Free checklist
AC installation checklist
What should happen on install day, and what you should be handed before the crew leaves.
Written by HYRE HVAC Research Desk Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
The short version
Use this AC installation checklist on install day. A good crew protects the house, installs the matched equipment named on the quote, sets the refrigerant charge and airflow by measurement, tests the drain, and hands you a written start-up record.
DOE’s field review found charge and airflow faults common in homes, so the measurements matter.
Why check the install at all?
Most of an AC’s real-world performance is decided on install day. DOE’s review of field studies found refrigerant charge, airflow and duct faults common in homes it looked at.
A system can carry a high rating on paper and still run well below it if the charge or airflow is off. You do not need to judge the work yourself.
You need the crew to measure it and write it down, so any later technician can see what was set.
When the crew arrives
Check the boxes against the AHRI certificate.
Venting refrigerant is prohibited. Recovery needs EPA 608 certified technicians.
Refrigerant handling needs EPA Section 608 certification. Gas and line-voltage work belong to a licensed contractor.
Outdoor unit
DOE advises at least two feet of clearance for airflow.
Reused lines should be flushed or checked if the maker allows reuse.
Required by code in most places.
Ask what pressure and vacuum readings were reached.
Indoor coil and air handler
As listed on the AHRI certificate.
Pour water in the pan and watch it drain. A float switch or secondary pan where needed.
Leaky connections waste the new system’s capacity.
Start-up and handover
Static pressure and blower setting recorded.
Readings, settings and date. Keep it.
And who will meet the inspector.
Ask who registers it and by when.
Questions
How long does an AC installation take?
Should I be home during the install?
What is a commissioning record?
Can old refrigerant lines be reused?
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 October 26, 2026, and they are what we have actually published rather than what we intend to.
- 18
- studies published
- 15
- federal sources read and cited
- 15
- 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. 15 of our 18 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 Sources checked October 26, 2026. 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
Planning an AC install?
Tell us the job and your zip code. Contractor matching is still being built, so this is an inquiry, not a booking or a service call.
HyreHVAC is a publisher. We do not install, repair or inspect HVAC equipment and hold no contractor licence. Nothing here replaces an on-site diagnosis by a licensed contractor. Sources are cited with the date they were checked.