USA – The Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) has released its data concerning the shipment of heating and cooling equipment in the US for the month of February. The general trend shows a marked increase in shipments compared with the same period in 2014.
Residential electric storage water heater shipments rose by a significant 22% margin compared to February 2014 with 415,585 units shipped in February 2015 while the year to date figures show that shipments are up by 17.1%, with 822,438 units shipped compared to 702,211 last year. Shipments of residential gas storage heaters were also up by 5.4% on last year, with 385,946 units shipped this February and posting an 8.3% increase for the year to date with 748,536 units shipped.
Commercial storage heaters also showed similar growth patterns with commercial electric storage water heater shipments rising to 7,181 units from 5,887 units in February 2014, equating to a 22.0% increase for the month and a 13.2% increase for the year with 12,705 units shipped. Likewise, commercial gas storage water heaters showed a 17% increase on February of last year with 9,312 units shipped while the yearly figures present a 14.1% gain on last year with 17,303 units shipped.
For central air conditioning and Air-source heat pumps a 19.6% increase in shipment was recorded for February 2015 with 475,926 units shipped. Air conditioning shipments rose by 22.3% while shipments of air-source heat pumps increased by 16.2% compared with February 2014 figures. Once again the year-to-date statistics confirm this trend as the combined shipments have increased by 24.5% compared to the same period in 2014 with central air conditioners having a 27.9% increase from 2014 levels and a 19.5% rise in shipments of air-source heat pumps was also recorded.
Shipments of oil warm air furnaces were also on the rise in 2015 with a 14.2% increase on shipments in February 2015 and a total 16.7% rise in shipments over the year-to-date compared to the equivalent period in 2014. Conversely the statistics for shipments of gas warm air furnaces are down on 2014 with a 2.3% drop in shipments compared to February 2014 and a 5% decrease in total for the year-to-date.