Who Owns Ducane?

Ducane began in 1946 as Ducane Brothers Metal Fabricating, a post-war New Jersey metal shop that moved to Little Ferry and turned to building warm-air furnaces. By the 1950s it was producing gas- and oil-fired furnaces for the residential market, a line it would make for more than 50 years.

In 1968, renamed The Ducane Company, it moved its base to Barnwell and later Blackville, South Carolina, where it built a 375,000-square-foot plant producing furnaces, air conditioners, and gas grills. The grill business would eventually become the better-known name to the public, but furnaces and heating equipment remained the core industrial line.

Lennox International acquired the air conditioning and heating division in November 1999 for $45.3 million, a business doing roughly $45 million in annual revenue. Lennox folded Ducane into what became Allied Air Enterprises, its multi-brand residential and light commercial arm, and closed the Blackville factory.

The gas grill line went its own way: the Ducate family retained it briefly, then Weber-Stephen acquired Ducane Grills in 2004. Since then, "Ducane" in HVAC means exclusively the Allied Air brand, with no connection to the barbecue products.

Under Lennox, Ducane has remained the value offering: durable, simply equipped furnaces, air conditioners, and heat pumps sold at price points below the flagship brand to budget-conscious homeowners and contractors.