HVACR Trends

Information to Inspire, Grow and Profit

Lennox Q2 Results: Commercial Surge & Strategic Exit From Low-Margin Residential Shift Recovery to 2027

Lennox, a leading provider of climate control products specializing in HVAC solutions for residential and commercial market, announced 2Q 2026 earnings on July 29. Lennox’s results highlighted a stark divergence between its resilient commercial business and a persistently weak residential market, with revenue up 3% to $1.5 billion, missing expectations, and segment margin contracted 30 basis points to 23.0%,…

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Today’s HVAC/R Contractor Scorecard

Twenty years ago, a contractor’s scorecard looked something like this: Equipment Brand Price Relationship Today, it looks very different: Availability Pricing Delivery Service and Support…

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Today’s HVAC/R Contractor Scorecard

Twenty years ago, a contractor’s scorecard looked something like this: Equipment Brand Price Relationship Today, it looks very different: Availability Pricing Delivery Service and Support Ease of Doing Business Equipment Brand The HVAC/R industry has changed. The question is whether manufacturers and wholesalers have changed with it. For decades, the HVAC/R industry operated under a relatively simple assumption: contractors chose…

Did an Elephant Show Up at the Applied AI Conference?

Mark McGready, Director Data Analytics and Solutions for IDEA, attended the 2026 Applied AI for Distributors Conference organized by Distribution Strategy Group. While he spoke to attendees about IDEA’s Data Whispers solution and how Nudge (its avatar) helps drive sales, profits and acts as a virtual sales coach and information resource tailored to each distributor’s offering and is based upon…

Refrigeration Technologies’ Viper EZDose

By now you should have heard that Refrigeration Technologies, the Southern California-based manufacturer behind the Viper® line of non-toxic HVACR chemical solutions, recently introduced the Viper EZDose™, a gravity-fed pan and drain line maintenance system designed to help HVAC contractors prevent condensate drain clogs before they become water damage, odor complaints and costly callbacks. Another New Product! What Does it…

Blue Hawk Brings Construct CRM to its Members

Integrating with your customers provides an opportunity to add value to them and help solidify your role as their preferred distributor. The key is recognizing the reality … that they also need to buy from your competitors (credit, availability, brands, location, price, etc) and enabling this (remember the phrase, “pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered!”) Recently I wrote about a…

DOE Furnace Rule Fight Exposes Gap Between Energy Policy and HVAC Field Reality

TL;DR: This article argues that the fight over the DOE furnace and water heater rule is really a fight over whether energy policy reflects how HVAC systems are installed in the real world. Higher-efficiency equipment has clear value, but mandates become problematic when they ignore retrofit constraints, labor shortages, consumer affordability, and regional infrastructure differences. The better path is a…

Adding a Nudge to Your Sales Coaching, at the Point of Impact

Every conference has some session about AI. And every reception at every conference has someone asking about what you’re doing with AI. So, imagine being at a conference that is all about AI and where everyone is talking AI 24x7x3. This is what will happen next week at DSG’s Applied AI conference in Chicago. If you are attending get ready…

The AI Boom Exposing the HVACR Industry

TL;DR: The AI buildout is creating a cooling challenge the HVAC/R industry cannot treat like traditional comfort applications. As rack densities rise and heat loads intensify, success will depend on precision design, verified commissioning, tighter field execution, and much better training. In the author’s view, the industry’s biggest risk is not demand—it is assuming “good enough” practices can survive mission-critical…