Commercial HVAC Statistics: How US Commercial Buildings Heat and Cool (CBECS 2018)

How to read these commercial HVAC statistics: buildings, floorspace and served area

The same equipment can look like a minority or a majority depending on the denominator. This report uses three measures and labels each one.

Share of buildings: Weighted count of buildings that use a type of equipment anywhere, divided by all 5.9 million US commercial buildings in 2018. One small shop and one hospital count the same.

Share of floorspace (any use): Total square feet of buildings that use the equipment anywhere, divided by all commercial floorspace (96.4 billion square feet in 2018, EIA Table B1). This is the figure EIA publishes. A tower with one packaged unit on a lobby counts all its floors.

Share of floor area served: Our measure. Each building's cooled (or heated) square feet are split across its systems using the percent-cooled answers it gave EIA, so the shares add to 100%. US commercial buildings had 68.3 billion air-conditioned square feet and 77.5 billion heated square feet in 2018.

Main equipment: EIA's derived variable for the system that conditions the most space in a building (MAINCL for cooling, MAINHT for heating), first available in the 2018 survey.

Any-use shares overlap. In 2018 the any-use cooling shares summed to 92.0% of all buildings while 78.2% of buildings were cooled, about 1.18 cooling types per cooled building; heating shares summed to 112.3%, or 1.36 types per heated building. That is why the served-area column exists.

Packaged units cool about half of the air-conditioned floor area

Packaged units are the default cooling system in US commercial buildings by every measure, but chillers carry far more floor area than their building count suggests.

In 2018, packaged units served 51.7% of US commercial air-conditioned floor area, or 35.3 billion square feet, according to our weighted allocation of the EIA 2018 CBECS microdata. The estimate has a relative standard error of 2.6%.

About 2.6 million buildings used a packaged unit for some cooling in 2018, and 2.40 million named it their main cooling system. That is 93.7% of the buildings that have one: when a commercial building has a packaged unit, it is almost always the primary system.

Central chillers sit at the other end. They were used in 3.4% of buildings in 2018, about 165 thousand had a chiller as the main system, yet chillers served 19.0% of cooled floor area. Residential-type split systems were the main system in 1.13 million buildings and served 10.4% of cooled area. EIA puts the average chiller building at 88,800 square feet, against 21,900 for packaged AC and 14,000 for residential-type central AC.

For an HVAC company owner, the packaged-unit numbers describe the bulk of commercial service and replacement calls by building count, while chiller work concentrates in fewer, much larger buildings.

How are commercial buildings heated? Packaged units and furnaces by count, boilers by size

Heating equipment splits by building size. EIA puts the average furnace building at 10,700 square feet, the average packaged-heating building at 22,000 and the average boiler building at 41,000.

Packaged units were the main heating equipment in 38.9% of heated US commercial buildings in 2018, furnaces in 27.9%, individual space heaters in 11.9%, boilers in 10.5% and heat pumps in 7.9% (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata).

Boilers were used in 11.9% of buildings but in buildings holding 29.7% of floorspace, matching EIA's 2018 Building Characteristics Highlights. By served area, boilers heated 24.6% of heated floor area in 2018, second only to packaged units at 38.9%. Furnaces were the opposite: 27.4% of buildings, 11.6% of heated area.

Packaged heating split almost evenly by fuel in 2018: 959 thousand buildings had a natural gas packaged unit as main heating and 898 thousand an electric one.

For an owner, boiler service and retrofit work follows square footage in schools, hospitals and offices, while furnace work follows building count in small commercial property.

Retail runs on rooftop units; hospitals and schools run on chillers and boilers

Retail is overwhelmingly packaged; health care, education and lodging lean on central plants.

Packaged units served 85.1% of the cooled floor area in US retail and mall buildings in 2018, 78.1% in food sales, 74.7% in warehouses and 71.5% in food service. They served 46.3% in offices, 39.4% in education, 31.9% in health care and 25.3% in lodging (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata).

The central-plant pattern shows in the same table. Buildings with boilers held 59.9% of education floorspace and 54.6% of health care floorspace in 2018; buildings with chillers held 45.0% of health care floorspace and 34.7% of education floorspace.

For an owner, the building mix in a service area sets the skills a commercial HVAC company needs: a retail-heavy market is a rooftop-unit market, while hospitals and campuses need chiller and boiler capability.

Most rooftop-unit buildings run without building automation

Building automation systems are standard in large buildings and rare in the small, packaged-unit buildings that make up most of the stock.

16.0% of US commercial buildings had a building automation system in 2018, and those buildings held 42.1% of floorspace (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata). Where a system existed, it controlled cooling in 94.5% of buildings.

Among the 2.40 million buildings with a packaged unit as main cooling in 2018, 21.8% had a building automation system. About 1.88 million did not, 78.2% of the group (RSE 5.1%). That count is our calculation and is not published by EIA.

Other controls were less common. Economizers were in 12.6% of buildings (35.3% of floorspace), variable air volume systems in buildings with 30.3% of floorspace, demand controlled ventilation 10.9%, dedicated outdoor air systems 9.3%, and smart thermostats in 5.5% of buildings in 2018.

For an owner, small and mid-size packaged-unit buildings are where central controls are least common, while 76.9% of packaged-main buildings already reported regular HVAC maintenance in 2018.

Heat pumps heat 11.4% of commercial buildings but a smaller share of floor area

Heat pumps were a minority heating technology in commercial buildings in 2018, and respondent knowledge limits what the survey can say about packaged heat pumps.

About 673 thousand US commercial buildings, 11.4%, used heat pumps for heating in 2018, in buildings holding 15.6% of floorspace. Heat pumps were the main heating system in 7.9% of heated buildings and served 7.0% of heated floor area (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata).

Of heat-pump-heated buildings that answered the question, 54.7% reported a variable refrigerant flow (VRF) system, about 228 thousand buildings. Of buildings with packaged heating, 31.5% said the unit contained a heat pump and 40.9% did not know, so the packaged heat pump count is too uncertain to publish.

How much energy do commercial buildings use for HVAC?

Heating, cooling and ventilation account for about half of the energy US commercial buildings use, with space heating the largest single end use.

US commercial buildings used 6,787 trillion Btu of major fuels in 2018. Space heating took 2,167 trillion Btu, ventilation 728 and cooling 589, a combined 3,484 trillion Btu or 51.3% of the total, computed from EIA Table E1. EIA's own highlights put space heating at 32%.

By intensity, space heating used 25.0 thousand Btu per square foot in 2018, cooling 7.0 and ventilation 8.0, in buildings using a major fuel for each end use (EIA Table E2). Office buildings spent 214 trillion Btu on ventilation, more than on cooling or any other end use except heating.

For an owner, HVAC is about half of a typical commercial customer's energy use, measured in Btu rather than dollars.

What changed between the 2012 and 2018 surveys, and why the trend is shaky

Packaged cooling grew between the 2012 and 2018 CBECS, but EIA rewrote the equipment questions in 2018, so some moves are partly a questionnaire effect.

Packaged air conditioning appeared in 34.4% of US commercial buildings in the 2012 CBECS and 43.3% in 2018; by floorspace, 51.8% and 58.6%. Furnaces jumped from 13.6% to 27.4% of buildings and packaged heating fell from 50.4% to 37.0%, swings too large to read as real change in six years.

EIA's 2018 questionnaire outline shows the reason: heating and cooling equipment were asked by energy source for the first time, main-equipment and percent-served follow-ups were added, and several 2012 equipment questions were dropped.

One age signal is in the 2018 data: 20.6% of buildings built before 2000, 917 thousand of 4,457 thousand, reported an HVAC equipment upgrade since 2000 (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata).

What the 2018 equipment mix means for a commercial HVAC company

The data describe the installed base a commercial contractor services; they do not measure contractor revenue or market size.

• Packaged units are the volume product: 2.40 million main-system buildings in 2018, the largest groups being offices (485 thousand) and retail (366 thousand).
• Chillers and boilers are the square-footage product: 19.0% of cooled area and 24.6% of heated area in 2018, concentrated in health care, education and offices.
• Controls are thin below 50,000 square feet: 10.0% and 24.0% BAS adoption in the two smaller size classes in 2018.
• Recurring maintenance already covers 60.1% of buildings and 80.9% of floorspace (2018), so service-agreement revenue is common in commercial work.

Owners weighing a sale can read how buyers think about commercial service revenue in our guide to selling an HVAC business. Labor supply for this work is covered in our technician shortage report.

The numbers in one list

1. Packaged units served 51.7% of US commercial air-conditioned floor area in 2018, about 35.3 billion square feet (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata, our calculation; RSE 2.6%).^[1]
2. Packaged units were used in 43.3% of US commercial buildings and in buildings holding 58.6% of floorspace in 2018 (EIA 2018 CBECS).^[1][4]
3. Floorspace in buildings that have a packaged unit overstates the area packaged units serve: packaged units served 36.6% of all US commercial floorspace in 2018, 22.0 points below the 58.6% any-use figure.^[1]
4. 2.40 million US commercial buildings named a packaged unit as main cooling in 2018, 51.9% of cooled buildings (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata).^[1]
5. Of US commercial buildings with packaged main cooling in 2018, 21.8% had a building automation system and 76.9% had regularly scheduled HVAC maintenance (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata).^[1]
6. Central chillers were used in 3.4% of US commercial buildings in 2018 but served 19.0% of air-conditioned floor area (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata).^[1]
7. Packaged units were the main heating equipment in 38.9% of heated US commercial buildings in 2018, furnaces in 27.9% and boilers in 10.5% (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata).^[1]
8. Boilers served 24.6% of US commercial heated floor area in 2018, second to packaged units at 38.9% (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata, our allocation).^[1]
9. Heat pumps heated 11.4% of US commercial buildings in 2018 but served 7.0% of heated floor area (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata).^[1]
10. 16.0% of US commercial buildings had a building automation system in 2018, rising from 10.0% of buildings of 1,001 to 10,000 square feet to 70.5% of buildings over 200,000 square feet (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata).^[1]
11. 60.1% of US commercial buildings, holding 80.9% of floorspace, had regularly scheduled HVAC maintenance in 2018 (EIA 2018 CBECS).^[1][4]
12. Space heating used 2,167 trillion Btu, cooling 589 trillion Btu and ventilation 728 trillion Btu in US commercial buildings in 2018 (EIA Table E1).^[9]
13. HVAC took 68.8% of major-fuel energy use in US public assembly buildings in 2018 and 22.7% in food sales buildings (EIA Table E1, our share).^[9]

Calculations

Download the calculations (CSV)

Summary

• In 2018, packaged units served 51.7% of US commercial air-conditioned floor area, central chillers 19.0% and residential-type split systems 10.4% (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata, our allocation).
• In 2018, 2.40 million US commercial buildings, 51.9% of cooled buildings, named a packaged unit as their main cooling equipment (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata).
• In 2018, 78.2% of those packaged-main buildings, about 1.88 million, reported no building automation system (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata).
• In 2018, boilers were used in 11.9% of US commercial buildings but in buildings holding 29.7% of floorspace; furnaces were the reverse, 27.4% of buildings and 17.9% of floorspace (EIA 2018 CBECS).
• In 2018, packaged units served 85.1% of cooled floor area in US retail and mall buildings, against 31.9% in health care and 25.3% in lodging (EIA 2018 CBECS microdata).
• In 2018, heating, cooling and ventilation took 51.3% of US commercial major-fuel energy use, 3,484 trillion Btu (EIA 2018 CBECS Table E1).
• As of 2026-11-02, EIA has published no results from a CBECS later than 2018, so 2018 remains the newest national count of commercial HVAC equipment.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides, services and research

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• SEER2 Requirements by State: Federal Minimums for Air Conditioners and Heat Pumps (2026)
• Carbon Monoxide Deaths From Furnaces and Other Heating Systems: CPSC and CDC Data, 1999 to 2022
• Cooling Degree Days by State: How Much More Air Conditioning Demand the Weather Creates (1991-2025)
• All HVAC business research

Reproduce this analysis

Every figure comes from the files below. The scripts that pulled and computed them are kept with the report and can be re-run.

Data quality and exclusions

• 456 records with no cooling (COOL not equal to 1) carry no cooling equipment answers and are excluded from cooling denominators; 429 unheated records are excluded from heating denominators.
• 697 cooling records and 1,677 heating records report percent-served answers that add to more than 100 (overlapping systems); each was scaled to 100 before allocating floor area.
• 243 records with no building automation answer are excluded from BAS denominators.
• Packaged heat pump question (PKGHPH): 369 records answered 'don't know'; the share is reported with that caveat and no count is published.
• Main cooling replaced since 2000 (NWMNCL) is missing for 1,617 of 4,331 pre-2000 cooled records, concentrated in packaged and heat pump buildings, so it was not used.
• Cells with an RSE above 50% or fewer than 20 sampled buildings are shown as Q, following EIA's withholding rule.

Methodology

Source selection: the only national, statistically sampled count of commercial building HVAC equipment is EIA's Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey. We used the 2018 CBECS public use microdata (6,436 building records, revised December 2022), EIA's published Tables B1, B11, B21, B22, E1 and E2, and the 2012 CBECS Tables B38 to B41 for comparison. Every file was downloaded from eia.gov on 2026-11-02 and is saved unmodified in raw/.

Weighting and error: every estimate uses the final weight FINALWT. Relative standard errors come from the 151 jackknife replicate weights with the variance formula in EIA's microdata user's guide. Following EIA's rule, estimates with an RSE above 50% or fewer than 20 sampled buildings are shown as Q. Our any-use shares reproduce EIA's published 2018 highlights (packaged cooling 43% of buildings and 58% of floorspace; boilers 12% and 30%; regular maintenance 60% and 81%).

Served floor area (derived d1 and d6): cooled square feet = SQFT x COOLP/100; each building's cooled square feet are split across equipment in proportion to its percent-cooled answers, normalised to 100 where systems overlap. Heating uses HEATP and the percent-heated variables. Main equipment uses EIA's derived MAINCL and MAINHT. Energy shares use EIA's published Table E1 totals.

Conflicts: microdata floorspace totals differ from Table B1 by about 0.1% because EIA rounds square footage in the public file; we quote Table B1 for totals and the microdata for shares. 2012 and 2018 equipment shares are shown side by side but not trended, because EIA restructured the equipment questions in 2018.

Exclusions: the main-cooling-replaced variable (NWMNCL) and packaged heat pump counts were dropped for missingness and 'don't know' answers; see excluded.md. No market-research, trade-press or blog figures are used as data.

Last update 2026-11-02. Reproduce with python3 scripts/compute.py && python3 scripts/build_report.py && python3 scripts/compose_report.py.

This report presents published data with its limitations. It is not legal, financial or investment advice.

Sources, ranked by quality

Tier 1: primary and official sources (19)

• [1] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2018 CBECS public use microdata file (CSV, 6,436 building records). 2018 (released Nov 2021, revised Dec 2022). Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [2] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2018 CBECS microdata variable and response codebook. 2018. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [3] U.S. Energy Information Administration. User's Guide to the 2018 CBECS Public Use Microdata File. 2018 (guide revised Jan 2023). Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [4] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2018 CBECS Building Characteristics Highlights (flipbook). 2018. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [5] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2018 CBECS Table B1, summary table: floorspace, workers and hours. 2018 (released Sep 2021, revised Dec 2022). Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [6] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2018 CBECS Table B11, principal building activity, number of buildings. 2018. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [7] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2018 CBECS Table B21, energy end uses, number of buildings. 2018. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [8] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2018 CBECS Table B22, energy end uses, floorspace. 2018. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [9] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2018 CBECS Table E1, major fuels consumption by end use. 2018 (released Dec 2022). Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [10] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2018 CBECS Table E2, major fuels consumption intensities by end use. 2018 (released Dec 2022). Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [11] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2018 CBECS Consumption and Expenditures Highlights (flipbook). 2018. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [12] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2012 CBECS Table B38, heating equipment, number of buildings. 2012 (released Apr 2015, revised May 2016). Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [13] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2012 CBECS Table B39, heating equipment, floorspace. 2012. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [14] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2012 CBECS Table B40, cooling equipment, number of buildings. 2012 (revised Jan 2017). Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [15] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2012 CBECS Table B41, cooling equipment, floorspace. 2012 (revised Jan 2017). Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [16] U.S. Energy Information Administration. Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) home page and status notes. status notes to Dec 2024. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [17] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2018 CBECS Overview and Outline of Draft Questionnaire (May 2018). 2018 questionnaire. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [18] U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2018 CBECS: What is an RSE? (relative standard errors). 2018. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [19] U.S. Energy Information Administration. CBECS terminology. current. Accessed 2026-11-02.