HVAC Contractor License in Delaware: Requirements, Qualifier, Bond and Exams

Statewide — but the Board offers no separate contractor class to apply for.

The Board of Plumbing, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Examiners, part of the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation, licenses HVACR work across the state, and it issues master-level licenses only: Master Plumber, Master HVACR and Master HVACR Restricted.

The master license is itself the practice license a business runs on — the Board has no separate company-level contractor license to apply for.

What the state asks of your business instead is supervision: unlicensed apprentices, journeymen and mechanics may perform HVACR services only under a Master HVACR or Master HVACR Restricted licensee who is their employer or works full time for the same business.

The issuing agency is the Board of Plumbing, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Examiners, within the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation.

For HVACR it offers two classes.

Master HVACR is the full-scope license.

Master HVACR Restricted limits practice to one specialty from the Board's list: forced-air heating/ventilation/gas piping, hydronic heating/gas piping, commercial hood systems, refrigeration, air conditioning, or gas piping.

There is no journeyman class for your crew to hold — the Board licenses at the master level only, and the journeyman certificate from an apprenticeship that meets federal standards is the prerequisite on one of the two routes to the master license, not a Board license in its own right.

Delaware's version of a qualifier is the master licensee on staff.

The rule your business has to satisfy is structural: an apprentice, journeyman, mechanic or other person may provide HVACR services only under the supervision of a master HVACR or master HVACR restricted licensee who is that person's employer or who is employed full time by the same business entity.

To be that person, an applicant qualifies for the Master HVACR license with a journeyman certificate from an apprenticeship that meets federal standards plus 2 years under a master, or with 7 years performing HVACR services under a master plus the apprenticeship equivalency ('by-pass') test — and then passes the master exam.

Master HVACR applicants, and restricted applicants in the refrigeration or air conditioning specialties, must also hold EPA CFC (Section 608) certification at the appropriate level.

The master exam is the trade exam, and the Board delivers it through its testing vendor, ProV — in person in Wilmington, Newark or Dover, or remotely via ExamRoom.

The apprenticeship equivalency by-pass exam is a separate test: the statute places it with a Delaware vocational-technical school, and the Board's examinations page names ABC Delaware as the vendor that administers it.

EPA Section 608 certification — a federal certification, not a state license — is required at the appropriate level of Master HVACR applicants and of applicants for the restricted refrigeration and air conditioning specialties.

Our research names no separate business-and-law exam for Delaware HVACR applicants, so ask the Board what the current master exam covers before you book.

Our research did not find a bond requirement or liability-insurance minimums for Delaware master HVACR licensees in the Board pages or the Delaware Code sections we read.

Treat that as a gap in our research, not a rule — requirements change, and the Board is the place to confirm what it expects before you sign contracts.

The Board's fee schedule lists a $173 application fee for each master license — Master Plumber, Master HVACR and Master Restricted HVACR — plus $40 for a temporary license.

Licenses renew biennially, with proof of any Board-required continuing education: the Board's rules set 5 hours per renewal after your first renewal, more if you hold dual licenses, with the first renewal's hours prorated.

Renewing late adds 50% of the renewal fee.

The renewal fee amount itself was not in the pages we read, so check the Board's current fee schedule when you budget.

The Board pages and rules we read name no HVACR reciprocity agreement between Delaware and another state.

The one out-of-state situation our research found on the Board's HVACR licensure page is Pennsylvania: because HVACR licenses there are not issued by a state board, an applicant whose only current license is from a Pennsylvania municipality or other jurisdiction must apply by examination.

How the Board treats another state's master-level HVACR license beyond that was not covered in what we read, so ask the Board before you count out-of-state credentials toward Delaware's requirements.

Your authority to put unlicensed technicians on HVACR work lives in one place: the supervision of a master licensee who is their employer or works full time for the same business.

If that person leaves, the condition Delaware attaches to unlicensed HVACR work fails — apprentices, journeymen and mechanics may do that work only under a supervising master licensee, so their unlicensed work is no longer covered until one is back in place.

The Board pages we read set no notification requirement and no replacement deadline for naming a new master, so how quickly that has to happen was not established in our research — ask the Board, and start recruiting the next qualifier before the current one gives notice.