I have been using Concord, an Allied Air brand for a number of years as my base/builders model.

Haven't had any issues to speak of from them. There was the odd Condenser High Pressure switch problem but that seems to be resolved. Haven't had much need for tech support but the support is there from distributor. Been dealing with them for over 35 years. I have any issues There are guys I have know for a long time.

The hwc/magic pak line.I use and also have had really no issues with them at all either

 

small change, how do you overcome the lack of brand recognition with the Concord products? This brand is basically a made up name that is not very old. Do you use the Lennox tie in for marketing? Do you steer consumers to the Concord website so they can see that Concord claims to be as wonderful a product as any other on the market? After all, most consumers only have a brand preference based on how much media exposure they have had with a brand. Once shown a nice brand website, most consumers then feel as comfortable with a previously unheard of brand as they do the most advertised brand.

Do you utilize any of the Concord products that are more feature or efficiency based as a premium product at a lower cost? I am referring to Concord variable speed blower air handlers and furnaces as well as 2 stage condensing units and heat pumps.

 

Aire-flo, Ducane, Concord, etc. - like many other brands it's just a different sticker or tag. I use Aire-flo as my base brand, the Lennox tag as the mid and high brands. I point out to my customers that the base brand is a subsidiary of Lennox. I also point out that many many of the parts in each unit are identical and only have different labels. Make the association of the car brands having the same design with different names. They get it immediately.

Whenever I've had a problem, which was once, or a question, also once, the main Lennox number got me support for all brands under the Lennox umbrella. Armstrong is not a Lennox company. They subcontract Lennox to make some of their products. For their products you need to call Armstrong directly. No problems with them either (magic-pak units).

We have local Lennox branches that appear to be pretty helpful and have most major parts in stock.

 

Armstrong is a Lennox company. Go to lennoxinternational.com and check it out. They, just like carrier and ICP share parts and manufacturing. Its good stuff, the brand isn't as big of deal here as the dealer. I can sell a Payne, concord , or Lennox, it doesn't matter , the home owner trust me to make the decision

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Payne is ICP, not Lennox.

Armstrong is Armstrong per the rep AT Armstrong. I specifically asked if they were a subsidiary of Lennox and the rep said, "No, we are not owned by Lennox. We contract them to make products for us. We also contract non-Lennox manufacturers to make other products for us." I didnt see anything on the Lennox website that says they OWN those brands. Because they license the name doesnt mean that they own the brand. The Coleman brands (camping equip. vs. hvac equipment) are like this.

So, maybe the rep likes lying to techs or is misinformed?

Anyway, it's true that there is trust involved with any transaction.

 

It is a bit confusing the way that the Lennox International (not Lennox manufacturing) uses their three main companies. Those three are Lennox, Allied Air and ADP.

Magicpak is under the Allied Air company, but is treated as a seperate type of brand. ADP manufactures all of the Allied Air brand coils and air handlers, but is completely seperate from Allied Air for ADP branded coils and air handlers, even the ones that are essentially identical to the Allied brands using slightly different casings. Allied Air builds air handlers for Lennox and Allied Air furnaces are manufactured in the Lennox factory. Allied Commercial products are flat out rebadged Lennox units. While most of the Allied Air and Lennox functional parts are the same, they have different part numbers that make crossing over parts between the brands difficult. Lennox warranties cannot be handled by Allied Air dealers and vice versa, so unless there is an out of warranty part needed, even if we can identify the same part from one brand to the other, there can be no warranty claim if that part is used.

So, on one hand the Lennox and Allied Air brands are being marketed very seperately while on the other hand Lennox International is able to reduce the manufacturing process between the brands by using the same parts with different numbers. Not a bad way to go to market with different brands while keeping a marketing seperation between them.

 

There are getting to be a lot of parts in common with the 2 lines. I compared furnace parts with Bob. On the 95 single stage, inducer & gas valve same, Lennox uses their own board & ignitor - aren't they using the Surelight/Intell system still? Some heat pump parts I've gotten for both brands are the same. Same part numbers. The cheapo Mexicans are essentially the same with a different jacket. The premium Allied A/Cs are still made in Allied's plant not Marshalltown. Our supplier stocks Concord in 80s and single stage 95s and the builder A/Cs then gives us Air Ease tags for them. Since we use them for their low price, homeowners aren't too picky. I know the salesman hype the Lennox connection.

Carrier/ICP going the same way though ICP still has their own parts numbering system. UPG (if they are still using that name) definitely one big product with a little cosmetic differences. And who can figure out what's what with Nordyne And now throw Daikin into the Goodmana family mix!

 

Bald one, are you sure you can still just rebadge Concord/Ducane Mexico outdoor units with AireEase/Armstrong badges? Allied has come out with a "B" (base) 13 SEER line with the same removable side panels but a stamped top grill for the AireEase/Armstrong line instead of rebadging the Concord/Ducane Mexico units with the wrap around side grill. This way, all AireEase/Armstrong products across the board all look the same with the horizontal, individual panel louvers.

 

I am in a residential HVAC business that started in 1938 and My dad worked for the gentleman who owned eventually buying him out in 1967. I started in 1974 and took over the whole shebang in the early 80's.

So to make a long story short I sell Concord, Armstrong and Payne.

But mostly I sell myself and how I install the equipment. I tell folks I like to get 20 years out of a a/c system and I usually do .

I have had customers and their families for generations and they all know me. They can call me day or night. I speak to them when they call and or make it a point to do some of their service thru the year.

I am not the least expensive nor am I the gold Standard in pricing but I sell the hell out of customer service.

 

I own stock in Lennox. Go to the Lennox international website, look at presentations in the stockholders section. Is shows Lennox owns allied air and what percentage of sales allied makes in the lennox family. Payne is carrier, ICP is carrier just differs in going to market, all made by same company

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like i said, per a conversation with Armstrong, they are their own company. im only parroting what i was told by the company. i didnt see anything on that site that said they own that brand. though, i didnt open every single file on the site. that's ok. i dont care either way. what you own or dont isnt my business.

I don't think anyone stated that payne/icp and lennox were the same mark. It looks as if they were merely using it as an example (payne is to icp as concord is to lennox ect...)

As this is a Lennox brand discussion the quote:

I can sell a Payne, concord , or Lennox, it doesn't matter

made it appear that Payne was a Lennox held brand.

I stayed away from our local concord supplier because of the "blatant backdoor sales" to the public. I have had way too many calls to install them (commercial and resi). So what I do see with them (issues) is due to hacked installs.

Seem to be decent units when issues are corrected.

you really ought to inform your Lennox contact about these backdoor sales. My rep, at least, was very proud that they do not sell directly to the public. so far, it has held true in my area.

 

I don't think anyone stated that payne/icp and lennox were the same mark. It looks as if they were merely using it as an example (payne is to icp as concord is to lennox ect...)
I stayed away from our local concord supplier because of the "blatant backdoor sales" to the public. I have had way too many calls to install them (commercial and resi). So what I do see with them (issues) is due to hacked installs.
Seem to be decent units when issues are corrected.

 

Locally, we with Lennox the least that we can.

Example:
If I need a lennox blower motor, yet my local armstrong supplier can cross-reference that part number to armstrong, I would buy from the armstrong supplier.

Most of this is not because we like the armstrong supplier, but because we hate dealing with lennox.
One of the better supply houses in the area is an air-ease supplier.

Tons of literature, tons of in house tech support.


In our market, there's still alot of bad blood toward the lennox warehouse.
For me, it's when (as a lennox dealer) we were told we would not be receiving TXV's with units requiring them, because there was a 3 month backlog of TXVs.
When asked what we should do, we were told to go back after the installation and install the TXV.

Oh yeah, and lennox would pay absolutely nothing for the installation of the part.

So, we stopped selling lennox.

 

Robin, our supplier stocks the 4SCU13LE for his AirEase dealers and the 4AC13L for the rest. If we want the cheapo, and sadly we usually do, he gives us the AE tag. Maybe he isn't supposed to anymore.

Here's an example of parts... Lennox residential gas pack which was built in Armstrong's plant. Called Lennox for heat exchanger, pricey. Got part # and called Armstrong supplier and it was 1/3 the price. This same supplier can also sell Lennox parts to all and Lennox equipment to dealers. Interesting arrangement.

 

Robin, our supplier stocks the 4SCU13LE for his AirEase dealers and the 4AC13L for the rest. If we want the cheapo, and sadly we usually do, he gives us the AE tag. Maybe he isn't supposed to anymore.

Allied Air wants dealers to use the 4SCU13LB as the base model for Armstrong/AirEase so that all of these brands have the same look with the individually removable side panels with horizontal louvers. This way, if a two system house uses a 13 SEER unit in the basement and a 16 SEER unit in the attic and the two outside units are sitting side by side, they will have the same general look to them.

 

For the complete Lennox connection, go to http://lennoxinternational.com/# and click on "our businesses" and then "Residential Heating and Cooling".

Basically, the Lennox brand is sold through Lennox International's corporate distribution network and their Allied Air brands are sold through an independent distribution network. ADP (Advanced Distributors Products) is kept separate to be able to enjoy the advantages of producing 3rd party products that can be branded and sold by any distributor for any brand of equipment out there.

 

I have to agree that any "backdoor" sales to other than HVAC contractors or building maintenance companies with in house HVAC personnel is a distributor thing, not an Allied Air attitude. This is one of the things that I too like about the Allied brands because I don't want to have to deal with DIY equipment installs either.

The Lennox brand is able to be controlled better because it is distributed only through Lennox corporate distribution. Allied Air brands, being sold through independent distributors, does not have as much control, but the attitude from Allied Air corporate is for distributors to only sell to HVAC contractors.

 

Light commercially speaking, the Allied and Lennox "K series" come off the same exact line and are the same exact unit. Commercial yards will pop off the Lennox emblem and put an Allied on instead.
If a customer wants only a Lennox K-series unit, we save $500.00 buying the Allied unit through our York distributor than going directly through our Lennox dealer for the exact same thing....expensive emblem

 

Around these parts Lennox is the one and only Allied Air distributor.

 

The only reason this would be is if Allied Air for whatever reason cannot find a suitable independent distributor.

In my area, the Lennox distributor is not that well liked and those interested in Lennox equipment who don't like dealing with the Lennox distributor are using Allied Air equipment from independent distributors.

 

We use gmc n chevy relationship to explain our lennox n aire flo lines... get both straight from lennox

 

I believe the Aire-Flo brand is the same as the Concord and Ducane brands. Aire-Flo would be the only brand sold from Lennox distributors.

 

Are independent distributors and Allied Air providing good marketing and technical support for these brands?

I work for an Allied distributor, so I may have a unique perspective compared to the others who have posted here.

From what I've been told, and what keeps getting reiterated is that Allied is not about marketing in the same way as Bryant/Carrier/Trane/Lennox. If you are an Armstrong/Air-Ease dealer, you can use co-op dollars and points accrued with purchases to market. The focus is more on the dealer than the equipment though. We're marketing "Smith Htg & Air" not "Armstrong Air by Smith."

The other rub is that we are to recognize that the Air-Ease/Armstrong dealer today will eventually move on to be a Lennox or Carrier type dealer in the future. We help you grow to the point where the Bryant/Carrier/Trane/Lennox territory manager comes in and sweeps you into their fold and we grin and bear it. Seen at least twice in the last 7 yrs where a >$100k equipment customer got poached one by Lennox and the other by Bryant.

 

Jingle, what is it that gets dealers for Allied Air products to switch to more publicized name brands? It seems to me that a dealer that has become successful with an Allied Air branded product line would want to continue doing what they are doing with that same line.

It's not like there are any technological or feature benefits by going from an Allied Air product to a Lennox or Carrier line. It seems to me that if the relationship between the Allied Air brand distributor and the dealer is what helped that dealer become successful, that dealer would want to continue working with the product and distributor that has worked.

Then again, I do know how fickle HVAC contractors are.

 

Name recognition namely. It's easier to sell a customer the Blue Oval or Dave Lennox than to sell themselves. Allied also only offers limited marketing as well. Tends to be going 50/50 on marketing funds even for guys who maybe doing $1 million in sales. I don't have experience with the big guys, but I think their ability/willingness to market exceeds Allied's by quite a bit.

In terms of technology, Allied's top tier is rather meh in comparison to some. 18 seer AC/HP that is difficult to get an 18 seer match. We just got communicating equipment in the last 6 months. That being said, I'll pit the 4scu13le 13 seer AC against anybody any day of the week. Best on the market imho.

 

Well, it only makes sense that at least for now, Lennox International is going to more promote the Lennox brand than the Allied Air brands. That is why Lennox had the communicating thermostat and units a year before the Allied brands did. However, that actually worked in favor of Allied Air brand contractors who did not have to put up with the initial issues that Lennox had with the communicating wi-fi stat. Once Allied Air had the communicating stat and units, the bugs had been worked out of it.