So What’s The Deal With All The Different Brands Out There?

Things Manufacturers Don’t Want You To Know

1. Six (6) of the major brands make approximately 90% of all air conditioning products in the United States.  There are many many brands available, but a select few companies own all of those brands and position them in different markets.
2. It costs many millions of dollars to create a new air conditioning product that requires engineering from scratch, and new machinery and facilities to create the new equipment. So, it’s just so much easier for a company to take the same unit coming off of the assembly line and re-badge it in multiple different ways to different markets.
3. Manufacturers use distributors in each city to sell their equipment.  So, now the manufacturer can have one distributor carry “Brand A” and the competing distributor in the same city carry “Brand B”.  They are selling the exact same piece of equipment that has just been branded differently, so now the manufacturer has two distributors selling the same product rather than having just one distributor in that city.
4. The main thing to remember is that the quality of your new air conditioning system is equally divided between the manufacturer and the local air conditioning service company doing the installation.  And, since all of the air conditioning equipment manufacturer are all multi-national companies, their quality are generally all very high.  So, that means that the installation company and crew is the most important part of the chain.
5. An excellent contractor will be able to explain to you the differences in the quality and reliability of the different products, and how they fit into your specific application.  They can differentiate for you what is marketing fluff versus what is true innovation.