Texas
HVAC in Texas: the region line, the energy code and the license endorsement
The federal efficiency rule, the state energy code and the state license each work differently in Texas. The license matters most.
Written by HYRE HVAC Research Desk Primary-source research and analysis
Audited by HYRE HVAC Research Desk Fact check against eCFR, EIA, NOAA and the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation
The short answer
Texas is in the DOE Southeast efficiency region: a split-system air conditioner installed since January 1, 2023 needs 14.3 SEER2 below 45,000 Btu/hr, with no EER2 floor.
The state energy code is the 2015 IECC, the oldest of the eight states we cover. For a home, a TDLR license must carry the Environmental Air Conditioning endorsement. Check it before the price.
Which federal efficiency rule applies in Texas?
The DOE Southeast rule. The regional standard is drawn on state lines, not on climate, and Texas is where that shows.
Source fact: 10 CFR § 430.32(c)(6) sets a national minimum of 13.4 SEER2 for split-system air conditioners manufactured on or after January 1, 2023, and adds a higher floor in two regions for equipment installed on or after that date.
Texas is named in the Southeast: “Southeast” includes the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Territories.
Source fact: In the Southeast a split system under 45,000 Btu/hr must reach 14.3 SEER2 and one at or above 45,000 Btu/hr must reach 13.8 SEER2.
The Southwest — Arizona, California, Nevada and New Mexico — carries the same seasonal figures plus an EER2 floor of 11.7/9.8, a full-load requirement measured at 95°F. Texas does not carry that second column.
HYRE HVAC Research Desk analysis: Because the region lists are lists of states, the boundary runs down the Texas–New Mexico line rather than around a climate.
El Paso County records 2,224 cooling degree days and 2,502 heating in a dry, high-desert climate that is physically much closer to Phoenix than to Houston — and it is regulated as Southeast, with no EER2 requirement, while identical desert immediately over the state line is regulated as Southwest, with one.
Neither outcome is a mistake in the regulation; the standard was drawn on jurisdictions because it has to be enforceable, and this is what that costs.
What it means for a far-West-Texas homeowner is that federal law will not do the work of asking for good full-load efficiency, so you have to.
Source fact, and the correction that matters most: The regional standard reaches air conditioners only. Heat pumps carry no regional installation standard anywhere in the United States — their floor is national, 14.3 SEER2 and 7.5 HSPF2. Our study of the regional split reads the point out of the full CFR text.
How does the Texas standard compare with New Mexico’s?
| Product class | National floor | Texas — Southeast | New Mexico — Southwest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Split-system air conditioner, under 45,000 Btu/hr | 13.4 SEER2 | 14.3 SEER2 | 14.3 SEER2 and 11.7/9.8 EER2 |
| Split-system air conditioner, 45,000 Btu/hr and above | 13.4 SEER2 | 13.8 SEER2 | 13.8 SEER2 and 11.2/9.8 EER2 |
| Full-load (95°F) EER2 requirement | none | none | 11.7/9.8 / 11.2/9.8 |
| Split-system heat pump | 14.3 SEER2 / 7.5 HSPF2 | no regional addition | no regional addition |
| What the rule restricts | manufacture | installation | installation |
Transcribed by HYRE from 10 CFR § 430.32(c)(6), retrieved from the eCFR versioner API for the September 1, 2026 point-in-time text of title 10 on September 5, 2026. Applies to equipment installed on or after January 1, 2023.
The Southwest EER2 figure is conditional: “The 11.7 EER2 standard applies to products with a certified SEER2 less than 15.2. The 9.8 EER2 standard applies to products with a certified SEER2 greater than or equal to 15.2.”
El Paso County sits in the first of these columns and about 45 miles from the second. If you are in far West Texas, ask for the certified EER2 anyway — nothing stops you buying to the better standard.
How much does the Texas climate vary?
A great deal. Source fact: EIA’s Residential Energy Consumption Survey 2020 puts Texas at 3,129 household-weighted cooling degree days and 1,522 heating, across 10.3 million households — the second-largest household count of any state.
Source fact: NOAA’s 1991–2020 county normals show what that average conceals. Across 254 counties — more than any other state — cooling runs from 4,332 in Hidalgo County to 1,187 in the panhandle.
Heating runs the other way: Potter County, containing Amarillo, records 3,905 heating degree days — more than any county in Georgia, and more than 1,309 in Harris County, which contains Houston, by a factor of about 3.0.
HYRE analysis: The practical effect is that "sized for Texas" means nothing.
A system specified for Houston’s 3,089 cooling degree days and 1,309 heating degree days is solving a different problem from one specified for Amarillo, and the difference is mostly on the heating side, where Texas equipment is generally weakest.
Ask for a Manual J run on your own county’s design conditions rather than a statewide rule of thumb.
Source fact: 51.4% of Texas households heat with electricity (51.4% ± 1.5 percentage points) and 41.7% with natural gas.
Source fact: EIA records that ERCOT “manages the supply and distribution of electric power to 26 million customers in Texas, covering about 75% of the state’s territory and 90% of its electric load”.
During the February 2021 winter storm, EIA records that “electricity net generation fell below ERCOT’s day-ahead forecast demand shortly after midnight on February 15”, a gap that “quickly grew to at least 30,000 megawatts (MW) on February 15”.
HYRE analysis: Put the two together and the Texas heating question has a reliability dimension no other state on this site shares: a majority of Texas homes place their heating load on a single interconnection at exactly the hours it is most stressed.
That is not an argument against a heat pump — it is an argument for asking what your system does when the power is off, and for knowing whether your backup heat is electric strip heat, which is also off.
What does heating and cooling cost to run in Texas?
Cooling costs more than heating, about $495 a year on average use.
Source fact: EIA’s 2024 residential averages for Texas are 14.94 cents per kilowatt-hour — 24th of 51 jurisdictions, close to the middle — and $17.98 per thousand cubic feet of natural gas.
On a common energy basis, $43.78 against $17.34 per million Btu, a ratio of 2.52 to one against 3.45 nationally.
HYRE calculation: Applying the south census-region consumption averages from RECS 2020 Table CE3.1 to those prices: a 95% gas furnace costs about $361 a year, a heat pump at a seasonal COP of 3.0 about $288, and cooling — which either system pays for — about $495.
The heat pump wins the heating comparison by roughly $72 a year, and the breakeven seasonal COP is 2.40, which any modern system clears in this climate.
HYRE analysis: But the more useful observation is the third bar. Cooling costs more than either heating option in Texas, so the efficiency decision worth paying extra for is the cooling one — and, in the parts of the state that are genuinely hot and dry, the full-load performance the Southeast standard does not require.
Texas ranks 11 of 51 on our Heat Pump Readiness Index, and only 19.8% of Texas households currently have a heat pump against 13.9% nationally — a gap that is about installed base and habit rather than about the economics.
Recommendation: Spend on the cooling side and on the ductwork that has to carry it. In a state with 3,129 cooling degree days, a percentage point of cooling efficiency is worth several on the heating side, and leaky ducts in an unconditioned Texas attic waste more than any equipment upgrade recovers.
Which license and energy code apply in Texas?
A TDLR license with the right endorsement, and the 2015 IECC. The trap is that a valid TDLR license is not necessarily a license for the work in your house.
Source fact: HVAC contracting in Texas is licensed by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, which publishes its complete air conditioning and refrigeration contractor roster as a daily file.
Our store holds 216 Texas records read from that file on August 29, 2026. The license carries two independent attributes: a class and an endorsement.
Source fact: The classes recorded in the file are, verbatim, “AC — Combined Endorsements (Environmental Air Conditioning + Commercial Refrigeration), Class A — any size or capacity” (116 records) and “AE — Environmental Air Conditioning, Class A — any size or capacity” (70).
A third is “BE — Environmental Air Conditioning, Class B — up to 25 tons cooling / 1.5 million BTU per hour heating” (25), among others.
Class A is unlimited by size; Class B is limited to 25 tons of cooling and 1.5 million Btu per hour of heating.
HYRE analysis: For a house, the class is almost never the constraint — a 25-ton limit is far above any residential system. The endorsement is the constraint.
“Environmental Air Conditioning” is comfort heating and cooling for people; “Commercial Refrigeration and Process Cooling or Heating” is refrigeration for products and processes. 216 of our 216 verified records carry an Environmental Air Conditioning endorsement.
A contractor holding only the refrigeration endorsement has a genuine, current, verifiable TDLR license — and is not licensed for your home comfort system.
"Licensed by TDLR" is therefore an incomplete answer, and the word to ask for is environmental.
Source fact: Texas’s energy code is recorded by the Department of Energy’s Building Energy Codes Program as 2015 IECC with Amendments for residential buildings — adopted June 14, 2015, effective September 1, 2016 — and 2015 IECC and ASHRAE 90.1-2013 for commercial, effective November 1, 2016.
HYRE analysis: That is the oldest residential energy code of the eight states this site covers; Florida is on the 2021 IECC and California on a 2025 edition.
It does not make a Texas installation unsafe, and Texas cities may and do amend upward locally.
It does mean that "code minimum" in Texas is a 2015 model-code minimum, and that duct sealing, insulation levels and envelope requirements a buyer might assume are guaranteed are, at state level, held to a decade-old baseline.
In a state where ducts commonly run through 140°F attics, that is the specification most worth exceeding voluntarily.
What should you ask a Texas HVAC contractor?
Ask whether it is an Environmental Air Conditioning endorsement. A commercial refrigeration endorsement is a real license for different work. TDLR publishes the roster, so this is checkable.
Texas’s residential energy code is 2015 IECC with Amendments, effective September 1, 2016. Many Texas cities amend upward. Ask which jurisdiction is issuing the permit and what it has adopted.
In a state with 3,129 cooling degree days and ducts commonly run through unconditioned attics, duct losses swamp equipment efficiency. Ask for a measured leakage figure, not an assurance.
County heating load ranges from 1,309 degree days in Harris County to 3,905 in Potter County. A statewide rule of thumb is a guess wearing a number.
51.4% of Texas households heat electrically, and EIA records that during February 2021 the ERCOT generation shortfall "quickly grew to at least 30,000 megawatts (MW) on February 15". If your backup heat is electric strip heat, it is unavailable in exactly the event it is for.
The Southeast region requires none, and the Southwest region 45 miles away requires 11.7/9.8. Nothing prevents you buying to the better standard in a desert climate; you just have to ask.
§25C and §25D both closed for property placed in service after December 31, 2025 under Public Law 119-21. A 2026 Texas quote that prices in a federal credit is wrong.
Why are there no Texas city pages here?
Because the state license file hides contractor addresses. Source fact: HyreHVAC’s store holds 216 Texas records read from the TDLR’s own air conditioning and refrigeration contractor license file on August 29, 2026.
That file is the board’s complete roster, rebuilt daily — which makes it the best-provenance source in our store — and it is also, at 2.4% of our 8,930 verified records, one of the smallest samples we hold.
The limitation, stated plainly: TDLR redacts licensee addresses in the published file. We therefore hold no verified location for Texas contractors, and this site publishes no "HVAC companies in Houston", no city rankings and no metro roster for Texas.
We could generate such pages; they would not be true, so we do not. Where you see a Texas city page elsewhere built on state-license data, that is worth a moment’s thought about where the addresses came from.
What our number is not: It is not a census of Texas HVAC contractors, it is not a ranking, and no company has paid for a position in it.
Texas is one of eight states where our store rests on a named register; every national claim on this site rests on federal data instead. Our licensing study sets out what those eight registers do and do not prove.
Questions
What SEER2 does an air conditioner need to be installed in Texas?
Why does El Paso follow the Southeast standard rather than the Southwest one?
What license should a Texas HVAC contractor hold?
Which energy code applies to a Texas HVAC installation?
Is a heat pump cheaper to run than a gas furnace in Texas?
Do you publish a list of the best HVAC companies in Houston or Dallas?
Written and audited by
HYRE HVAC Research Desk
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a sales floor. We read the federal microdata file, the statute or the manufacturer data sheet ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify.
The counts below are generated from the published pages themselves, last counted September 28, 2026, and they are what we have actually published rather than what we intend to.
- 13
- studies published
- 12
- federal sources read and cited
- 8
- studies published with their full dataset as CSV
- 51
- jurisdictions reproduced against EIA’s own tables
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Federal data comes from the agency that collects it, in the file that agency publishes. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we download the source and compute the figure ourselves.
- We validate against the agency before we publish. First, we use each federal microdata file to reproduce the agency’s own published tables. Our cooling research reproduces EIA’s state estimates and standard errors for all 51 jurisdictions. That check caught a variance formula that was off by a factor of four.
- Every estimate carries its uncertainty. These are survey figures, not counts. Standard errors are computed from the replicate weights the federal file supplies and printed beside the estimate. An estimate too imprecise to publish is reported as such rather than printed.
- Nothing is typed by hand. Prose, tables and charts all read from one dataset built by script, so a number in a sentence and the same number in the table below it cannot disagree.
- We publish the data, not just the conclusion. 8 of our 13 studies offer the full computed table as a CSV download on the page, so you can check the analysis or disagree with it. A study without a row-level dataset gets no download link and claims none in its structured data.
- We correct in public. Where we have published a figure wrongly we fix the figure, rewrite any analysis that rested on it rather than patching the number underneath it, and leave a dated correction note on the page.
- We do not install or sell HVAC equipment, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favorable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Data as of EIA 2024 prices; every source dated below. Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
Sources & retrieval dates
Compare Texas HVAC quotes on the lines that are actually local
Ask for the TDLR endorsement, the permitting jurisdiction and its amendments, a measured duct leakage figure and a Manual J run on your county. The quote comparison worksheet lines three Texas bids up on endorsement, jurisdiction and duct leakage.
HyreHVAC does not install, service or sell HVAC equipment, holds no dataset of quotes or invoices, and takes no payment for placement or a favorable mention.
Contractor counts on this page are records our own store verified against the named state register on the date given — they are not a count of every licensed contractor in the state, and they are not a recommendation of any company.