Sabiana was founded in 1929 by Franco Binaghi and Benvenuto Anatrella. A native of Lombardy, passionate about mechanics and a true “man of the workshop”, Binaghi recognised the considerable entrepreneurial and commercial skills in Anatrella, who was originally from Tuscany but had recently moved to Milan. Like many other Italian businesses, their partnership started with a handshake, and 76 years later the heirs of the two founders share that same passion. The mission now, like then, is to make and sell reliable products that improve the comfort of all work environments.

The first electric air heater was introduced in 1935, while straight after the Second World War production started on unit heaters supplied by hot water, the same type that still today, available in seven different versions, heat and at times cool thousands of facilities all over the world.

At the start of the seventies, during the first international energy crisis, the Alfa Romeo facilities in Arese were proposed an innovative heating solution using ceiling mounted radiant panels installed at a height of 12 m from the ground. Although not yet in production, Sabiana accepted the order and delivered the first 10 km of radiant panels to the significant satisfaction of the customer, so much so that, in the following years, a further 20 km of panels were supplied. Since then, over 25,000 installations in all types of environments (small, medium, large industries, shopping centres, airplane hangars, sports and recreational facilities, agricultural sheds) demonstrate the soundness of the product, with new and highly innovative applications such as the new facilities in Toulouse (France) where the most prestigious European product is made: the new 800 seat Airbus A380.

Towards the end of the seventies, with the first requests for office air-conditioning, the heating convectors, designed and sold above all for home applications, was gradually replaced by what would later become one of the most widespread air-conditioning systems and the most important product for Sabiana: the fan coil. These were the years when Italian design started to take hold across the world, and saw the beginning of our partnership with one of the leading industrial designers, winner of the Golden Compass award, Lorenzo Bonfanti. This partnership produced the design of the Helios unit heater, still today a symbol of how a highly elegant product can be developed and sold for industrial environments. With the Futura fan coil, Sabiana, moving away from traditional conventions in style, made a name for itself not only among the leading system designers, but also among many architects, who had always had harsh regard for air-conditioning appliances. The splendid design, combined with the traditional reliability and low noise of Sabiana products, allowed the company to stake a claim in the increasingly competitive air-conditioning market against the large international players.

Since 1995, all Sabiana fan coils have featured the exclusive option of the innovative electronic filter called the Crystall, patented worldwide by Luigi Bontempi. This filter significantly improves the quality of air in work environments, trapping numerous pollutants present in the air, including tobacco smoke, dust, fibres or microbiological substances such as bacteria and fungi. Subsequently the filter has also been applied to other products. Numerous technical workshops have been organised by Sabiana all over Italy on indoor air quality (IAQ), and still today these attract a great deal of interest for the current relevance of the problems and the professional manner in which the solutions are presented.

In the nineties, two strategic decisions were made involving the company’s future: the decision to manufacture stainless steel flues in-house, resulting in the company soon becoming one of the Italian market leaders, and the completion of the range of water-source air-conditioning products, starting the production of a complete series of air handling units, partly standard and partly to customer specifications. These are highly flexible, high quality units that can respond to the increasing needs for ambient comfort.

March 2004, Mostra-Convegno Expo Comfort in Milan: Sabiana presented the latest family jewel: the SkyStar Cassette fan coils, the result of significant technical and design research aimed at developing an avant-garde product in terms of performance, low operating noise and control flexibility. The air intake and distribution grill has a highly innovative appearance, guaranteeing excellent performance based on extensive computer analysis and laboratory tests. This product represents Sabiana’s consolidation in the fan coil sector and makes the company one of the leading European manufacturers.

Today Sabiana is an Italian company that directly employs 180 people, with two facilities near Milan covering a total area of 30,000 m2 indoors, an internal research and development lab, 45 highly professional sales agencies in Italy, more than 50 distributors in Europe, North America and the Middle East, and sales of around 65 million euro (2006).

Featuring ISO 9001 certification since 1996, with all its products conforming to the reference European directives and standards and, where these exist, quality marks and certification of declared performance, Sabiana remains faithful to an old promise made by the two founders: we will always be with you, every day, whether you design or distribute or install our products, to professionally help you experience the priceless satisfaction of having done a good job.