Vermont to Texas: master HVAC technician license reciprocity

Texas's highest HVAC credential is the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Contractor license issued to an individual by TDLR, so it is mapped here to the master level. The license comes in Class A (units of any size) and Class B (cooling up to 25 tons and heating up to 1.5 million Btu/h) with Environmental Air Conditioning, Commercial Refrigeration and Process Cooling or Heating endorsements. A new applicant must be 18, document 48 months of practical ACR experience under a licensed contractor in the past 72 months (or 12 months as a certified technician plus 36 months of experience, with substitutions for HVAC/R degrees, engineering licenses and military training), pay a $115 application fee, pass the PSI exam for each class and endorsement ($74 Class A, $60 Class B, 70% to pass) within one year of filing, and file proof of commercial general liability insurance ($300,000 per occurrence/$600,000 aggregate for Class A; $100,000/$200,000 for Class B). The license is valid one year, renews for $65 and requires 8 hours of continuing education a year; a company must employ a licensed contractor at each permanent location. TDLR has reciprocity agreements with Georgia and South Carolina only; licensees from every other state or municipality apply under TDLR's substantial-equivalence review and may be required to take the Texas exam.

Vermont has no master HVAC, HVAC contractor, mechanical contractor or refrigeration contractor license and no statewide general contractor license, so a person or firm may install and service heating, cooling, ventilation and refrigeration systems without any state HVAC credential; no Vermont city was found to license the trade either. The credentials that do apply have no master tier: the Division of Fire Safety's gas certification (LP, natural gas or both, $60 for three years, NPGA or AGA training plus the Vermont Energy Goals module) and oil burner installer certification ($60 for three years, NORA Silver or Gold for full installation, Bronze for limited service) are required of every individual who installs, inspects or services fuel-burning equipment under 20 V.S.A. s. 2731, and the Type-S Specialist electrician license in field C3 (refrigeration or air conditioning, air-to-air heat pumps) or A1 (automatic gas or oil heating, ground-source heat pumps) lets a licensee wire that equipment 'as an employee or an independent contractor' for $115 per field, which is the closest thing Vermont has to an HVAC contractor credential. None of these recognizes an out-of-state HVAC or mechanical contractor license: the gas and oil certifications are issued on the national training certificates alone, and the Type-S reciprocity on the electrical application is limited to Maine and New Hampshire electrical licensees. A master HVAC licensee arriving from another state therefore has nothing to transfer; they need federal EPA Section 608 certification for refrigerant work, the gas or oil certification for fuel-burning equipment, a Type-S (or journeyman/master electrician) license for the wiring, and local permits.