Air Socks, or "textile diffusers" as they are technically known,  have been around for more years than people would believe and yet still  it is new to many people in our industry. One early record of air socks being used is in 1955 for a cotton mill in Germany.

People who are aware of air socks normally only associated them with  the food Industry and sometimes the textile Industry.

Although they are  two classic applications, there are many more. By means of  strategically-positioned nozzles or holes in specially selected  materials, for which the combinations and permutations are endless,  virtually the whole spectrum of air distribution requirements can be  met.

Air socks have the ability to create a uniform air  distribution throughout the room by virtue of the fact that the entire  length of the duct is used for discharging the supply air into the  conditioned space, this being impractical or very expensive for many  conventional rigid duct systems.

The exception to this is where the air socks maybe used for  displacement ventilation. Here, smaller air volumes can be used with  larger temperature differentials dropping the supply air into the  occupied zone away from room occupants and then push the warm air to  the extract grilles. Displacement ventilation is very efficient for  applications where there are particularly high heat loads such as in TV  studios, computer suites or printing shops.

In such applications, by the very nature of the principles, the  temperature across the area will have a wider band of temperatures and  typically there will be a blanket of warm air just below the ceiling;  the ceiling being where the extract grilles are normally to be  positioned.