For the people buying the work — builders pricing a package and property managers budgeting replacements. Compiled June 10, 2026 by Horizon (PCC research).
Compiled from named, dated sources. Items marked “verify before quoting” are regulatory or price-specific — the underlying figures are trade-press ranges or move with the market, so confirm against the primary source before you put a number in front of a customer.
The R-410A install ban is dead — but cheap R-410A isn't coming back
EPA finalized a rule (May 21, 2026; effective July 27, 2026) letting contractors keep installing pre-2025 R-410A equipment until existing inventory runs out — the Jan 1, 2026 install cutoff is gone. But R-410A is still phasing down under the AIM Act, so the refrigerant itself keeps getting scarcer and pricier every year. New equipment is already A2L (R-454B / R-32). Net: more flexibility on installs, no relief on refrigerant cost. Favor repair-vs-replace math that accounts for rising R-410A top-up cost on aging units.
Builders: the 45L new-home tax credit dies June 30, 2026
Homes have to be ACQUIRED — closed and sold, not just finished — on or before June 30, 2026 to claim up to $5,000 per home. After that the credit is gone. The 25C homeowner credit ($2,000 heat pump) already expired Dec 31, 2025. If a project isn't already underway, it likely can't close in time. This is the single most time-sensitive item on the board for builders.
Equipment and material costs are up double digits and still climbing
Copper hit a record ~$6.65/lb on May 13, 2026, with 50% Section 232 copper tariffs and broad import tariffs stacking on top. Manufacturers pushed 2026 list increases (Trane up to 5%, Lennox up to 10%), and A2L equipment runs roughly 10–15% more than the R-410A gear it replaces. Replacement and service work is carrying the market while new construction — multifamily especially — stays soft. Budget builds and replacements with escalation built in.
Refrigerant transition, efficiency standards, and what changed on electrification incentives.
Confirmed
New installs default to A2L (R-454B / R-32) now
No new R-410A residential split systems or heat pumps have been manufactured or imported in the U.S. since Jan 1, 2025 — new production is A2L. The replacements are R-454B (used by Carrier, Goodman/ACiQ, Trane) and R-32 (common in ductless mini-splits). Both are 'mildly flammable' A2L refrigerants and need updated handling, leak-detection, and code-compliant installation. R-410A service gas stays legal for existing systems.
The 25C residential credit (30% up to $2,000) expired for systems installed after Dec 31, 2025 under the One Big Beautiful Bill (signed July 4, 2025), which also accelerated termination of 25D, 45L, and 179D. Electrification pitches now lean on state and utility rebates and operating-cost math, not the federal tax credit. Verify current state/utility program status locally before quoting any rebate number.
Direction is up across refrigerant, metals, and finished equipment. Magnitudes below are trade-press ranges — verify before quoting.
ConfirmedVerify before quoting
Copper at record highs, tariffs stacking
COMEX copper hit a record ~$6.65/lb on May 13, 2026 before settling back. Copper drives refrigerant lines and coils, so it flows straight into HVAC cost. On top of the commodity price: Section 232 tariffs of 50% on most semi-finished copper, applied to the full customs value of covered articles since April 6, 2026.
Trane raised residential list prices up to 5%, effective Jan 1, 2026. Lennox raised residential equipment and accessories up to 10%, effective Feb 5, 2026. Carrier flagged a ~$60M headwind from metals and tariffs and signaled a mid-single-digit residential increase in the Americas. Treat the exact percentages as the published ceilings — your distributor's real number is what counts.
A2L equipment runs ~10–15% more than the R-410A gear it replaces
The A2L changeover adds flammable-refrigerant sensors, sealed relays, and detection boards — trade press puts the equipment premium at roughly 10–15%, with R-454B refrigerant running materially higher per unit than R-410A. Directional, not a precise quote: confirm the delta with your supply house on the specific model before you bid it.
Where the demand is, where it isn't, and one near-term risk to watch.
Confirmed
Multifamily new construction is weak; service + replacement carries the market
Q1 2026 U.S. multifamily starts hit ~55,000 units — the lowest quarterly level since 2011, on tight lending and high costs. New-construction HVAC volume from multifamily stays soft near-term. Residential demand is driven mostly by service and replacement (good for property managers); nonresidential strength is concentrated in public-sector and data-center build-out. HARDI forecasts ~2–4% distributor volume growth for the year.
Watch: June 30, 2026 Commerce report on refined copper
A Commerce update on refined copper is due to the President by June 30, 2026 — a potential next escalation on copper duties, and a near-term risk to material pricing. If you're locking equipment prices or pre-buying, this is the date to watch.
The design gut-check from a blunt old tradesman — no sales pitch, just the stuff that turns into callbacks when it gets skipped.
Dale's build rules
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Before you post the plans, a few things I'd want the bidding techs held to. None of this is to sell you anything — it's the stuff that turns into callbacks when it gets skipped.
1.
Don't size off square footage
That 'one ton per 400 to 600 feet' rule is a gut-check, not a design. It's how you end up with the wrong equipment in a tight new house. Get a real load calculation — a Manual J. Make whoever's bidding show you they did one.
2.
Do it in order: J, then S, then D
Manual J gives you the load. Manual S picks the equipment to match that load. Manual D sizes the ducts to move the air. Skip a step and you get callbacks — a unit that's wrong for the house, or ducts that can't feed it.
3.
Bigger is not better
An oversized system cools the air fast, hits the thermostat, and shuts off before it ever pulls the humidity out. You get a cold, clammy house and a compressor that short-cycles itself to an early grave. Right-sized runs longer and dries the air. Longer runtime is the point, not a problem.
4.
Keep ducts in conditioned space
Run ductwork through a hot attic and you'll lose about a quarter of your capacity before it ever reaches the room. If you've got no choice but the attic, seal every joint and insulate it right — and expect to defend that decision when the upstairs won't cool.
5.
Returns matter as much as supplies
Everybody plans the supply registers and forgets the returns. Too few returns starve the system and freeze the coil. Put a return near every bedroom, or run jumper ducts so air has a way back. Air you blow in has to get back to the unit somehow.
6.
Leave room to service it
Somebody has to work on this thing for the next twenty years. Don't bury the air handler behind drywall or wedge the condenser where you can't get a gauge on it. And put the filter where a normal person can change it — if it's a pain, it never gets changed, and a clogged filter kills the system.
7.
Plan two-story zoning early
Heat rises. The upstairs bakes while the downstairs is fine, every time, in every two-story house. Decide how you're handling that — two systems or proper zoning — before the drywall goes up. After drywall it's expensive and ugly.
8.
Rough in gas and electric the right size now
Run the gas line and the electrical the right size while the walls are open. Upsizing a line later, after everything's closed in, costs a fortune and makes a mess. Size it for what the equipment actually pulls, not the minimum that passes.
9.
Build tight, ventilate right
A new house is sealed up tight, which is good for the energy bill and bad for the air if you do nothing else. A tight house needs fresh air brought in on purpose — an ERV or HRV. Build it tight, then give it a way to breathe.
10.
Put the thermostat in a smart spot
The thermostat reads the air right where it hangs. Don't put it on an outside wall, in the sun, or above a register — it'll read wrong and run the system wrong all day. Interior wall, normal height, away from drafts and direct sun.
Two systems or one with zones?
One of the first real decisions on a build: do you put in two separate systems, or one system with zones? Here's how I'd think about it. Neither one is automatically right — it depends on the house.
Put in separate systems when
·The house is too big for one unit to do honestly — past roughly 3,000 square feet, or more than about a 5-ton total load.
·It's a tall, multi-story stack where the air upstairs and downstairs behave completely differently.
·There's a distinct area that runs on its own schedule — a basement, an ADU, a bonus room nobody's in half the week.
·You want redundancy. Two systems means one can go down and the house isn't unlivable.
Zone one system when
·One properly-sized system already covers the load, but the comfort drifts room to room.
·Budget matters — zoning one good system costs less than buying and installing two.
·It's an open floor plan where the air mixes anyway.
·You've got one problem room that needs its own thermostat, not its own equipment.
The trap to avoid
·Don't zone a single-stage system. It only knows full-blast or off, so when it dumps full output into one small zone it short-cycles and roars. Noisy, and it wears out.
·Only zone equipment that can throttle down — two-stage or variable-speed. That's what makes zoning work instead of fight you.
·Bypass dampers are a band-aid for a system that was zoned wrong. If the design needs one to survive, the design's off.
·Keep it to about two to four zones per system. Past that, you're better off with a second system.
Gut-check: a lot of two-story builds come out better with two separate, right-sized systems than one system chopped into zones. Simpler, more reliable, and each floor runs on its own without fighting the other. When it's close, I lean toward two systems.
Dale's a tradesman, not a salesman — this is the gut-check, not a design. The bidding techs run the real Manual J / S / D for your project.
This is research, not legal or tax advice. Regulatory rules, deadlines, and prices change — confirm anything marked “verify before quoting” against the primary source before you put a number in front of a customer.
