HVAC Shipments Jumped 20% in July. The Bigger Signal Is Six Straight Months of Growth.

The fresh number: 916,830 units

The HVAC equipment channel has clearly improved. That is not the same thing as declaring a boom.

What HVAC operators should take from the release

• Combined central AC and air-source heat-pump shipments rose 20.1% year over year in July to 916,830 units, according to AHRI.
• July marked a sixth straight month of year-over-year combined shipment growth after January's 29.2% decline and a nine-month contraction streak that began in May 2025, according to HomePros' review of the AHRI series.
• The comparison base matters: July 2026 combined shipments were still about 12.1% below July 2024's 1,043,420 units.
• Through July, combined shipments are up 5.5% versus 2025 but remain about 2.2% below the same seven-month period in 2024.
• Heat pumps continue taking a larger share of the combined AC/heat-pump mix: 45.6% of 2026 year-to-date combined shipments versus 42.1% over the same period in 2024.
• Gas warm-air furnaces are moving differently. July shipments rose 2.1%, but year-to-date volume remains down 5.1% from 2025.
• Shipment growth is not proof of contractor demand. Owners should reconcile the national equipment data against local leads, replacement opportunities, close rates, average tickets, financing usage, cancellations and distributor inventory.

July 2026 HVAC shipment scorecard

AC + heat pumps

916,830

+20.1% versus July 2025.

Central AC

503,151

+22.3% versus July 2025.

Air-source heat pumps

413,679

+17.6% versus July 2025.

2026 YTD combined

5.63M

+5.5% versus 2025, but about 2.2% below 2024.

Gas furnaces YTD

-5.1%

1,818,744 units through July.

Growth streak

6 months

February through July posted positive year-over-year combined shipment growth.

The most useful part of the July release is not the 20.1% headline by itself. It is the shape of 2026.

January's 440,819 combined units represented a 29.2% year-over-year decline. February edged into positive territory at 0.4%. March improved to 4.6%, April to 5.1%, May to 6.7%, June accelerated to 21.7%, and July held near that pace at 20.1%.

That sequence suggests the channel has moved through more than a one-month weather spike. Six consecutive positive comparisons are harder to dismiss than a single strong print.

But the sequence also begins from a very depressed starting point. Calendar-year 2025 combined AC and heat-pump shipments fell 20% from 2024, according to AHRI's December 2025 release. The market entered 2026 with a deep hole to climb out of. A strong percentage increase against a weak prior-year month can coexist with absolute volume that remains below the earlier cycle peak.

That is exactly what July shows. The 916,830 units shipped this July are well above 2025's 763,443—but still below the 1,043,420 units shipped in July 2024.

2026 combined central AC + heat-pump shipment trend

A contractor looking at a dashboard knows this problem immediately: percentage growth depends on what is underneath it.

July 2025 was unusually weak. AHRI reported 763,443 combined units that month, compared with 1,043,420 in July 2024. That was a drop of roughly 26.8%.

So July 2026's 20.1% gain is encouraging, but it does not recover all of the prior year's decline. At 916,830 units, July 2026 is still about 126,590 units—or 12.1%—below July 2024.

The year-to-date totals are less volatile and therefore more useful for judging the broader channel. Through July 2026, manufacturers shipped 5,633,518 combined central AC and heat-pump units. That is 292,934 more than the same period in 2025, but 126,433 fewer than the same period in 2024.

The conclusion is more useful when stated precisely: 2026 has regained meaningful ground from 2025. It has not yet surpassed the 2024 shipment pace.

July and year-to-date volume: 2024 vs. 2025 vs. 2026

The mix shift inside the combined category is just as important as the total.

Through July 2026, AHRI reports 2,570,228 air-source heat pumps and 3,063,290 central air conditioners. Heat pumps therefore represent about 45.6% of combined year-to-date shipments. Over the same period in 2024, heat pumps represented about 42.1%. That is an increase of roughly 3.5 percentage points in two years.

In absolute terms, the comparison is striking. Year-to-date heat-pump shipments are about 142,854 units above 2024, while central-air shipments are about 269,287 units below 2024. The combined market remains smaller than it was two years ago, but heat pumps occupy more of it.

For a contractor, that matters beyond policy debates about electrification. A changing equipment mix affects training, commissioning, diagnostics, controls knowledge, cold-climate expectations, parts stocking and how salespeople explain operating tradeoffs. A market can be flat or recovering slowly while the technical work inside it changes materially.

Warm-air furnace shipments complicate any broad claim that the entire residential HVAC equipment market is accelerating at the same pace.

AHRI says gas warm-air furnace shipments increased 2.1% in July to 265,810 units. Yet year-to-date gas-furnace shipments remain down 5.1%, at 1,818,744 units versus 1,915,641 in the same period of 2025.

Oil furnaces posted a 36.6% July increase and a 13.9% year-to-date gain, but the category is tiny by comparison: 2,681 units in July and 17,641 year to date.

The divergence is a reminder that “HVAC demand” is not one number. Cooling equipment, heat pumps and furnaces can move in different directions because of replacement cycles, regional weather, channel inventory, product transitions, housing activity and customer economics. Contractors should resist turning a national combined-shipment headline into a blanket assumption about every department of the business.

AHRI's definition is important: a shipment occurs when a unit transfers ownership. That makes the series a valuable measure of equipment moving through the U.S. channel, but it does not tell you when—or whether—a specific unit was installed in a homeowner's house.

Manufacturer shipments can move because distributors are rebuilding inventory, clearing product, preparing for seasonal demand or responding to product-transition timing. Weather can pull orders forward. A weak prior-year comparison can make growth rates look stronger. Local replacement demand can diverge substantially from the national average.

That does not make the data less useful. It tells operators how to use it. Treat shipment data as an upstream signal that should be reconciled against downstream operating data rather than substituted for it.

If your local business is seeing the same recovery, it should eventually appear in several places at once: more eligible replacement calls, more system-replacement estimates, higher booked replacement volume, improving close rates without destructive discounting, stable or improving gross profit, and distributor availability that supports the work.

If national shipments are rising but those indicators are not, the gap is itself useful information. It may point to local market weakness, share loss, lead-generation problems, sales execution, financing friction or a channel effect that has not reached the field.

The contractor dashboard that should confirm—or challenge—the national recovery

What owners should do with the July data

• Pull a 13-month replacement dashboard. Compare eligible replacement opportunities, estimates, close rate, average ticket, installed gross profit and financing usage—not just top-line revenue.
• Separate repair from replacement. A strong service-call count can hide weak equipment conversion, while a replacement rebound can be diluted inside an all-service average.
• Ask distributors what is actually moving. Compare sell-through, backorders and on-hand inventory with the national shipment trend so you can distinguish field demand from channel restocking.
• Review heat-pump readiness. The category is taking a larger share of combined shipments, so training, commissioning, controls and sales education should follow the mix shift even in markets where gas remains important.
• Protect margin as volume returns. A recovering market is not a reason to stop monitoring equipment cost, discounting and quote validity. Dispatch recently documented September HVAC supplier price increases that can make an old estimate a new margin problem.
• Do not budget the rest of 2026 from one month. Use the six-month direction as evidence of recovery, then update the operating plan as August and fall shipment data arrive.

Related Dispatch analysis: supplier increases can erase the benefit of stronger volume

September HVAC price increases are landing across common equipment and materials. Dispatch's margin analysis shows why a recovering sales environment still requires current price books and disciplined quote windows.

Also watch the install side: the HVAC GFCI exception expired September 1

Equipment volume is only one operating variable. Contractors are also navigating a state-by-state code patchwork after the NEC 210.8(F) HVAC exception expired.

The useful word is recovery

July gives the HVAC market a genuinely better data point than it had at the start of the year.

A 20.1% increase is substantial. Six consecutive positive year-over-year months make the directional case stronger. Central air is growing, heat pumps are growing and year-to-date combined shipments are back above 2025.

But the longer comparison keeps the story grounded. July remains below July 2024. The first seven months of 2026 remain below the same period in 2024. Gas-furnace shipments remain down year to date. And shipments themselves do not equal installations, booked revenue or profitable jobs.

So the operator's question is not whether a national trade-association release has declared the market healthy. It has not.

The question is whether the recovery visible upstream is now reaching your own funnel—and whether your company is positioned to convert it when it does.

Questions contractors may have about the AHRI shipment data

Methodology

TradeVulcan Dispatch reviewed AHRI's July 2026 statistical release and prior monthly AHRI releases, then cross-checked the latest figures against Contracting Business and HomePros coverage published September 11, 2026. Percent comparisons to 2024 are Dispatch calculations from AHRI's published July and year-to-date totals: 916,830 versus 1,043,420 for July (-12.1%) and 5,633,518 versus 5,759,951 year to date (-2.2%). Heat-pump shipment share is calculated as 2,570,228 divided by 5,633,518 (45.6%) for 2026 and 2,427,374 divided by 5,759,951 (42.1%) for 2024. AHRI defines a shipment as a transfer of ownership; the series does not represent installations, booked jobs or contractor revenue and is not seasonally adjusted in this analysis. AHRI states that it does not forecast or discuss market trends; all interpretation is Dispatch analysis.