Equipment ranking
Heat pumps ranked on ENERGY STAR certified performance
One federal dataset, ordered within capacity bands, with the brand-name arithmetic that makes most comparisons meaningless.
Written by HYRE HVAC Research Desk Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
The short answer
No single heat pump is "best". This page orders ENERGY STAR certified ratings (DOE Appendix M1) within capacity bands, with ducted and ductless kept apart: HSPF2 for heating, SEER2 for cooling.
HyreHVAC collapsed EPA’s 281,975 certified combinations to 8,465 outdoor units. 1,394 of them (16.5%) are sold under more than one brand name. Nothing is ranked on price or reliability.
Is the brand on the box the manufacturer?
Often not. Deduplicating the federal file is a technical necessity — a certified row is an outdoor/indoor combination, not a machine — but the by-product is the most useful thing on this page.
HyreHVAC calculation: outdoor model number D5CUHAH18AAK is certified under 17 different brand names: Airquest, Arcoaire, Bryant, Carrier, Comfortmaker, Day & Night, Grandaire, Heil, Keeprite, Kenmore, LPS Legacy, Midea, Payne, SMART COMFORT, Tempstar, Viessmann, WEATHERMAKER. It is one machine. The certified ratings are identical because the machine is identical.
That is not an isolated case. 1,394 of the 8,465 distinct outdoor-unit model numbers in the file — 16.5% — appear under two or more brands, and the model numbers are frequently the same string. Collapsing brand duplicates alone removes 4,051 listings from the count.
HyreHVAC analysis: this is why "which brand is most reliable" is a harder question than it looks, and why comparing three quotes on badge alone can be comparing one product against itself at three prices.
It also explains a pattern homeowners notice and cannot account for: two contractors quote what appear to be entirely different systems, and the outdoor model numbers turn out to be the same.
The question worth asking a salesperson is not "which brand is this" but "what is the outdoor model number, and what indoor unit is it matched to". Those two strings, and only those two, identify the thing being sold.
A necessary limit on that argument: an identical model number under several labels is strong evidence of one platform, but the federal file records no manufacturer field to confirm it with — icm_outdoor_unit_manufacturer is populated on 2 of 281,975 rows.
Warranty terms, distribution, dealer training and parts availability also differ genuinely between labels on the same box, and none of those is in this dataset either.
Why are the rankings split by capacity?
Because ratings move with size. Efficiency ratings are not a pure measure of engineering quality; they move systematically with capacity and with how the air is delivered.
HyreHVAC calculation: median SEER2 among ductless families falls from 23.5 in the smallest band to 20.0 in the largest, while ducted families run 15.3 to 17.0 and never overlap the ductless range at the median.
An unbanded top-ten list on SEER2 would therefore be a list of small ductless heads, every time, whatever the reader actually needs.
A three-ton ducted system that tops its own band is a better result than a nine-thousand-Btu wall head halfway down its own — and the two are not competing for the same job in any case.
The bands are the ordinary 12,000 Btu/h ton increments applied to rated cooling capacity at 95°F. That is a classification rather than an estimate: a ton of refrigeration is 12,000 Btu/h by definition. Bands holding fewer than ten certified families are not shown, because ranking five things is a list, not a distribution.
Ducted, <1 ton (under 12,000 Btu/h) — highest HSPF2
Each table below covers one capacity band of ducted split and single-package equipment and is ordered on HSPF2 — the heating seasonal performance factor measured over a Region IV heating season under DOE Appendix M1.
HSPF2 is the closest thing the certification carries to an annual heating efficiency, which is why it, rather than the 5°F coefficient of performance, is the right ordering for a general heating ranking.
| Outdoor unit | Sold as | HSPF2 | SEER2 | COP at 5°F | Rated cooling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AVE09N3H1, AVE09N3H2, AVE09N4H2 +29 more | Ephoca, Innova | 9.9 | 15.4 | 1.75 | 7,500 Btu/h |
| AVK19N3H2, AVK19N4H2, AVK19R3H2 +23 more | Ephoca, Innova | 9.2 | 15.4 | 2.30 | 11,600 Btu/h |
| ACK09N3H1, ACK09N3H2, ACK09R3H1 +59 more | Ephoca, Innova | 9.2 | 15.3 | 1.75 | 6,100 Btu/h |
| 9SPV0-HP-X-D | MULTIMFG | 8.9 | 15.2 | 2.30 | 9,000 Btu/h |
| APE10*3*2, APE10*4*2, APE10N3H1-3 +30 more | Ephoca, Innova, Innova Srl | 8.6 | 15.8 | 1.76 | 9,000 Btu/h |
US EPA, ENERGY STAR Certified Air-Source Heat Pumps (data.energystar.gov, dataset w7cv-9xjt), retrieved September 5, 2026. HyreHVAC calculation over 8,465 deduplicated outdoor-unit families. 196 ducted families in this band; median HSPF2 9.2, median SEER2 15.3.
Ducted, 1 to 2 ton (12,000-23,999 Btu/h) — highest HSPF2
| Outdoor unit | Sold as | HSPF2 | SEER2 | COP at 5°F | Rated cooling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AY-XP12ZHU1: AE-X12ZHU1 | Sharp | 11.0 | 25.0 | 2.10 | 12,000 Btu/h |
| ACIQ-18-HPB, BZ33-INV18OUT2-J, HHS-18HD-A +2 more | 1HVAC, ACIQ, Alsetria +10 more | 10.8 | 19.3 | 2.30 | 18,000 Btu/h |
| ACIQ-18-HPD, AUO19-18N2-M3H, CH-PQ18-230VO +6 more | 1HVAC, ACIQ, AI AIR CONDITIONING +7 more | 10.8 | 19.3 | 2.12 | 18,000 Btu/h |
| 37MUHAQ18AA3, D5CUHAH18AAK | Airquest, Arcoaire, BRYANT HEATING AND COOLING SYSTEMS +16 more | 10.8 | 19.3 | 2.12 | 18,400 Btu/h |
| A-VXP18SA-1, DRU1H18S2A, HHS-18HD-B | Century, Comfort Aire, Comfort-Aire +2 more | 10.8 | 19.3 | 2.10 | 18,000 Btu/h |
US EPA, ENERGY STAR Certified Air-Source Heat Pumps (data.energystar.gov, dataset w7cv-9xjt), retrieved September 5, 2026. HyreHVAC calculation over 8,465 deduplicated outdoor-unit families. 396 ducted families in this band; median HSPF2 8.7, median SEER2 16.5.
Ducted, 2 to 3 ton (24,000-35,999 Btu/h) — highest HSPF2
| Outdoor unit | Sold as | HSPF2 | SEER2 | COP at 5°F | Rated cooling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VUH24-VA6BA(O) | SAMYOU, VINO | 11.0 | 21.0 | 1.96 | 24,000 Btu/h |
| 5TWX7024A1 | Trane | 11.0 | 18.0 | 2.10 | 24,000 Btu/h |
| 5A6H7024A1, 5TWR7024A1 | American Standard, Trane | 11.0 | 17.1 | 2.10 | 24,000 Btu/h |
| 37MUHAQ30AA3, ACIQ-30-HPD, AUO19-30N2-M3H +7 more | 1HVAC, ACIQ, AI AIR CONDITIONING +22 more | 10.8 | 17.5 | 2.00 | 30,000 Btu/h |
| CH-PQ33-230VO | Cooper&Hunter | 10.8 | 17.5 | 2.00 | 30,000 Btu/h |
US EPA, ENERGY STAR Certified Air-Source Heat Pumps (data.energystar.gov, dataset w7cv-9xjt), retrieved September 5, 2026. HyreHVAC calculation over 8,465 deduplicated outdoor-unit families. 919 ducted families in this band; median HSPF2 9.0, median SEER2 17.5.
Ducted, 3 to 4 ton (36,000-47,999 Btu/h) — highest HSPF2
| Outdoor unit | Sold as | HSPF2 | SEER2 | COP at 5°F | Rated cooling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MCY-MUB0368HS2P-UL | TOSHIBA CARRIER | 12.2 | 29.7 | 2.42 | 36,000 Btu/h |
| KUSXA361A | LG | 10.5 | 23.5 | 2.16 | 36,000 Btu/h |
| 5A6V0X36A1, 5TWV0X36A1 | American Standard, Trane | 10.5 | 21.0 | 2.24 | 36,200 Btu/h |
| KUSXB361A | LG | 10.3 | 22.0 | 2.10 | 36,000 Btu/h |
| 37MUHAQ36AA3, ACIQ-36-HPD, AUO19-36N2-M3H-S +9 more | 1HVAC, ACIQ, AI AIR CONDITIONING +24 more | 10.3 | 18.0 | 1.90 | 36,000 Btu/h |
US EPA, ENERGY STAR Certified Air-Source Heat Pumps (data.energystar.gov, dataset w7cv-9xjt), retrieved September 5, 2026. HyreHVAC calculation over 8,465 deduplicated outdoor-unit families. 549 ducted families in this band; median HSPF2 8.6, median SEER2 16.0.
Ducted, 4 to 5 ton (48,000-59,999 Btu/h) — highest HSPF2
| Outdoor unit | Sold as | HSPF2 | SEER2 | COP at 5°F | Rated cooling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27VNA154A*030*, 291VAN054**AA* | BRYANT HEATING AND COOLING SYSTEMS, Carrier | 12.0 | 21.2 | 2.10 | 53,500 Btu/h |
| VUH48-VA6BA(O) | SAMYOU, VINO | 11.0 | 20.0 | 2.10 | 48,000 Btu/h |
| VUH60-VA6BA(0), VUH60-VA6BA(O) | SAMYOU, VINO | 10.8 | 19.6 | 2.16 | 52,500 Btu/h |
| ENX60HPJ132OA, FLEX60KUHR32, FXU60HP230V1R32AO +7 more | AC PRO, BOREAL, GREE +5 more | 10.5 | 19.0 | 2.10 | 53,000 Btu/h |
| ACIQ-60-HP32, TU60-32WEDU | 1HVAC, ACIQ, DIYCOOL +2 more | 10.5 | 18.5 | 2.10 | 53,000 Btu/h |
US EPA, ENERGY STAR Certified Air-Source Heat Pumps (data.energystar.gov, dataset w7cv-9xjt), retrieved September 5, 2026. HyreHVAC calculation over 8,465 deduplicated outdoor-unit families. 701 ducted families in this band; median HSPF2 9.0, median SEER2 17.0.
Ductless — highest HSPF2 across all capacities
Ductless families are ranked in full on the mini-split page, which separates single-zone from multi-zone equipment. The table here is the top of the ductless population on HSPF2 for comparison against the ducted bands above.
The median ductless family rates 10.0 HSPF2 against 9.0 for ducted — a gap that is mostly the absence of a duct system and its fan, not a difference in compressor technology.
| Outdoor unit | Sold as | HSPF2 | SEER2 | COP at 5°F | Rated cooling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DLCPRBH09AAK | Airquest, Arcoaire, Comfortmaker +9 more | 17.5 | 27.0 | 1.85 | 9,000 Btu/h |
| 37MPRAQ18AA3, MOD30-18HFN10-M1H | Bryant, Carrier, MDV +3 more | 16.2 | 25.8 | 2.34 | 18,000 Btu/h |
| 4C35SCH18H21, A-KZP18SA-1, A-ZHP18SA-1 +11 more | AI AIR CONDITIONING, BLUERIDGE, CanAir +10 more | 16.2 | 25.6 | 2.34 | 18,000 Btu/h |
| 37MPRAQ06AA3, MOX430-06HFN10-M1H | Bryant, Carrier, MDV +3 more | 15.6 | 35.1 | 2.00 | 6,000 Btu/h |
| A-KZP06SA-1, A-ZHP06SA-1, A-ZKP06SA-1 +6 more | AI AIR CONDITIONING, BLUERIDGE, Comfort Aire +6 more | 15.6 | 35.0 | 2.00 | 6,000 Btu/h |
| D5CPRAH06AAK | Airquest, Arcoaire, Comfortmaker +8 more | 15.6 | 33.1 | 2.00 | 6,000 Btu/h |
| DLCPRBH18AAK | Airquest, Arcoaire, Comfortmaker +9 more | 15.5 | 26.3 | 2.89 | 18,000 Btu/h |
| D5CPRAH18AA | Airquest, Arcoaire, Comfortmaker +8 more | 15.2 | 24.5 | 2.34 | 18,000 Btu/h |
| MOX430-09HFN1-MZG5W | MDV, Midea | 15.0 | 29.0 | 1.86 | 9,000 Btu/h |
| 38MPRBQ09AA3 | Bryant, Carrier, Midea +2 more | 15.0 | 28.5 | 1.85 | 12,000 Btu/h |
US EPA, ENERGY STAR Certified Air-Source Heat Pumps (data.energystar.gov, dataset w7cv-9xjt), retrieved September 5, 2026. HyreHVAC calculation over 8,465 deduplicated outdoor-unit families. 5,698 ductless families; median HSPF2 10.0.
A ductless rating never pays for duct losses because there are no ducts. A ducted rating is measured at a defined external static pressure that many real duct systems exceed. The categories are not on the same footing and the comparison is presented as context, not as a ranking of one against the other.
What does the certified heat pump market look like?
| Measure | All certified families | Ducted | Ductless |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distinct outdoor units | 8,465 | 2,767 | 5,698 |
| Carrying the Cold Climate designation | 6,263 (74.0%) | 1,675 | 4,588 |
| HSPF2 — median | 9.7 | 9.0 | 10.0 |
| HSPF2 — 10th to 90th percentile | 8.4 – 11.1 | 7.8 – 10.0 | 9.0 – 11.6 |
| SEER2 — median | 21.0 | 16.8 | 22.0 |
| SEER2 — highest certified | 35.1 | 29.7 | 35.1 |
| EER2 — median | 12.25 | — | — |
| COP at 5°F — median | 2.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 |
| Capacity held at 5°F — median | 77.8% | 74.1% | 79.2% |
US EPA, ENERGY STAR Certified Air-Source Heat Pumps (data.energystar.gov, dataset w7cv-9xjt), retrieved September 5, 2026. HyreHVAC calculation over 8,465 deduplicated outdoor-unit families.
Certification is voluntary, so this is the better end of the market rather than the whole of it, and it is a census of models rather than of sales — a model selling once counts the same as one selling a million.
Which refrigerants do certified heat pumps use?
One thing worth checking on any quote that this dataset does answer cleanly. R-410A has a global warming potential of 2,088 and is being displaced by two lower-GWP alternatives under the AIM Act phase-down. HyreHVAC calculation: the certified population has already largely moved — the two lower-GWP refrigerants together account for 65.2% of certified families.
| Refrigerant | Certified families | Share |
|---|---|---|
| R-454B (GWP:470 | Lower GWP) | 3,656 | 43.2% |
| R-410A (GWP:2088) | 2,948 | 34.8% |
| R-32 (GWP:675 | Lower GWP) | 1,861 | 22.0% |
US EPA, ENERGY STAR Certified Air-Source Heat Pumps (data.energystar.gov, dataset w7cv-9xjt), retrieved September 5, 2026. HyreHVAC calculation over 8,465 deduplicated outdoor-unit families.
A system installed on a refrigerant being phased down is not unsafe or unsupported, but the cost of a future recharge is a live question rather than a settled one. Our refrigerant transition study covers the timetable.
How do you use a certified rating on a real quote?
Those two strings identify the product. The brand does not — 1,394 certified outdoor units are sold under more than one label. A rating belongs to the pairing, and swapping the indoor unit changes the numbers.
The Directory is the register where a matched combination and its certificate can be looked up by reference number. It is free to search. If a quoted combination is not listed, the ratings on the proposal are not certified ratings for what is being installed.
A higher SEER2 on a smaller unit is not a better machine. Size is set by a load calculation on your building, and the correct comparison set is the equipment that meets that load.
Both are steady-state laboratory measurements. Duct leakage, oversizing, low charge and poor commissioning all take back a share of the rating before the first bill arrives, and none of them is visible on a certificate.
Nothing here measures price, installed cost, reliability, parts availability, dealer coverage or noise. HyreHVAC holds no sourced data on any of them and will not publish a score it cannot evidence.
How was this list built, and what does it leave out?
The ENERGY STAR file lists one row per certified outdoor + indoor combination.
One outdoor unit sold against forty air handlers is forty rows, and the same physical outdoor unit sold under a group’s other labels is forty rows again per label.
Ranking rows would return the same machine over and over. HyreHVAC calculation: 281,975 rows describe far fewer machines than that.
Key on outdoor unit brand name plus outdoor model number. This is the rule already published on this site in the cold-climate performance study, kept unchanged so the two cannot disagree. 281,975 rows collapse to 12,516 distinct outdoor units.
Key on the outdoor model number alone and carry every brand name it is sold under.
1,394 model numbers are sold under more than one brand and 6 of them appear under 17 (Airquest, Arcoaire, Bryant, Carrier, Comfortmaker and 12 others all sell D5CUHAH18AAK).
Without this stage a top-ten list is one machine repeated. 12,516 units collapse to 8,465 rebrand families, absorbing 4,051 duplicate listings.
Stage 2 cannot collapse the same platform sold under different model numbers by different equipment groups, because ENERGY STAR records no manufacturer field to join on — icm_outdoor_unit_manufacturer is populated on 2 of 281,975 rows.
At the top of a certified list that omission dominates. So entries whose full certified rating profile is identical are displayed as one tied entry listing every model number and brand in it.
Across the whole file that is 2,521 distinct rating profiles. An identical profile is consistent with one platform under several labels; we do not assert it, because the dataset gives us no field with which to confirm it.
Within a family, different indoor pairings rate differently. The figure shown is the maximum certified value achieved by any certified matched combination of that outdoor unit — a defined, reproducible quantity, and the one a manufacturer would quote.
Your own installed pairing may rate lower: Only the matched combination is certified, which is why the AHRI reference number on your quote is worth checking.
A test artefact in the federal file — brand "BRAND10", model "TEST-COND41966-16(2)", reporting a coefficient of performance at 5°F of 10.0 — would otherwise top every cold-weather ranking. It is not a product. It is the only record excluded on judgment rather than on a missing value.
Price, installed cost, reliability, warranty claims, service network, noise, or how the unit behaves in a real house. HyreHVAC holds no sourced data for any of those and does not rank on them. There is no "best overall" here and there will not be one.
Every figure is a certified steady-state measurement under DOE Appendix M1. A real installation gives performance back to defrost cycles, duct leakage, oversizing, undersized returns and incorrect refrigerant charge. Installed performance is below rated performance, sometimes substantially.
ENERGY STAR certification is voluntary. Uncertified equipment exists and is generally less efficient, so this describes the better end of what can be bought. It is also a census of models, not of sales: a model that sells once counts the same as one that sells a million. No public dataset supports a sales-weighted version.
HSPF2 is the only certified metric on the file that integrates performance across a whole heating season rather than at a single test point.
Ordering on the 5°F coefficient of performance instead would rank equipment on its worst day, which is the right question in a cold climate and the wrong one in general — so that ranking lives on the cold-climate page rather than this one.
The largest ducted band on the file falls below that threshold and is omitted rather than presented as a five-entry ranking. Ductless equipment is banded on the mini-split page under the same rule.
Questions
What is the best heat pump?
Are different heat pump brands actually different products?
What is a good HSPF2 rating?
Is a higher SEER2 always better?
Where does this ranking data come from?
Do you get paid to rank a manufacturer higher?
Written and audited by
HYRE HVAC Research Desk
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a sales floor. We read the federal microdata file, the statute or the manufacturer data sheet ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify.
The counts below are generated from the published pages themselves, last counted September 28, 2026, and they are what we have actually published rather than what we intend to.
- 13
- studies published
- 12
- federal sources read and cited
- 8
- studies published with their full dataset as CSV
- 51
- jurisdictions reproduced against EIA’s own tables
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Federal data comes from the agency that collects it, in the file that agency publishes. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we download the source and compute the figure ourselves.
- We validate against the agency before we publish. First, we use each federal microdata file to reproduce the agency’s own published tables. Our cooling research reproduces EIA’s state estimates and standard errors for all 51 jurisdictions. That check caught a variance formula that was off by a factor of four.
- Every estimate carries its uncertainty. These are survey figures, not counts. Standard errors are computed from the replicate weights the federal file supplies and printed beside the estimate. An estimate too imprecise to publish is reported as such rather than printed.
- Nothing is typed by hand. Prose, tables and charts all read from one dataset built by script, so a number in a sentence and the same number in the table below it cannot disagree.
- We publish the data, not just the conclusion. 8 of our 13 studies offer the full computed table as a CSV download on the page, so you can check the analysis or disagree with it. A study without a row-level dataset gets no download link and claims none in its structured data.
- We correct in public. Where we have published a figure wrongly we fix the figure, rewrite any analysis that rested on it rather than patching the number underneath it, and leave a dated correction note on the page.
- We do not install or sell HVAC equipment, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favorable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Data as of ENERGY STAR certified product data, retrieved September 5, 2026. Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
Sources & retrieval dates
Three quotes, one scope
A certified rating only means something once every bid describes the same load calculation, the same ductwork and the same model numbers.