Karma, Yesterday and Today
Karma is synonymous with gas appliances. The name of Karel Macháček, one of most successful and most famous Czech manufacturers, is closely tied with the beginnings of the gas industry in our country. Karel Macháček was the first manufacturer who almost one hundred years ago started to make high quality gas appliances in this country. He gave his appliances a name comprised of the first syllables of his first and last name: KARMA.
At the beginning of the 20th century this country had no domestic household gas appliance maker. Household appliances were imported by foreign companies – mostly by Siemens and Junkers. While in Vienna and Budapest at that time the use of gas appliances for cooking, water heating and ironing was relatively widespread and gas use in general was on the rise, in Prague gas use was declining. This was caused mostly by the advent of electric power, which started to replace gas in street and household lighting. Gas use was at a historic turning point – gasworks improvement and reconstruction was only beginning to be considered.
However, Prague at that time was undergoing an unprecedented building boom. Entire streets and building blocks were growing like mushrooms in small towns on both banks of the Vltava River – the new modern and large Prague was being born. In modern apartments, gas was not being used for lighting, but for cooking and baking, water heating and gradually also for heating. This situation was correctly assessed by a young industrious man who knew that Prague, a city with half million people, could not survive without the manufacture and repair of gas appliances for very long. In 1910 he founded in Prague’s Vysočany a factory in which he started to make such appliances. This young man was none other than Karel Macháček.
Macháček Will Take Care of It
This enlightened entrepreneur, considering the time he lived in, had very thorough knowledge of gas appliance design. After completing his studies at the Dresden Technical School, he acquired his further theoretical but most importantly practical experience at gas appliance manufacturing factories abroad, mostly in Berlin at the Siemens factory and in Budapest. In his factory, which in 1915 he moved to Libeň, he started to make high quality appliances. He started with water boilers and irons, then moved to gas cook tops, reflector stoves and sheet metal and cast iron radiators. From the cylindrical free-standing bathroom water heaters he gradually moved to flat wall-hanging on demand water heaters, which people even now call “karma,” without realising the relationship to their first manufacturer.
Karel Macháček designed a number of other kinds of gas appliances, such as coffee roasters, toasters, bristle and feather burners, coke and coal fire starters for central heating furnaces, gas grills, meat smoking grills, pastry ovens, waffle irons and others. Karel Macháček did not only copy other designs, but was an excellent designer himself and his appliances were technically very advanced. He registered and used a number of patents, which he used for the improvement of gas burners, shutoff valves and so on. Probably the most important patent was the application from 31 May 1929, No. P 3889-29, which brought the solution for the automatic opening of the gas supply of the burner in an on-demand water heater after turning on the heater water valve. It is a well known, still used principle, using the water pressure difference occurring before and after constricting the element during water flow and taking place above and below the membrane of an automatic membrane valve.
Welcome to Český Brod
To try to avoid dependence on casting suppliers, Macháček, following the example of American car manufacturers, built his own modern foundry. When in 1927 the new gasworks in Michle went into large-scale production, Macháček’s new and modern manufacturing plant in Český Brod was already finished. Macháček built it to satisfy the ever increasing demand of gas users for new appliances. The production of gas cookers, irons and stoves with a model shop, moulding machines, sand blasting and enamelling shop and two muffle furnaces were moved to the factory in Český Brod. The factory in Libeň was used exclusively for the manufacture and repair of water heaters with an output from 2 to 30 l/min. The factory had its own testing, chrome plating and galvanising shops as well as a spray painting shop with modern equipment.
Desirable Employer
Macháček’s manufacturing plants in Libeň, and Český Brod, employed at the beginning of the 1940s 140 metal and 22 administrative workers. Due to their quality of workmanship and technical advancement, the Karma products became very popular among Czech gas users. Customer loyalty was further strengthened by the quality warranty and post-warranty service as well as the helpfulness and cordial attitude of company representatives.
In 1952 the company was nationalised and the manufacture of gas appliances was transferred from KARMA and the Děčín Prometheus factory to Caloria Příbram (originally the Šmolík gas appliance factory). Caloria products were not exactly known for their quality. Perhaps for this reason the Caloria factory was in 1964 liquidated and gas appliances started to be made again in the original KARMA factory in Český Brod, which however was called Okresní podnik místního průmyslu (OPMP) (County Enterprise of Local Industry) Český Brod during Socialism.
KARMA Today
The KARMA factory makes gas appliances to this day. Because the KARMA factory experienced after 1989something that can be described as a renaissance, everything good that had been done there in the past is now coming back. The joint stock company KARMA Český Brod was founded in 1991; it makes a wide selection of kitchen appliances, gas heating, air-conditioning and water heating equipment. Karma’s portfolio of conventional gas heaters is an undisputed leader on the Czech market. Thanks to their quality, the market for Karma products keeps growing. KARMA’S appliances are in demand not only in the European Union, but also in the countries of the former Soviet Union, such as Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia.