April Heating- and Cooling-Equipment Shipment Data Released

The Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) has released heating- and cooling-equipment shipment data for April 2009.

Warm-Air Furnaces
U.S. factory shipments of gas-fired, warm-air furnaces in April totaled 125,000, an 8.5-percent drop compared with the same month a year ago. See chart. For the year-to-date, gas-furnace shipments totaled 543,338, an 18.3-percent drop compared with the same period last year.

Oil-fired, warm-air furnaces for the same month totaled 2,368, a 13.5-percent drop compared with April 2008 totals. Oil-furnace shipments for the year to date totaled 12,356, a 25-percent drop compared with the same period last year.

Storage Water Heaters
Residential electric-water-heater shipments for April totaled 318,073, an 8.8-percent drop from the same month a year ago. Residential gas-water-heater shipments totaled 313,653, an 8.3-percent decrease compared with shipments for the same month last year. For the year to date, about 1,304,957 residential gas water heaters have been shipped, a 6.6-percent drop compared with the same period a year ago. For the year to date, about 1,284,056 residential electric storage water heaters have been shipped, a 10.1-percent drop compared with the same period last year. See chart.
Commercial-gas-water-heater shipments for April totaled 6,442, dropping 20.8 percent compared with the same month last year, while commercial-electric-water-heater shipments totaled 4,359, a 27.2-percent drop compared with the same month a year ago. For the year to date, commercial-electric-water-heater shipments (19,559) are 16-percent behind total shipments of this product during the same period last year (23,297). Commercial-gas-water-heater shipments (27,791) for the year to date are down 12.3 percent, compared with the same period a year ago (31,682).

Central Air Conditioners and Air-Source Heat Pumps
Combined U.S. factory shipments of central air conditioners and air-source heat pumps for April totaled 410,932, down 23 percent compared with the same month a year ago. For the year to date, combined shipments totaled 1,366,249, down 24 percent compared with the same period last year. See charts.

Heat-pump shipments for April totaled 129,264 down 16 percent from the same month a year ago. For the year to date, heat-pump shipments totaled 484,867, a 19-percent drop compared with the same period last year.