The term "boiler horsepower" was originally developed at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876, where the best steam engines of that period were tested. The average steam consumption of those engines (per output horsepower) was determined to be the evaporation of of water per hour, based on feed water at , and saturated steam generated at . This original definition is equivalent to a boiler heat output of . A few years later in 1884, the ASME re-defined the boiler horsepower as the thermal output equal to the evaporation of 34.5 pounds per hour of water "from and at" 212 °F. This considerably simplified boiler testing, and provided more accurate comparisons of the boilers at that time. This revised definition is equivalent to a boiler heat output of . Present industrial practice is to define "boiler horsepower" as a boiler thermal output equal to , which is very close to the original and revised definitions.