The red flags worth acting on
Most advice on this subject is about tone — pressure, urgency, a salesperson who will not leave. That is fine as far as it goes, and it is unfalsifiable. This page is about the things with a statute behind them, where you can look up whether what you are being asked to do is actually lawful where you live. The biggest one is the deposit.
The deposit is where the leverage is
Everyone reads the total. The number that decides how much leverage you keep once work starts is the one at the top of the payment schedule. 6 states cap it by statute; most do not.
| State | Cap on the initial deposit | Statute | Special-order exception |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA | 10% or $1,000, whichever is less | Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code 7159.5(a)(3) | No |
| NV | 10% or $1,000, whichever is less | NRS 624.970(2)(g) | No |
| MD | one-third of the contract | Md. Code, Bus. Reg. 8-617 | No |
| MA | one-third of the contract | M.G.L. c.142A, 2(a)(6) | Yes |
| PA | one-third of the contract (contracts over $5,000) | 73 P.S. 517.9(10) | Yes |
| ME | one-third of the contract (contracts over $3,000) | 10 M.R.S. 1487(5) | No |
Verified to have no state-level cap: AZ, NY, NJ, CT, VA, OR, HI, WI, FL, DC. In those states a large deposit is lawful, which makes it a negotiating question rather than a legal one. Absence from this list means we have not checked that state, not that it has no cap — and local ordinances are not mapped at all, so a county or city regime may apply on top.
Five things summaries of this get wrong
These are the specific errors we found while building the table, each one common enough that we wrote it into the data file as a warning to ourselves.
- There is no national 10% rule. Only CA and NV use 10%/$1,000; four states use one-third.
- Arizona's 15% figure is POOLS AND SPAS ONLY (A.R.S. 32-1158.01). Arizona has no general cap. Aggregator pages routinely get this wrong.
- Florida's 10% is a permit/start-work TRIGGER (Fla. Stat. 489.126), not a cap. Do not list it as a cap.
- MA and PA allow special-order material cost ABOVE the cap. CA, NV, MD and ME do not — an equipment lead time does not license a bigger deposit there.
- MD/MA/PA/ME cap only the initial deposit. CA and NV additionally bar accepting payment beyond the value of work performed (CA B&P 7159.5(a)(5)) — a materially stronger regime.
- California service-and-repair contracts (<=$750) permit NO payment until work is complete (B&P 7159.10) — a repair quote and a replacement quote need different copy.
The refrigerant rule almost everyone has stale
EPA final rule 91 FR 31284 (26 May 2026, effective 27 Jul 2026) REMOVED the installation deadline for residential AC/HP where all components were manufactured or imported before 1 Jan 2025. Installing R-410A equipment from legacy inventory is federally legal in 2026 with no end date. Most content written in 2024-2025 says the opposite and is stale.
So a quote installing R-410A from legacy inventory is not, by itself, a red flag — despite a great deal of content saying it is. The rule, verified 2026-09-12.
NY is a documented exception. 6 NYCRR Part 494 prohibits installing >700 GWP residential AC/HP equipment as of 1 Jan 2026. NYSDEC states federal changes are not automatically incorporated. Source, verified 2026-09-12.
CA, WA and others maintain their own HFC rules. Absence from state_overrides means NOT VERIFIED, not verified-permitted. Report as unknown rather than permitted. We would rather tell you we have not checked your state than imply we have.
The warranty line that is often wrong
Registration windows are real, but conditioning warranty length on registration is restricted in some states. 'Register or lose 5 years' is false in CA and FL for Goodman/Amana/Daikin.
Registration windows themselves are real and short — typically 60 to 90 days from installation — so if you are told to register, do it. Just do not accept “register or lose coverage” as a fact without checking your own state.
What is not on this page, and why
High-pressure sales, today-only pricing, a quote that expires at midnight: all worth noticing, and none of them have a statute you can point at. We left them out because there is already a great deal written about them and nothing we could add would be checkable. The things above you can verify yourself in about five minutes, which is the entire point.
Common questions
How much deposit can a contractor ask for?
It depends entirely on your state, and there is no national rule. 6 states set a statutory cap on the initial down payment for a residential home-improvement contract; in the 10 states we checked and found none, a large deposit is lawful, which makes it a negotiating question rather than a legal one.
Is a deposit of half the contract a red flag?
In California or Nevada it is unlawful, not merely aggressive — both cap the initial payment at 10% or $1,000, whichever is less, and in California a violation is a misdemeanour. In Arizona, which has no general cap, the same deposit is perfectly lawful. The identical figure means completely different things in different places, which is why a national rule of thumb is worse than useless here.
Is installing R-410A equipment still allowed?
Federally, yes, for legacy stock — and most content written in 2024 and 2025 says otherwise and is now stale. An EPA final rule effective 27 July 2026 removed the installation deadline for residential AC and heat pumps where all components were manufactured or imported before 1 January 2025. New York is a documented exception: 6 NYCRR Part 494 still prohibits it.
Should I worry if the quote does not name the refrigerant?
Yes, though not because anything unlawful is happening. R-410A, R-454B and R-32 are not interchangeable, carry different service costs, and the A2L refrigerants change what the installation has to include. A quote that does not name it is a quote you cannot compare to another one.