Free HVAC Installation Checklist Template

A change-out is a replacement, and its risks are the old system: recovering the existing charge under EPA Section 608 before anything is opened, deciding whether the existing line set can be reused, and finding out that the duct system that was already over its rated static is still over it. This is a new installation, so there is nothing to recover and nothing to reuse — the risks are workmanship that gets concealed. Rough-in happens before drywall, the condensate fall has to be built rather than inherited, and every phase is gated because the evidence disappears. If you are replacing equipment in an existing house, use the change out checklist. If you are installing into new construction or a full new system, use this one.

Because those are commissioning readings, not installation workmanship, and they belong on the equipment start-up report. Total external static pressure, measured airflow against the rated CFM, superheat or subcooling at steady state, temperature split and combustion analysis are all taken after the system runs — which by definition is after this checklist is finished. The final phase hands the system over to start-up rather than duplicating it, so you get one authoritative record of each thing rather than two that can disagree.

Whatever the installation instructions for that unit say. 500 microns is the common industry figure and it is a reasonable default, but it is not in any code and manufacturers vary — several require 300 microns or lower as a warranty condition. More importantly, the number on its own is not the test. Isolate the pump and watch the gauge: a system that rises and levels off has moisture in it, a system that rises without levelling has a leak, and a system that holds is dry and tight. That is why the builder records the reading and the decay hold, and why it will report a reading as recorded rather than passed if you have not told it what the manual asked for.

Not less than 3/4 inch internal diameter, never decreasing toward the point of disposal (IMC 307.2.2), a fall of not less than 1/8 inch per foot — 1 percent — on horizontal runs (IMC 307.2.1), trapped as the equipment manufacturer requires (IMC 307.2.4, which states no depth of its own), terminated at an approved point that does not create a nuisance (IMC 307.2.1), and auxiliary overflow protection by one of four methods wherever an overflow could damage building components (IMC 307.2.3, mirrored at IRC M1411.3.1). Down-flow coils and anything else with no place for a secondary pan get a water-level monitoring device inside the primary pan under IMC 307.2.3.1. Larger equipment sizes up from Table 307.2.2 — 1 inch to 40 tons, 1-1/4 inch to 90 tons, and so on.

Within sight from and readily accessible from the equipment, under NEC 440.14. "Within sight" is defined in Article 100 as visible and not more than 50 feet distant, so the practical answer is that you must be able to see it from the unit. It may not be mounted on a panel that has to be removed to service the equipment, and it may not obscure the nameplate. Since the 2023 NEC, 440.14 also calls out the 110.26(A) working space explicitly — and the usual violation is a line set or a run of liquidtight cutting diagonally through that space, installed by us rather than by the electrician.

Under the 2021 IECC it is 4.0 cfm per 100 square feet of conditioned floor area for a post-construction test, or for a rough-in test with the air handler installed, and 3.0 cfm where the air handler is not yet in at the time of the test. Systems serving 1,200 square feet or less get a 50 cfm allowance instead. Testing is to ANSI/RESNET/ICC 380 or ASTM E1554 at 0.1 inch water gauge. But those are the 2021 model figures — the 2018 edition reads differently and several states amend both, so the target on the form is editable and the export prints which edition you cited.

Yes, and the sheet records that you did. Real jobs run out of sequence — the electrician is on site a week early, the gas meter is late, the duct crew comes back after the drywallers. Refusing to record what happened would only get the form abandoned. So a phase whose predecessors are unsigned shows as locked, signing it anyway is permitted, and the export prints "signed off while an earlier phase was still open" in the open items list, with the note that the work it covers may already be concealed. That is a materially different document from one that quietly lets everything be ticked at the end of the job.

No. It is the installing contractor's record of the work performed and the tests taken, and every export says so. Code citations appear to explain why something was checked, not to certify the installation — the authority having jurisdiction inspects and releases the work. The values on the sheet are from the 2021 IMC, the 2021 IRC mechanical and fuel gas provisions, the 2021 IECC and the 2023 NEC; adoption, edition and local amendment are all decisions your AHJ makes, and the form asks who that is.