The calendar reads July so it must be time for The NEWS' annual Dealer Design Awards. For the third consecutive year, The NEWS is proud to highlight the best in new products. The products recognized earned those honors because they are inventive and make technicians' jobs in installing, servicing, and maintaining HVAC systems easier and in general are highly beneficial to contracting companies.

And who better to judge these qualities than HVACR contractors. An independent panel of judges pored over the entries and selected the cream of the crop in the various categories.

The 2006 winners were selected from 112 entries in the categories of HVAC Residential Equipment, HVAC Residential Equipment/High Efficiency (16 SEER Plus Air Conditioning Equipment & 90 AFUE Furnaces), HVAC Light Commercial Equipment (5 to 20 tons), HVAC Commercial Equipment, Refrigeration and Ice Machines, IAQ, Ventilation Products, Components and Accessories, Residential Controls Including Zoning, Commercial Controls Including Building Automation, Testing and Monitoring Products, Contractor Services and Software, Tools, and Miscellaneous. Three new categories were added this year: HVAC Residential Equipment/High Efficiency, IAQ, and Tools.

"The third annual Dealer Design Awards were a great success. This contest gets bigger and better each year," NEWS' editor-in-chief Mike Murphy said. "We re-ceived an incredible number of quality products. I want to thank all the manufacturers that took the time to enter their products. I also want to thank all the contractors who took the time to judge those products. With the quality of submissions, their job was not easy. We look forward to doing this again next year."

To find out what products won gold, silver, and bronze, see the following articles in this issue:

Hands-on Comfort Caries Competition

Commercial Winners Cover Spectrum

Winning Products Help Achieve Good IAQ

Winning Applications Run the Ventilation Gamut

Residential Category Awards Convenience

New Category Highlights Innovative Solutions

Great Products Make It to the Winner's Circle

Standing Tall in the Face of Product Competition

Tools Test and Monitor Multiple Mediums

Components Hit a Home Run

Helpful Tools Highlighted

Classic and New Technology Battle for Residential Control

Getting the Word Out on Commercial Controls

Winners Have the Right Stuff

Publication date: 07/17/2006