Best HVAC Schools in Delaware (2026)

There is no journeyman HVAC license in Delaware. Delaware issues master licences and nothing beneath them, and the statute is built that way on purpose. It prohibits providing HVACR services or holding yourself out as a master licensee without a licence, then lists the people who may work without one, and the first of them is "an apprentice, journeyman, mechanic or other person providing such services under the supervision of a master HVACR licensee". A journeyman in Delaware is an employee, not a licence holder.

The board issues two grades of that one licence. A master HVACR licence covers heating, ventilation, air conditioning, commercial hood systems, hydronic systems, refrigeration and gas piping. A master HVACR restricted licence covers exactly one of six named areas: forced air heating with ventilation and gas piping, hydronic heating with gas piping, commercial hood systems, refrigeration, air conditioning, or gas piping alone. Wanting two of those means applying for the unrestricted licence.

A third credential exists for one situation only. Where a business loses the sole licence holder it depends on, the board may issue a temporary licence valid for 100 days, and it expires immediately if the applicant fails to sit the next available examination. Working on an expired, suspended or revoked licence is unlawful in its own right, and unlicensed practice carries a fine of $1,500 to $3,000 for a first offence.

Delaware does require EPA certification for an HVACR license, writing refrigerant certification into its own licensing law rather than leaving it to federal law alone, which only a handful of states do. An applicant must have "been certified at the appropriate level for handling chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) by a testing organization approved by the Environmental Protection Agency", and the rule requires a copy of that card with the application. Neither text uses the words Section 608, though that is the federal mechanism which satisfies it.

Who needs it is less settled than it looks. On the face of the statute the requirement applies to every applicant for a master or master restricted licence, whatever the restriction. The agency narrows it in its own instructions, asking for the card only from applicants for the unrestricted licence, restricted refrigeration or restricted air conditioning. Someone applying for restricted gas piping or commercial hood systems should ask rather than assume.

Section 608 certification is federal and applies to anyone opening a refrigerant circuit anywhere in the country regardless of what a state requires, so a Delaware technician needs it in practice long before they apply for a master licence. Renewal runs biennially, expiring 31 October of even-numbered years, with five hours of continuing education per period: three in code changes, one in safety and one in energy code, or six hours for someone holding both plumbing and HVACR licences.

Delaware accepts out-of-state HVAC licenses from two states without further proof. The board grants a licence to an applicant licensed in good standing elsewhere where those standards are substantially similar to Delaware's, and it has published which ones qualify: Connecticut and Maryland. Applicants from either need submit no proof of experience at all.

From fourteen more it takes seven years. Alabama, Arkansas, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia are all listed as not substantially similar, and an applicant holding one of those licences must show seven years of practice after being licensed as a master there. Neighbouring New Jersey being on that list rather than the first one is worth planning around. Anywhere not on either list is judged case by case, with the applicant supplying that jurisdiction's law and regulations for the board to read.

Pennsylvania is its own case and it catches people who commute. Because Pennsylvania issues no state HVAC licence, someone whose only credential came from a Pennsylvania municipality has nothing for Delaware to reciprocate with and must apply by examination. Note also that a Delaware business needs a separate contractor licence from the Division of Revenue, at $75 a year plus a gross receipts fee, and that the state requires vehicles to carry the words "Licensed HVACR" and the licence number in letters no smaller than three inches.