Statistics

HVAC statistics: the numbers, and who counted them

A figure without a source is a rumor with a decimal point. Every number in this archive carries the class of claim it is and the source it came from.

Updated September 2026 · Data as of the pages below, each with its own sources and retrieval dates. Compiled September 16, 2026

Written by HYRE HVAC Research Desk Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking

3 classes of provenance on every figure Agency published · HyreHVAC calculation · Regulatory provision

2 statistics pages published Topics not yet covered are listed below

RECS 2020 the survey most figures rest on EIA Residential Energy Consumption Survey microdata

The short version

HyreHVAC publishes two statistics pages: 90+ HVAC figures and the rebate and incentive figures. Every tabulated number carries one of three labels: agency published, HyreHVAC calculation, or regulatory provision. That tells you whether we are repeating a federal number, computing one from raw survey data, or quoting a rule. Each page dates its sources.

Which HVAC statistics pages are published?

Two statistics pages, each enforcing the provenance standard in code rather than promising it in prose.

90+ Figures HVAC statistics Ninety-plus figures on US heating and cooling: equipment, adoption, consumption, comfort and the households that go without. Every one carries its provenance class and source, and the page states where the survey could not support a figure we would have liked to publish. Read the figures Money Incentives HVAC rebate and incentive statistics The figures behind the incentive layer, including the federal credits that have closed. Written to survive the fact that this is the fastest-moving subject on the site, so each number is dated as well as sourced. Read the figures

What do the three provenance labels mean?

Every tabulated figure in this archive is labeled with one of three classes. The label tells you who is responsible for the number, which is the part that decides how much weight it carries.

Agency published: The number as the federal agency published it. We are repeating it, not computing it, and the agency is the party responsible for it.
HyreHVAC calculation: Computed by us from an agency’s raw microdata, using a method published on the corresponding study page. These are our claims and our responsibility, and the method is written down so somebody can disagree with it.
Regulatory provision: A threshold, rate or date read directly from a federal rule on the date stated. Rules move, so the retrieval date is part of the fact rather than decoration on it.

What standard do these statistics meet?

A statistics archive is the easiest thing on a site to fake, because a list of numbers looks like research whether or not anybody checked them. These are the rules that keep it from becoming that.

Every figure carries a class and a source

Not a bibliography at the bottom, but provenance attached to the individual number. The statistics pages enforce this in code: a figure cannot be tabulated without its class and its source, so the gate cannot quietly rot as the page is edited.

Our calculations are labeled as ours

Where we compute something from raw microdata we say so and publish the method on the corresponding research page. Presenting our own arithmetic as an agency’s finding would be the most damaging thing this archive could do.

Figures the survey cannot support do not ship

Where an estimate exceeds the publishing agency’s own suppression threshold for relative standard error, it is not published as a finding. In at least one case the page says explicitly that the number would have made a strong headline and the survey cannot support it.

Year, geography and population travel with the number

A national figure from a 2020 survey is not a current local figure, and the commonest way statistics mislead is by being quoted away from the population they describe.

Nothing here is rounded into a better story

If the honest figure is unremarkable, it is published unremarkable. The archive exists to be citable, and a number tuned for impact is not.

Which HVAC statistics are not here yet?

Heat pump adoption, HVAC repair, industry and labor figures, and cost statistics. Only two statistics pages are published so far, and we say so rather than link to pages that do not exist.

The topics not yet written include heat pump adoption, HVAC repair, industry and labor figures, and cost statistics. Some are straightforward and simply unwritten.

At least one is blocked on a dataset: a state-by-state replacement cost page is held because no defensible dataset of completed-job prices exists, and the site does not publish price ranges it cannot source.

HyreHVAC analysis: an archive that says what it does not have is more useful than one that implies completeness. If you came looking for a figure that is not here, that is the honest answer rather than a page assembled to catch the query.

How should you cite these figures?

With the provenance label and the date. Journalists, researchers and anyone else are welcome to cite anything in this archive. Two requests, both of which protect you rather than us.

Carry the provenance class with the number. If a figure is a HyreHVAC calculation, it is our claim and should be attributed to us rather than to the agency whose microdata it rests on. If it is agency published, cite the agency; we are only repeating it.

Carry the date. Regulatory provisions in particular move, and several figures in the incentive statistics describe programs that have since closed. Each page states when its sources were retrieved.

If you think a figure here is wrong, telling us is genuinely useful. The corrections process is in the editorial policy, and this site has published corrections to its own figures before.

Questions

What does "HyreHVAC calculation" mean on a figure?

That we computed the number ourselves from an agency’s raw microdata rather than repeating a number the agency published. The method is written up on the corresponding research page so it can be checked and disagreed with. It is labeled because it is our claim and our responsibility.

Where do most of these figures come from?

The EIA Residential Energy Consumption Survey is the backbone, supplemented by other federal sources and, for regulatory provisions, by the rules themselves. Each page names its own sources and the date they were retrieved, because a 2020 survey figure and a rule read this month are different kinds of fact with different shelf lives.

Can I cite these statistics?

Yes, with two things carried across: the provenance class and the date. If the figure is a HyreHVAC calculation, attribute it to us rather than to the agency whose data underlies it. If it is agency published, cite the agency. And carry the retrieval date, because several incentive figures describe programs that have since closed.

Why are there only two statistics pages?

Because two are written. Rather than build thin pages to fill out an archive, the other topics are unwritten and this hub says so. At least one is blocked rather than merely pending: a state-by-state replacement cost page is held because no defensible dataset of completed-job prices exists.

Why does a figure I expected to see not appear?

Two common reasons. Either the page covering it is not written yet, or the underlying survey could not support the estimate: where a figure exceeds the publishing agency’s own suppression threshold for relative standard error, it does not ship as a finding. The statistics pages say so where it happens rather than quietly omitting the row.

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 the pages below, each with its own sources and retrieval dates. Compiled September 16, 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

HyreHVAC — HVAC statistics , The ninety-plus figure archive, and the page that enforces the three provenance classes described here. It carries its own primary sources and retrieval dates. Retrieved September 16, 2026.

HyreHVAC — HVAC rebate and incentive statistics , The incentive figures, including the federal credits that have closed, each dated as well as sourced. Retrieved September 16, 2026.

HyreHVAC — editorial policy , The standards this archive is held to, and how corrections are handled. Retrieved September 16, 2026.

Numbers are the start of a decision, not the end of one

Statistics describe populations; your house is not a population. If you are trying to work out what to do about your own system, tell us the equipment and the zip code and we will follow up. Submitting an inquiry is not a service call.

Get HVAC Options Read the underlying research

HyreHVAC is a research and referral site. This page publishes no figures of its own; every number lives on a leaf that carries its provenance class, its source and the date that source was retrieved. Where a figure is labeled a HyreHVAC calculation it is our claim, not the publishing agency’s.