Industry competitors face off daily to win a place in the HVACR contractor’s comfort product arsenal. With this in mind, manufacturers create and design new products every year to help them to install, service, and maintain HVACR equipment with convenience and ease. This year is no exception, and the battle between manufacturers’ products was fierce in The NEWS’ 2010 seventh annual Dealer Design Awards program.

Met with intense competition, the 114 product entries competed to be the best in their category. After months of deliberation by approximately 30 contractor judges, a total of 14 gold, 14 silver, and 16 bronze awards were bestowed upon the vying products.

“The annual response we receive from vendors and contractors for the Dealer Design Awards program is amazing. This really is the only contest of its kind in the industry where only contractors make the decision about the award winners. The contractor judges enjoy participating because they can review some relatively new products in the market, thereby occasionally giving their own companies an advantage with some information that their competitors might not yet have,” said Mike Murphy, editor-in-chief of The NEWS. “I want to thank the manufacturers that entered their products and services.”

The feature articles in this issue highlight and honor the winning entries from each of the 14 product categories, but even with these honors in place the competition is far from over. Which product is best designed for contractor usage? This year, the readers get to decide at www.achrnews.com/dealerdesign. There they can vote for the competition champion in The NEWS’ online bracket competition. Visitors can also enter the monthly product giveaway and learn more about the winning products featured.

Publication date: 07/12/2010