Lennox Residential Sales Fall 7% While Trane and Carrier Post Residential Gains

Lennox reported on July 29 that residential sales fell 7% in the second quarter, to $935.6 million in its Home Comfort Solutions segment, and trimmed full-year earnings guidance. A day earlier, Carrier said Americas residential sales rose 9%. A day later, Trane said residential bookings were up in the high 20s.

Manufacturer forecasts drive the things that actually reach a truck: co-op dollars, rebate timing, spiff structures, and how hard a distributor pushes inventory out the door in the fourth quarter.

Lennox is the most residential-weighted of the three, so its quarter reads as the bluntest signal. Total revenue rose 3% to $1.5 billion, but Home Comfort Solutions profit fell 12% to $221.8 million and segment margin gave back 130 basis points to 23.7%. The commercial side carried the company. Building Climate Solutions revenue climbed 24% to $609.7 million, with profit up 29% and margin expanding 100 basis points to 25.5%. Lennox lowered its full-year EPS range to $23.00 to $24.00 from $23.50 to $25.00 while holding revenue growth guidance near 8%.

"Strong momentum in Building Climate Solutions and contributions from the Duro Dyne and Supco acquisitions mitigated the continued softness in the residential end market," said Alok Maskara, the company's chief executive.

One of those acquisitions is still pending. Lennox agreed on June 18 to buy Heat Controller, the Jackson, Michigan maker of the Comfort-Aire and Century lines, from Platinum Equity. Terms were not disclosed, and the deal was expected to close later this year.

At Carrier, net sales rose 4% to $6.351 billion, with organic growth of 3%. Inside Climate Solutions Americas, residential sales were up 9% and light commercial was up 10%. Company-wide, Carrier's service sales reached $717 million against $636 million a year earlier, a consolidated figure rather than a segment one, and it is the line to watch if you sell maintenance agreements: the OEM is growing its own aftermarket faster than its equipment business.

"Organic sales returned to growth earlier than expected, up 3%, driven by strong performance in our CSA segment," said David Gitlin, Carrier's chairman and chief executive. The company guided to roughly $23 billion in full-year sales and about $2.90 in adjusted EPS.

Trane's residential bookings ran well ahead of its shipments

Trane's headline numbers were the strongest of the three, and the least residential. Revenue rose 11% to $6.4 billion, adjusted EPS rose 11% to $4.31, Americas bookings jumped 44%, and backlog hit a record $12.1 billion, up 70%. Americas commercial HVAC bookings alone were up 50%. That is the data-center story everyone has been writing about for two years.

On the July earnings call, CEO Dave Regnery said the residential business exceeded expectations, with bookings up high 20s and organic revenue up low teens, and that year-to-date residential dollars were up mid-single digits.

A gap that wide between bookings (up high 20s), revenue (up low teens), and year-to-date dollars (up mid-single digits) usually means distributors are rebuilding stock, not that homeowners suddenly started buying more systems. That reading is ours, not the company's. Order books fill for reasons that have little to do with installed demand, including refrigerant transition timing and pre-buys ahead of announced price increases.

Residential replacement is flat-to-soft, and the divergence between these three reports says more about what else each company sells. Carrier and Trane have commercial and data-center volume absorbing the slack. Lennox has less of it, so its residential quarter is its quarter. Field experience supports the flat read. Shops keep reporting that homeowners are choosing repair over replacement, and AHRI's monthly shipment series has shown air conditioner volumes sliding even as heat pumps grow. Carrier's own residential swings have been violent enough in recent quarters to warrant their own coverage.

Third-quarter reports land in late October. If Lennox's residential comparison improves while Carrier's decelerates, the second-quarter gap was noise. If it doesn't, the market is picking winners.

Sources

Lennox International. (2026). "Lennox Reports 2026 Second Quarter Results." Lennox investor relations

Carrier Global Corporation. (2026). "Carrier Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results." Carrier investor relations

Trane Technologies. (2026). "Trane Technologies Reports Strong Second Quarter Results; Raises Full-Year Revenue and EPS Guidance." Trane Technologies investor relations

Trane Technologies. (2026). "Trane Technologies (TT) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript." The Motley Fool

Platinum Equity. (2026). "Platinum Equity to Sell Heat Controller to Lennox." Platinum Equity

Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute. "Monthly Shipments." ahrinet.org