NuTone is an American company that manufactures products mainly for residential use, including doorbells, intercom systems, indoor air quality products, ventilation systems, range hoods, ceiling fans, built-in electric heaters, medicine cabinets, ironing equipment, and home theater systems.
The company was founded in 1936 by J. Ralph Corbett in Cincinnati, Ohio.[1] Corbett backed an inventor from Dayton, Ohio who was marketing a door chime that could replace door buzzers. The inventor defaulted on Corbett's loan, and Corbett marketed the product under the NuTone brand, reducing production costs enough to make door chimes affordable and creating the door chime market. NuTone became a publicly traded company in 1955. Other NuTone-created products included the residential kitchen ventilator hood and built-in kitchen countertop appliances. In 1967 when the Corbetts sold their interest in the company to the Scoville Manufacturing Company,[2] NuTone was the largest American producer of home electrical products.[3][4] The NuTone was purchased by the British home products manufacturer Valor for $460 million.[5] Nortek, Inc. acquired NuTone from Williams plc in 1998, adding it to the Broan Group, for a purchase price of $242,5 million.[6]