Roots Blower Company

[2] The Roots brothers located their business in Connersville, Indiana, as the Whitewater Canal provided a convenient 11-foot (3.35 metre) drop, suitable for an undershot mill wheel.

[1] However, the lobe impellers were made of wood, which warped and caused the motor to jam when used under water.

[1] In 1900, Gottlieb Daimler patented a Roots supercharger for a car's internal combustion engine.

[8] During World War II, the company made screw compressors for U.S. Navy submarines, which they used to blow ballast water.

[10] In 2023, Chart Industries purchased Howden[11] and quickly divested of Roots in a sale to Ingersoll Rand.

[12] The Roots factory is still located in Connersville, Indiana and produces a range of positive displacement blowers and centrifugal compressors.

Philander and Francis Roots, founders of Roots Blower Company
Cover story of February 1880 Scientific American magazine, Manufacture of Rotary Pressure Blowers at Roots, Indiana
A Roots blower with two-lobed rotors. Modern Roots blowers may have 2- or 3-lobed rotors.
Key:
  1. Rotary vane
  2. Pump body
    1. Intake
    2. Pumping
    3. Output
  3. Rotary vane