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The Data Center Boom Reset Chiller Lead Times. Here Is Where Used Equipment Fits

Chiller procurement in 2026 is not what it was three years ago. Turner Construction’s SourceBlue Q1 2026 cost index, published in May, put air-cooled chillers at 7 to 52 weeks and water-cooled chillers at 12 to 60 weeks. The prior period showed 8 to 40 and 10 to 47. The bottom of the range barely moved. The top went up by roughly a quarter.

QUICK ANSWER

Turner Construction’s SourceBlue index put air-cooled chillers at 7 to 52 weeks and water-cooled chillers at 12 to 60 weeks in Q1 2026, with the top of both ranges up sharply. Trane, Carrier, and Johnson Controls all reported record backlogs driven by data center orders. For a plant that needs capacity this year, a reconditioned chiller stops being a budget decision and becomes a schedule decision. The checks that matter are tube condition, refrigerant status, and control panel obsolescence.

Where the demand is coming from

CBRE reported 7,481 MW of data center capacity under construction in North America in the first half of 2026, up 24.8 percent and a record, with vacancy at 1.4 percent. That load has to be cooled, and the orders show up in OEM backlogs.

In Q2 2026 Trane Technologies reported a record backlog of 12.1 billion dollars, up 70 percent year over year, with applied bookings up 130 percent and data center orders up more than 300 percent. Carrier reported a backlog above 8 billion dollars, up roughly 40 percent, also with data center orders up more than 300 percent. Johnson Controls reported a 20 billion dollar backlog, up 26 percent organically.

Worth noting fairly: Trane’s chief executive said on that call that the company is not turning away orders and has capacity for the orders out there. Both things are true. The plants are not out of capacity. You are standing behind a long line of hyperscale buyers, and the electrical gear that goes with the machine is queued behind the same demand.

Cost pressure on top of schedule pressure

Copper traded at 6.30 dollars per pound on September 14, 2026, after a record 6.83 dollars in August, up more than 35 percent year to date. A shell and tube chiller is a copper-intensive machine. Section 232 duties on steel, aluminum, and copper articles were restructured in 2026 so that duty applies to the full customs value of an article rather than only its metal content.

We are not going to publish a headline tariff rate for chillers, because published sources disagree on which rate applies to commercial and industrial equipment as opposed to residential HVAC. Price your own landed cost with your customs broker. A used machine already sitting in a domestic warehouse is not an import, and it is not in anyone’s production queue.

What the EPA rules do and do not do to a used chiller

EPA’s Technology Transitions restrictions apply to new equipment. Existing operational chillers are not affected, there is no mandate to replace or retrofit, and owners may continue to repair existing systems, including replacing major components. A used R-134a machine is legal to own, run, service, and resell. It simply cannot be replicated as new equipment, which is a supply argument for the secondary market rather than a compliance problem for the buyer. We went through that rule, and the litigation now pending against it, in our piece on the HFC rollback in court.

New chillers face a 700 GWP limit: comfort cooling from January 1, 2025, industrial process refrigeration above minus 30 degrees C from January 1, 2026, and the minus 50 to minus 30 degrees C tier from January 1, 2028. R-513A at 630 GWP, R-1233zd(E) at roughly 5 to 7, and R-514A at 7 clear that bar. R-134a at 1,430 and R-410A at 2,090 do not.

The two refrigerants with a clock on them

R-22 virgin production and import ended January 1, 2020. Existing equipment can still run and be serviced, and reclaimed R-22 remains legal. R-123 is the sharper one: low pressure centrifugals made before January 1, 2020 can still be serviced, but HCFC-123 faces complete phaseout in 2030 with limited exceptions. Price that horizon in, or buy knowing you will convert.

What to inspect before you buy

Trane’s CenTraVac service literature recommends eddy current inspection of condenser and evaporator tubes every three years. That gives you a clean question: when was the last eddy current report, and can I see it? A machine several years past its last test has an unpriced tube bundle.

  • Purge pump-out time on a low pressure machine. Cumulative purge run time is the chiller’s own leak log. Ask for it.
  • Leak inspection records. Under the EPA rules effective January 1, 2026, appliances at or above 500 pounds of charge require quarterly leak inspections and those from 15 to 500 pounds require annual inspections, with three years of records retained. A compliant seller has these, and their absence is itself a finding.
  • Control panel generation. Trane declared the Tracker, VariTrac central control panel, and thermostat control module obsolete effective April 4, 2018, with parts on last-time-buy inventory only. On many used machines the panel, not the compressor, is the real obsolescence clock.
  • Run hours, starts counter, and documented rebuild history with parts lists and the servicing contractor named.
  • Dated motor winding insulation resistance readings on all three phases plus phase to ground, with a starter and drive inspection report.

ASHRAE service life data puts packaged centrifugal chillers at a median 23 years and packaged reciprocating chillers at 20. Those are medians, not verdicts on a specific unit. Condition and records beat age.

One argument that gets missed: machinery room ventilation

ASHRAE Standard 15 sizes machinery room leak exhaust as Q equals 100 times the square root of G, where G is the refrigerant weight per circuit in pounds. For A2L refrigerants the requirement jumps. One published worked example puts a 250 ton chiller on R-1234ze at 19,000 CFM of exhaust against 3,162 CFM for the R-134a equivalent, and A2L systems also require detection that triggers emergency shutdown at 25 percent of the lower flammability limit.

If your machinery room was built for an A1 refrigerant, replacing that machine with a new A2L unit can trigger a ventilation upgrade that costs more than the gap between a new and a used chiller. Run the number before you assume new is simpler.

On price

There is no credible published cost comparison between new and used industrial chillers, and we are not going to invent a percentage. Price the specific machine. What you can put a number on is the cost of waiting: the schedule you miss, the temporary cooling you rent, and the production you do not run.

One specification note before you shop. Nameplate tonnage is a rating at AHRI 550/590 standard conditions, and capacity at your leaving chilled water temperature, condenser water temperature, fouling factor, and altitude will differ. Ask for the original selection printout, not just the nameplate. For brand level guidance see our guides to used air-cooled chillers from Trane, Carrier, and York and the most reliable used chiller brands.

Frequently Asked Questions

Refrigeration Equipment Pros carries surplus chillers, compressors, condensers, and complete refrigeration plants pulled from decommissioned facilities across North America. Browse inventory at refrigerationequipment.net/shop, list equipment you need to move on our Sell To Us page, or call or text 201-805-1441 with a tonnage, a voltage, and a date.

About the Author

Michael Rosenberg writes on the industrial refrigeration equipment market for Refrigeration Equipment Pros, a surplus and used equipment dealer with more than 25 years in ammonia and halocarbon systems, plant decommissioning, and equipment valuation. The company operates warehouse locations in Newfield, New Jersey, Houston, Texas, and Patterson, California.

Sources
  1. SourceBlue (Turner Construction), Q1 2026 Cost Index Report, May 7, 2026: https://sourceblue.com/news-insights/q1-2026-cost-index-report
  2. CBRE, North American Data Center Demand Continues to Outpace Supply Despite Record Construction Activity, August 27, 2026: https://www.cbre.com/press-releases/north-american-data-center-demand-continues-to-outpace-supply-despite-record-construction-activity
  3. Trane Technologies Q2 2026 earnings call transcript, July 30, 2026: https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2026/07/30/trane-technologies-tt-q2-2026-earnings-call-transcript/
  4. HVACR Trends, Carrier and Trane Q2 Earnings: Data Centers Drive Record Backlogs Amid Rising Input Costs, August 1, 2026: https://hvacrtrends.com/carrier-and-trane-q2-earnings-data-centers-drive-record-backlogs-amid-rising-input-costs/
  5. Johnson Controls, Q2 FY26 results, May 6, 2026: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/johnson-controls-reports-strong-q2-results-raises-fy26-guidance-302763526.html
  6. Trading Economics, copper price, September 14, 2026: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/copper
  7. KPMG, New rules for calculating Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum, copper, April 2, 2026: https://www.kpmg.com/us/en/taxnewsflash/news/2026/04/united-states-new-rules-calculating-section-232-tariffs-steel-aluminum-copper.html
  8. EPA, Technology Transitions HFC Restrictions by Sector, updated August 28, 2026: https://www.epa.gov/hfcs/technology-transitions-hfc-restrictions-sector
  9. EPA, SNAP Substitutes in Centrifugal Chillers, updated March 19, 2026: https://www.epa.gov/snap/substitutes-centrifugal-chillers
  10. EPA, Commercial Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Equipment Frequent Questions (R-22), updated April 2, 2026: https://www.epa.gov/ods-phaseout/commercial-refrigeration-and-air-conditioning-equipment-frequently-asked-questions
  11. EPA, Management of HCFC-123 through the Phaseout and Beyond, August 2020: https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-08/documents/us_management_of_hcfc-123.pdf
  12. EPA, Emissions Reduction and Reclamation leak repair fact sheet, January 2026: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2026-01/er-r-fact-sheet-leak-repair-2026-01-13_1.pdf
  13. Trane, CVHH CenTraVac Installation, Operation and Maintenance manual, CVHH-SVX003E-EN, December 2024: https://elibrary.tranetechnologies.com/public/commercial-hvac/Literature/Installation%20Operation%20and%20Maintenance/CVHH-SVX003E-EN_12202024.pdf
  14. Trane Commercial HVAC Help Center, Tracker, VariTrac CCP, TCM Obsolescence and Availability, January 29, 2025: https://support.trane.com/hc/en-us/articles/16077725086349-Tracker-Varitrac-CCP-TCM-Obsolescence-and-Availability
  15. ACHR News, ASHRAE Standard 15-2022 Plays Crucial Role in Refrigerant Transition, September 6, 2023: https://www.achrnews.com/articles/163224-ashrae-standard-15-2022-plays-crucial-role-in-refrigerant-transition
  16. AHRI Standard 550/590 (I-P), Performance Rating of Water-Chilling and Heat Pump Water-Heating Packages: https://www.ahrinet.org/search-standards/ahri-550590-i-p-and-551591-si-performance-rating-water-chilling-and-heat-pump-water-heating-packages