyFlex then makes it easy for the customer to cost-effectively connect the vast majority of heat-related equipment to a single system. This can include solar heating, additional tanks, stoves, wood, electric and pellet boilers, swimming pools and so on. EnergyFlex is now standard on all CTC heat pumps and indoor modules.

Published: 2023-02-08