Providing You With Over 30 Years Of Low Cost, Quality HVAC Equipment

Beginnings

The foundation of Ingram’s Water & Air Equipment was laid on a dairy farm in Marshall County, Kentucky in the 1950’s. There, our principal founder, Doug Ingram grew up learning about hard work and responsibility. His horizons expanded further in the early 60’s when the family bought two coin-operated laundromats in nearby Paducah. Helping his siblings run those taught Doug basic business principles, and gave him a taste for entrepreneurship.

In his youth, Doug never had it in his mind to open his own HVAC sales business much less one that was reliant on technology not yet invented. What Doug really wanted to do was to learn a trade.

Doug graduated high school in 1966. He immediately began work as a plumber’s apprentice while he attended refrigeration school at night. By 1968, Doug had completed his vocational schooling, and was two years into his apprenticeship. When construction jobs were slow, Doug offered his service to local HVAC contractors. He worked the HVAC jobs basically for free. Learning a new trade and making new contacts in the industry was more than enough payment for his time.

Entrepreneurship

In 1988, Doug was still working full-time as a plumber and part-time as an HVAC contractor when he became interested in National Safety Associates. They sold simple water and air filtration equipment, products which complimented Doug’s existing skillset.

Doug worked with NSA for a few years. Even while he installed the products, he expanded his education by attending seminars detailing the latest filtration technology and company workshops on residential treatment. The more he learned, the more Doug became dissatisfied with NSA’s one-size-fits-all inventory. He invested his own money in sophisticated products, and started selling them on his own. Gradually, he expanded his product catalogue, and hired employees to answer phones to answer customer questions and arrange service call.

The HVAC side of the business was growing all the while. Doug spent more and more of his time servicing and installing HVAC equipment, both for his own customers and local contractors. By the mid 1990’s, Doug was heavily invested in the industry, and started laying the groundwork for what would become Ingram’s Water & Air Equipment.

In 1998, Doug decide to make a major investment in his business. He set up Ingram’s in its first permanent office at 2602 Bridge Street in Paducah, Kentucky. He remodeled the property, rented for a year, then bought it outright in 1999. That would prove to be an auspicious year, because it was in 1999 than a friend mentioned to Doug how some people were selling HVAC equipment online.

Doug decided to take a chance.

Online

Working with his son, Jason, Doug took Ingram’s Water & Air Equipment online in 2000. They made that famous first HVAC sale later the same year. Things quickly ramped up. By year’s end, Doug and Jason were so busy they had to work full-time in what must have been one of Kentucky’s earliest e-commerce companies.

There were some growing pains. Eventually, personally picking up equipment, packaging it, and shipping it was no longer something that either Jason or Doug had time to do. They hired more salespeople, and by 2003 had staffed up a full shipping and receiving warehouse. It was a good thing, because business kept growing year after year.

Today, Ingram’s Water & Air Equipment ships hundreds of products every month to customers all across the Continental United States. Our staff has grown from two to dozens, and we’ve spun off sibling businesses like Ingram’s Service and ICI Mechanical. We aim to keep growing, and that means adding new products, expanding our service chain, and keeping customers just like you satisfied whenever and however you order with us.

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