USA – The AHRI have released the data for November 2015’s U.S. Heating and Cooling equipment shipments. The figures reveal a mixed bag of performances with no prevailing trend for the month, with some sectors performing very strongly while other sectors struggled.

U.S. shipments of residential gas storage water heaters for November 2015 decreased by 17.3%, dropping to 299,338 units, down on the 362,082 units that had been shipped in November 2014. Similarly, shipments of residential electric storage water heaters decreased by 21.8% in November 2015 for a total of 264,885 units, a decrease on the 338,796 units shipped in November 2014.

The poor performance in November means that for the year-to-date, U.S. shipments of residential gas storage water heaters decreased by 0.8% to 3,992,228, compared to 4,026,183 units shipped during the same period in 2014, while shipments of residential electric storage water heaters were down by 4.4% for the year-to-date to 3,691,380 units, compared to 3,860,772 units shipped during the same period in 2014.

The statistics were slightly more encouraging for commercial storage heaters as shipments of commercial gas storage water heaters decreased by 0.2% in November 2015 to 7,157 units, down from the 7,169 units shipped in November 2014. However, commercial electric storage water heater shipments showed a 38.8% increase in November 2015 to 7,237 units, up on the 5,213 units shipped in November 2014.

The year-to-date figures show that U.S. shipments of commercial gas storage water heaters have increased by 3.1% to 88,790 units, compared with 86,113 units shipped over the same period in 2014. While for commercial electric storage water heaters, year-to-date shipments have increased by 18.6% to 79,675 units, up from the 67,189 units that were shipped over the equivalent period in 2014.

Similarly to gas storage heaters, U.S. shipments of gas warm air furnaces for November 2015 dropped by 6.2%, giving a total of 248,953 units shipped, a decrease on the 265,299 units shipped in November 2014. However, oil warm air furnace shipments posted a 32.0% increase to 5,379 units in November 2015, a substantial improvement on the 4,076 units shipped in November 2014.

Despite November’s disappointing statistics, year-to-date U.S. shipments of gas warm air furnaces increased by 3.7% to 2,559,567 units, compared with 2,468,626 units shipped over the same period in 2014. The year-to-date U.S. shipments of oil warm air furnaces were even more encouraging, showing an increase of 11.0% to 33,984 units, compared with 30,611 units shipped during the same period in 2014.

The combined U.S. shipments of central air conditioners and air-source heat pumps totalled 334,907 units in November 2015, a 6.6% drop on the 358,479 units shipped in November 2014. Breaking this combined total down reveals that U.S. shipments of air conditioners decreased by 4.2% to 218,076 units, down on the 227,523 units shipped in November 2014, while U.S. shipments of air-source heat pumps decreased by 10.8% to 116,831 units, a drop from the 130,956 units shipped in November 2014.

Despite the relatively poor performance in November, year-to-date combined shipments of central air conditioners and air-source heat pumps increased by 0.6% to 6,432,670 units, up from the 6,391,815 units that were shipped in November 2014. More precisely, the year-to-date shipments of central air conditioners increased by 1.9% for a total of 4,300,554 units, up from the 4,221,291 units shipped during the same period in 2014, while the year-to-date total for heat pump shipments decreased by 1.8% to 2,132,116 units, down on the 2,170,524 units shipped during the same period in 2014.