Somerville
Somerville doesn’t have a mechanical permit. However, if you try to apply for a sheet metal permit with a ductless system, they’ll tell you to fill out their building permit.
Here is Somerville’s building permit application, if you select “Residential Other” (which may be what you select because with a ductless heat pump, are you really replacing a radiator?):
Ultimately, I think you should just select the “residential replacement” option, which is a bit shorter. You are, after all, replacing the heating system, even if not the radiator specifically.
But even then, after about a week, you’ll get an email like this:
which, of course, makes you think:
why didn’t they just ask for these documents up front?
The reality is they probably could have, except for the fact that they really just have not designed a permit application specifically for heat pumps. It seems to me like there’s a general building permit application for every single type of building modification you can have, with no regard to the extra amount of time and effort it takes to actually fill out the permit application.
We Will Raise Prices in Somerville
I’m sorry. If someone calls me and says
Hey Kit - I need help. My heating just went out! Can you help me install a heat pump?
I’m gonna just say I don’t really have time to fill out a massive application where 80% of the questions don’t have anything to do with heat pumps. Like, this is clearly an application that has been written for situations like, a gut renovation, or if you’re trying to convert an unfinished attic to a finished space. I’m just trying to hang 4 mini-splits on the walls!
No wonder half the contractors we know actively avoid Somerville, or charge higher prices for it. I know we’re going to charge higher prices here, starting this fall.
And in case you needed to hear it one more time, let me make it clear: it sometimes takes longer to go through the Somerville permitting process than it is to ACTUALLY DO THE INSTALLATION.
If you can just do another installation elsewhere in the same amount of time it takes for you to get through Somerville permitting, why would you waste your time with paperwork? You’d figure that you might as well just do another job elsewhere.
Cambridge
No complaints about Cambridge. This section exists to give a shout out to the Cambridge inspectional services team, which is tough but fair. I’m including this example because Cambridge is right next to Somerville, has a very similar housing stock, but somehow figured out a way to make it possible to submit and get permits without spending days on it. I’ve had both Cambridge and Somerville inspectors inspect our installations. Cambridge applies just as much rigor, if not more rigor, than Somerville.
From a safety standpoint? I can’t say for sure, since I’m not the City of Cambridge, but I think it’s much more likely that contractors apply for permits in Cambridge, and therefore the Inspectional Services Department has better visibility on a lot more installations. That gives them a better view of what’s going on with their housing stock, and I feel safer as a result.
Somerville, please be more like Cambridge. Release a mechanical permit application. You don’t need to ask for like, 10 documents over 2 weeks to approve a gosh darn mini-split installation.
Watertown
A lot of municipal departments will require sheet metal permits if you’re dealing with ductwork. Which makes sense! You are working with sheet metal.
But somehow, in Watertown, you need to submit a sheet metal license to pull a permit for ductless mini-splits. Even if it requires no sheet metal work. Why? Why, Watertown, are you requiring that?
As a contractor entity, we can’t really just go up to the inspector and be like
Hey why do we even need this sheet metal license in the first place?
unless we want to take a 1-way road to a bad relationship with the inspector. But thanks to LC members, I’ve gotten hints that it’s due to the fact that there’s no such thing as a standalone mechanical permit (just like Somerville!). Unlike Cambridge, which does have a separate class of permits that happens to be a much better fit for ductless heat pumps, Watertown seems to have decided to just lump all heat pumps in the same category and say
You know what? A heat pump is basically AC. And AC has always involved ductwork. So let’s just use that sheet metal permit.
Well, guess what. It’s a snag sometimes, particularly for contractors who are great with ductless mini-split installations, but don’t have their own sheet metal licenses.
Honorable Mention: North Reading
Oh, and apparently in North Reading (which I have found out has a different building inspections department than just Reading, MA), you need a Construction Supervising License to pull permits for mini-splits! That’s one-of-a-kind. I personally don’t think you need an engineer to install mini-splits, but hey, I’m not the inspector.
Does the State of Massachusetts think you need a CSL? Apparently not:
Perhaps you’d think that you would need a CSL to assess, say, the risk of structural collapse of mounting mini-splits. Well, guess what? Mini-splits weigh LESS THAN WINDOW UNIT ACs, and I don’t see towns going around requiring CSL/engineering analysis for that:
It would be ludicrous to suggest that installing a window AC requires a permit. Perhaps you can make the argument that the difference with mini-splits is that you’re working with refrigerants. Well, everybody is required to have an EPA 608 license to purchase heat pumps, and the inspectors are definitely not checking whether your flare connections are leaking refrigerant.
So, I’m not going to lie, I’m a bit frustrated here. We will probably charge extra for North Reading installations in the future.
The Thing With EPA 608 Licenses
You don’t need anything other than an EPA 608 license in MA to start installing mini-splits. I get it: it’s kinda dangerous.
In California, you need a C-20 license to be an HVAC contractor:
In MA? Well.. you kinda don’t need anything. Except that EPA 608, which allows you to buy items with refrigerant from supply houses.
Ostensibly, towns respond to this by requiring permits. But if every permit is as difficult as Somerville’s building permit, contractors will simply avoid applying for permits. And it kinda defeats the point when the inspectors aren’t even checking for refrigerant leaks anyway.
(I do understand that maybe inspectors are checking for instances where the refrigerant lines are done completely incorrectly. Well, this is not what the CSL is checking for.)
A Better Way to Do This
If you are reading this and you are in city council/are the mayor/are in an inspections department, it would be really nice if permits worked like this:
Ductless mini-split installations: mechanical permit, no sheet metal license
Ducted installations involving ductwork: sheet metal license needed
Mixed installations involving both: sheet metal license needed
Even better: it would be nice if every single town had the same, standard set of permits to pull. This would help a lot, particularly because every town seems to have its own ideas on what permits to pull. Right now, every single contractor needs to call every single town that they work with (and there are many towns - dozens in a service area!) and keep track of what permits they need to pull.
Guess what? Life is a lot easier if we just knew that a ductless mini-split requires a mechanical permit.
Parting Words
If we were serious about installing more heat pumps, and making it easier for contractors to follow rules so that we have fewer unpermitted installations, we should standardize rules, and make them simple to understand.
I understand that it is the job of inspection departments to ensure that anything that gets installed in the city is safe, but if you make the process far too complex, people will just end up not doing the permits at all. Then you don’t even know what’s going on with half the installation happening around the city. This defeats the entire purpose of permits.
Please make it easier. Thank you.
Have you asked the Building Departments why?