Carrier Age By Serial Number: How To Tell Carrier AC Or Furnace Age? (Lookup) (2024)

How to know what age is your Carrier HVAC unit? If you have an old Carrier air conditioner or Carrier furnace, it’s not all that easy to tell how old it is. We are going to look at how you can use the Carrier serial number to find out exactly what year (even month, or week) your Carrier HVAC unit was made.

Here’s the thing:

Carrier has been in business for 107 years now (established during WW1 in 1915). They have been making HVAC systems – air conditioners and furnaces – for a century. In fact, it was Willis Carrier who invented modern air conditioning back in 1902. That means that the age of your Carrier AC or furnace can be 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, or even 50 years.

Figuring out Carrier AC age or Carrier furnace age, however, is dead easy. You just need one thing:

Carrier serial number.

If you want to see if your Carrier HVAC unit is old enough to require a replacement, or if you want to know if you still have a valid Carrier warranty, this Carrier serial number is very useful. You will find the Carrier serial number of the AC or furnace label. Alternatively, newer HVAC units have ‘Date Of Manufacturing’ on the label as well.

Carrier used 5 different styles or formats of labeling the age of their HVAC units (Style 1, Style 2, Style 3, Style 4, and Style 5). Here are some examples:

• Style 1: “3312A18212″. This Carrier HVAC unit was produced in the 33rd week of 2012. That’s August 2012.
• Style 2: “860602134″. This Carrier AC was produced in June of 1986. Style 2 format was used by Carrier in the ’80s. These air conditioners and furnaces are now about 40 years old.
• Style 3: “S5D16399″. This is a Carrier furnace that was produced in June 1985. Style 3 format was also used by Carrier in the ’80s. These air conditioners and furnaces are now about 40 years old.
• Style 4: “A442900″. This furnace was manufactured in January 1974. Style 4 format was used by Carrier in the ’70s. These air conditioners and furnaces are now about 50 years old.
• Style 5: “7374640″. This Carrier unit was produced in 1967. This is the oldest Carrier serial number format; all of these units are older than 50 years.

We are going to cover all of them; you will be able to tell the Carrier AC age or Carrier furnace age down to a month, or even a week (Style 1).

Example: Let’s say you have a Carrier HVAC unit with a serial number ‘830604092′. How to tell how old this Carrier HVAC unit is? This is a Style 2 serial number. The first two numbers ’83’ label the date of manufacturing (1983). Second two numbers ’06’ specific to the month of manufacturing (June). That means that this Carrier unit has been made in June 1983. The other four digits ‘4092’ are just the sequence of the model.

It is worth noting that Carrier uses the same serial number styles for both air conditioners and furnaces. That means that, by understanding all 5 Carrier serial number styles, you will be able to tell Carrier HVAC age.

Note: As always, if you are having problems figuring out Carrier HVAC unit age, you can use the comments below and we’ll try to help you out as best we can.

We are going to go one-by-one through these styles, starting with Style 1:

Carrier Serial Number Style 1 (HVAC Age By Week And Year)

Style 1 serial numbers are comprised of 10 digits. To determine the age of Carrier AC or Furnace, only the first 4 are relevant.

Here is an example of a Style 1 Carrier Serial Number:

3312A18212

The first two digits ’33’ tell you in which week of the year the unit was manufactured. 33 means the 33rd week of the year; that’s in the middle of August.

The third and fourth digits are the most important ones. These will tell you the year when the Carrier HVAC unit was manufactured. The 12 in our example means that this unit was manufactured in 2012.

Other digits are not relevant as far as specifying the age of the Carrier unit goes.

Here are some examples of Style 1 serial numbers:

• 1003A13843: This Carrier AC was manufactured in 2003 (10th week; this is in March).
• 4799A35289: This Carrier furnace was manufactured in 1999 (47th week; this is in November).
• 0100A16394: This Carrier heat pump was manufactured in 2000 (1st week; this is January).

Makes sense? That’s just one format of a serial number Carrier uses. Here are the other four:

Carrier Serial Number Style 2 (HVAC Age By Year And Month)

Style 2 serial number has 9 digits. For calculating how old is your Carrier unit, you will need only the first 4 numbers.

Here is a Carrier Style 2 serial number example:

820201071

The first two digits are the most important. They tell you the year when Carrier manufactured this HVAC unit. In this case, this unit was manufactured in 1982.

The next two digits (third and fourth) tell you the month of manufacturing. Namely, we have ’02’ in the example; that’s February. 01 is January, 02 is February, 03 is March, 04 is April, and so on, you get the point.

Style 2 was used in the ’80s. If your Carrier air conditioner or furnace was produced in 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, or 1989, you might see this type of Carrier serial number used on the label (Style 3 was also used in the ’80s). These Carrier air conditioners and furnaces are now about 40 years old and should be replaced.

Here are some examples of Style 2 serial numbers:

• 860602134: This Carrier AC was produced in June of 1986.
• 801001273: This Carrier furnace was produced in November of 1980.
• 88030472: This Carrier AC was produced in March of 1988.

If you suspect your Carrier HVAC unit was manufactured in the 1980s, you might also see the use of Style 3 serial numbers (since they were also used in the ’80s):

Carrier Serial Number Style 3 (HVAC Age By Month And ’80s Year)

Style 3 has only been used for Carrier HVAC units in the 1980s. The Style 3 serial number is 8 digits long. To determine the age of Carrier ACs and furnaces, only the first 2 are relevant.

Here is an example (Style 3 is a bit complicated):

P7D12384

Now, this first digit ‘P’ is the month of manufacturing. Obviously, there is no month that starts with P. For Style 3, Carrier has their own nomenclature, namely:

• M is January.
• N is February.
• P is March.
• Q is April.
• R is May.
• S is June.
• T is July.
• V is August.
• W is September.
• X is October.
• Y is November.
• Z is December.

It seems that they couldn’t use the first letter of the month because you have January, June, and July (all of them would be J), and March and May (both would be M). That’s why this somewhat complicated format.

The most important letter is Style 3 is the second one. In the example above, we see 7. That means that this Carrier HVAC unit was produced in 1987. Namely, this number specified in which year in the 1980s the unit was produced. 0 stands for 1980, 1 stands for 1981, 2 standards for 1982, 3 standards for 1983, 4 stands for 1984, and so on up to 9 (standing for 1988).

Here are examples of Style 3 serial numbers in order to calculate the age of ACs and furnaces produced by Carrier:

• S5D16399: This is a Carrier furnace that was produced in June 1985.
• Z1D27364: This is a Carrier AC that was produced in December 1981.
• R8D16382: This is a Carrier HVAC unit that was produced in May 1988.

Style 4 follows a similar format as Style 3:

Carrier Serial Number Style 4 (HVAC Age By Month And ’70s Year)

Style 4 serial numbers have only 7 digits. You can determine the age of your Carrier HVAC unit in a similar way you would with Style 3. There are two differences, however:

• Style 4 serial numbers are used only for Carrier HVAC units produced in the 1970s.
• Those abbreviations for months are different than in Style 3.

Here is an example of a Style 4 serial number:

D473640

The first digit – D – denotes the month when the Carrier unit was manufactured. D is April; this unit was produced in April. Why is D April? In the 70s, Carrier vent alphabetical when labeling these months. Here is what these letters stand for (it’s not the same as for Style 3):

• A is January.
• B is February.
• C is March.
• D is April.
• E is May.
• F is June.
• G is July.
• H is August.
• I is September.
• J is October.
• K is November.
• L is December.

The important number is the second one – 4. This means that this Carrier HVAC unit was produced in 1974. All the years here are in the ’70s, namely 0 stands for 1970, 1 stands for 1971, 2 stands for 1972, 3 stands for 1973, and so on.

The Carrier unit in our example was therefore manufactured in April 1974 (since we have D and 4 in the serial number). All of the units with Style 4 serial numbers are now over 40 years old (most likely around 50 years).

Here are some more Serial 4 examples:

• K623840: This AC unit was manufactured in November 1976.
• A442900: This furnace was manufactured in January 1974.
• G283022:This HVAC unit was manufactured in July 1976.

Let’s look at the last Carrier serial number format:

Carrier Serial Number Style 5 (HVAC Age By ’60s Year)

All of the Carrier units with Style 5 serial numbers are now more than 50 years old. Style 5 was used exclusively for units manufactured in the 1960s (from 1960 to 1969).

This style has 7 digits. In contrast to the first 4 styles, we don’t have a week or month of manufacture date here. We only have 1 relevant number – the year when Carrier AC or furnace was produced.

Here is an example of Style 5:

3749500

All numbers – except the first one – are irrelevant here. The 1st number tells us the year (in 1960s) when the Carrier unit was manufactured. If the serial number starts with 0, the date of manufacture is 1960. If it starts with 1, it’s 1961, if it starts with 2, it’s 1962, and so on.

Here are some examples of these oldest Carrier HVAC units:

• 2648300: This Carrier unit was produced in 1962.
• 9373492: This Carrier unit was produced in 1969.
• 7374640: This Carrier unit was produced in 1967.

This has been an overview of Carrier serial numbers. If you want to know your Carrier AC age or Carrier furnace age, you can just check the serial number, use this guide to see when it was manufactured and calculate how old Carrier HVAC unit you have.