Terms

These terms cover the use of this website and what the introduction it arranges is and is not. They take two minutes to read and save an argument later.

What this site does

HVAC Repair Syracuse arranges introductions between homeowners in Syracuse and the surrounding Onondaga County area and independent contractors who repair heating and cooling equipment. We do not diagnose, service, repair, install or condemn anything ourselves. We hold no tools, we employ no technicians, and we are not a party to the work. When you send a request we read it, work out which of the jobs on this site it belongs to, and pass it to a licensed, insured contractor who covers your town. They look at the system, they diagnose it, they price it, they schedule it and they invoice you. This site is a repair and diagnosis site; where the honest answer to a fault is a new system, our part ends at that conclusion.

There is no New York State HVAC license, and what to ask for instead

The New York State Department of State's Division of Building Standards and Codes states that issues regarding local laws, zoning and the licensing of contractors are not handled by that division, and that in general every city, town, village and county is charged with administering and enforcing the Uniform Code within its jurisdiction. New York Business Express, the state's own portal for telling a business what it needs in order to operate, lists for a heating, ventilation and air conditioning contractor only the federal requirement under Section 608 of the Clean Air Act, and no New York State license for the trade. So a homeowner sent to check a New York HVAC license is being sent after something the state does not issue.

Two credentials are real. The federal one is technician certification under 40 CFR 82.161, which anyone who could be expected to break into the refrigerant circuit during maintenance, service, repair or disposal must hold, in Type I, Type II, Type III or Universal form, and which attaches to the individual rather than to the company. The municipal one depends on the address: the City of Syracuse issues mechanical licenses by class through its Board of Mechanical Examiners, where a Class A Master license covers any heating, ventilating or air conditioning system and the permits that go with it, and a Class C Residential license is capped at homes of not more than two families with air conditioning to 5 tons, furnaces to 200 MBH input and boilers to 399 MBH input. Where this site says licensed and insured, it means the contractor who takes the job carries what their trade and their jurisdiction require, and it is theirs to evidence rather than ours.

Your contract is with the contractor

Whatever is agreed for the work is agreed between you and the contractor. We are not a party to that contract and can neither alter it nor enforce it for you. Ask for the fault, the part and the scope in writing before work begins, and keep whatever you are given.

Quotes and prices

Every price on a repair comes from the contractor, not from us. Nothing on this site is a price, an offer to carry out work, or a prediction of what a job will cost, and no page here quotes a diagnostic charge, an hourly rate or a part price. Where a page discusses what a diagnosis should include, it is describing what to ask for, not what it will cost. The one credit this site does offer is described in its own terms beside the offer itself.

Permits, and who is responsible for getting them

Permits are a matter between the contractor and the property owner, and this site does not obtain them. New York's regulation 19 NYCRR 1203.3(a)(1) requires every authority having jurisdiction to require building permits for work that must conform to the Uniform Code or the Energy Code, and then allows a local program, where it expressly says so, to exempt listed categories including the replacement of equipment where the replacement does not alter its listing or depart from its original specifications, and repairs that do not affect the structural system, the required means of egress or the fire protection system. The same regulation adds that an exemption from needing a permit is not authorization to carry out work in violation of the Codes. What follows is that heating work may need a permit in one village here and nothing in the next: the Village of Liverpool, for instance, names the installation of any new or replacement furnace, central air conditioning, boiler, gas fireplace or other heating equipment in its published list of work requiring a permit, while the City of Syracuse treats HVAC as a separate trade permit obtained apart from any residential construction permit, through its Central Permit Office. Where a town publishes no list, silence is not an exemption. Ask the municipality, or ask the contractor to.

Refrigerant, and the things this site will not say

Pages here describe what federal rules require. They never say that any refrigerant has been banned, outlawed or made illegal, because that is not what the rules say and homeowners have been quoted on the strength of it. What 40 CFR 84.54 restricts is the manufacture, import, sale, distribution and installation of new residential and light commercial air conditioning and heat pump systems using a refrigerant with a global warming potential of 700 or greater, from January 1, 2025. The EPA states in the preamble to its 2026 rule that it treated condensing units as specified components in order to allow for the continued servicing and maintenance of existing equipment. Nothing on this site is, or implies, an approval, an endorsement or a credential issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, to us or to any contractor. Federal law also puts limits on what a homeowner may do: refrigerant may not knowingly be vented or released during service, repair or disposal, and it may not be sold to somebody who does not hold the certification described above, which is why there is no domestic equivalent of the recharge kits sold for cars.

Carbon monoxide, safety, and what this site is not

New York requires carbon monoxide alarms in homes. Amanda's Law is Chapter 367 of the Laws of 2009, which amended Executive Law section 378(5-a), and the rule implementing it extended the alarm requirement to all one and two family dwellings, townhouses, condominium and cooperative dwelling accommodations and multiple dwellings without regard to the date of construction or sale. The statute attaches the duty where a dwelling has appliances that may emit carbon monoxide or an attached garage. Whether your alarms are present, sited correctly and working is your responsibility and not something this site can know.

Nothing on these pages is medical advice, engineering advice or a diagnosis of your equipment. No page here states that a particular symptom means carbon monoxide is present, and none gives an exposure level, because neither can honestly be done in writing about a house nobody has been inside. If an alarm is sounding or you smell gas, leave and call the fire department and the gas utility rather than reading a website. Where a contractor has shut an appliance down and tagged it, that tag is that contractor's refusal to operate the equipment; it is not a municipal order, and the separate power to designate premises unfit and to placard them is exercised by a municipality through a written notice and order.

The sources and the figures quoted on this site

Every factual claim on these pages carries its source beside it, and those sources are published documents from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Code of Federal Regulations, New York State's code agencies and Department of Health, the City of Syracuse, Onondaga County, NOAA, the US Census Bureau and the Energy Information Administration. They are quoted so that you can check them, and each carries the date it was checked. They describe what published regulation and data say; they are not a promise about your particular system. Where a page discusses a state benefit or a municipal program, the rules change by program year and the page sends you to the office that administers it for the current position.

Limits

This site is provided as it is. We take reasonable care that what is written here is accurate and current, but regulation, municipal programs and published guidance change, and we are not liable for a decision taken on the strength of a page that has since been superseded. We are not liable for the work, the workmanship, the timekeeping, the pricing or the conduct of any contractor introduced through this site, and nothing here creates a warranty of any kind on their behalf. Where liability cannot lawfully be excluded, it is not excluded.

Using this site

Use the form to ask about heating or cooling work on a property. Do not submit somebody else's details as your own, do not use the form to send automated or commercial messages, and do not scrape, copy or republish the writing and the compiled source material on these pages. The wording, the layout and the assembled research here are ours.

Changes

These terms and the privacy policy are updated when what the site does changes, in the same edit as the thing that caused the change rather than at some later date. The version on the site is the current one.