Trend
Heat pumps outshipped central air conditioners for five straight months
From Sep 2025 through Jan 2026, US manufacturers shipped more heat pumps than central air conditioners every month. Central AC took the lead back in spring. Heat pumps outshipped gas furnaces in 10 of the 14 months on record, including every month of 2026, but furnaces led from Sep 2025 to Dec 2025. Electric water heaters outshipped gas ones every month.
Why now: The federal heat pump credit ended on 31 December 2025 and a refrigerant changeover reshaped 2025. Manufacturer shipment data is the first place either shows up.
Gaps mark unavailable months, not zero shipments. Shipments are not household installations; the latest calendar year is incomplete.
View chart data
| Period | Heat pumps | Central AC | Gas furnaces |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 2024 | 365,881 | 545,636 | 245,283 |
| Jun 2024 | — | — | — |
| Jul 2024 | — | — | — |
| Aug 2024 | — | — | — |
| Sep 2024 | — | — | — |
| Oct 2024 | 365,388 | 449,972 | 280,747 |
| Nov 2024 | 315,905 | 391,531 | 260,657 |
| Dec 2024 | — | — | — |
| Jan 2025 | — | — | — |
| Feb 2025 | — | — | — |
| Mar 2025 | — | — | — |
| Apr 2025 | — | — | — |
| May 2025 | — | — | — |
| Jun 2025 | — | — | — |
| Jul 2025 | — | — | — |
| Aug 2025 | — | — | — |
| Sep 2025 | 265,689 | 263,291 | 281,001 |
| Oct 2025 | 209,883 | 202,990 | 244,324 |
| Nov 2025 | 198,247 | 181,223 | 238,810 |
| Dec 2025 | 219,529 | 188,715 | 267,065 |
| Jan 2026 | 229,957 | 210,862 | 217,762 |
| Feb 2026 | 310,696 | 328,145 | 244,774 |
| Mar 2026 | 419,917 | 436,757 | 252,982 |
| Apr 2026 | 380,888 | 456,210 | 251,401 |
| May 2026 | 396,553 | 523,132 | 265,734 |
| Jun 2026 | 418,538 | 605,033 | 320,281 |
| Jul 2026 | 413,679 | 503,151 | 265,810 |
Source: AHRI monthly shipment releases. Dataset and checksums.
The heating-season crossover
| Month | Heat pumps | Central AC | Gas furnaces | Electric water heaters | Gas water heaters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 265,689 | 263,291 | 281,001 | 395,204 | 337,447 |
| Oct 2025 | 209,883 | 202,990 | 244,324 | 391,470 | 322,277 |
| Nov 2025 | 198,247 | 181,223 | 238,810 | 369,530 | 318,129 |
| Dec 2025 | 219,529 | 188,715 | 267,065 | 462,252 | 418,518 |
| Jan 2026 | 229,957 | 210,862 | 217,762 | 381,427 | 328,506 |
| Feb 2026 | 310,696 | 328,145 | 244,774 | 378,818 | 341,724 |
| Mar 2026 | 419,917 | 436,757 | 252,982 | 466,223 | 410,647 |
| Apr 2026 | 380,888 | 456,210 | 251,401 | 430,591 | 361,801 |
| May 2026 | 396,553 | 523,132 | 265,734 | 411,726 | 347,865 |
| Jun 2026 | 418,538 | 605,033 | 320,281 | 422,813 | 363,347 |
| Jul 2026 | 413,679 | 503,151 | 265,810 | 385,594 | 333,499 |
Heat pump shipments track the heating season: they held above central AC from September through January, then AC pulled ahead as cooling season approached. In July 2026, the most recent month, manufacturers shipped 413,679 heat pumps against 503,151 central air conditioners and 265,810 gas furnaces.
For January through July 2026, the totals are 2,570,228 heat pumps, 3,063,290 central air conditioners and 1,818,744 gas furnaces. Heat pumps are running at 1.4 times the furnace total for 2026. That was not true in the autumn: from Sep 2025 to Dec 2025, gas furnaces outshipped heat pumps each month, which is the furnace replacement season and also the run-up to the credit deadline.
Water heaters tell the same story
Residential electric storage water heaters outshipped gas ones in every month on record, by roughly 16% so far in 2026. Some of that is the ordinary replacement market in regions that were always electric, so it is a weaker signal than the heat pump figure, but the direction matches.
What this does not show: the effect of the credit ending
The obvious question is whether households rushed to buy heat pumps before the federal credit expired on 31 December 2025, and whether demand fell afterward. The months on record do not answer it, for two reasons.
First, late 2025 was far below late 2024. In October and November 2025, heat pump shipments were about 40% lower than the same months of 2024. That looks like the opposite of a rush. The refrigerant transition provides important context. AHRI documents the 2024–2025 transition to lower-global-warming-potential refrigerants. HARDI, the HVACR distributor association, reports that distributors built inventory ahead of the A2L transition in late 2024 and worked through elevated stocks in 2025. That made the 2024 comparison unusually strong. This documented inventory cycle helps explain the gap; the shipment totals do not isolate how much came from inventory, household demand or the tax-credit deadline.
Second, AHRI's website no longer serves the workbooks for most months of 2025, so a clean 2025-to-2026 comparison for the same months is not yet possible from the primary source. FrugalWatt will add those months if they can be recovered, and will revisit this question when a full year of post-credit data exists.
| Month | Heat pumps | Central AC | Gas furnaces | Electric water heaters | Gas water heaters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2024 | 365,881 | 545,636 | 245,283 | 439,756 | 343,908 |
| Oct 2024 | 365,388 | 449,972 | 280,747 | 433,363 | 353,081 |
| Nov 2024 | 315,905 | 391,531 | 260,657 | 378,925 | 318,773 |
What this data does not tell you
- Shipments are not installations. These are units manufacturers shipped to distributors. They lead installations by weeks to months and include inventory that has not reached a home.
- Not households. A home may take more than one unit, and a large share of "unitary" equipment goes to commercial buildings. Shipment counts cannot be read as a number of homes converted.
- Missing months. AHRI's site no longer serves most 2023 to mid-2025 workbooks. The record here is May, October and November 2024, then September 2025 onward. Year-over-year claims are limited accordingly.
- Revisions. AHRI restates figures; each month's workbook is stored with its checksum and the page will note changes.
Methodology and sources
Figures are monthly unit shipments as published in each month's AHRI workbook (Product_Type, Month_to_Date_Units), retrieved from the news post for that month. "Heat pumps" is AHRI's Unitary_Heat_Pump line; "central AC" is Unitary_Air_Conditioning; "gas furnaces" is Gas Warm Air Furnaces. Year-to-date totals are sums of the monthly figures. Dataset version ahri-2026-09-11-6632b7845c498012.
- AHRI: U.S. heating and cooling equipment shipment statistics (monthly releases, newest 2026-09-11)
- AHRI: July 2026 shipment data release
- AHRI: A2L refrigerant transition resources and 2024–2025 timeline
- HARDI: distributor inventory and the A2L transition, February 24, 2026
Dataset version ahri-2026-09-11-6632b7845c498012. Download the snapshot manifest and file checksums. The data month is separate from the release date and from the retrieval date. How we verify.
Corrections and updates
- September 16, 2026 Corrected the header, source disclosure and structured data to identify AHRI shipments rather than EIA electricity prices. Shipment figures are unchanged.
- September 16, 2026 Restored refrigerant-transition context with AHRI and HARDI citations; the comparison does not quantify the contribution of each cause.
Related
Drafted with AI assistance from FrugalWatt's data pipeline. Figures use the cited AHRI monthly U.S. heating and cooling equipment shipment data snapshot; no interviews were conducted and no professional review is claimed. Editorial policy · Subscribe via RSS.