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Getting an outdoor unit approved
In this part of the Peninsula the association is usually the long pole in the job. This page is about what they actually decide, and what a committee can act on.
Three things to hold on to.
One: a conversation is not a submission. Committees approve documents. Dimensions, exact placement measured from a fixed point, the manufacturer’s published sound rating, what is visible from where, how it is fixed and what is penetrated. A verbal “we’re putting in air conditioning” gets a verbal answer that nobody is bound by.
Two: we will not read your rules for you. Every association here is different and the documents mean what they say, not what a contractor guesses. We do not interpret CC&Rs and we would be careful of anyone who does. What we produce is the technical sheet your board needs; what it means under your rules is a question for the board, the managing agent, or if it really matters, somebody who does that professionally.
Three: start it before you need it. Associations meet on a schedule, not on demand, and a request submitted in July for a problem you have in July is a request for next month. The people who get this done easily start in February.
Pick what you want to do and what kind of property it is. Everything below is written out in full.
In a stacked or shared-plant building the equipment serving your unit is frequently not your property, and sometimes the part inside your walls is yours while the part on the roof is not. That is not a technicality — it determines who may authorise the work, who pays for it, and who is responsible when it fails.
Establish three things before anything else. Which components are yours, which are the association’s, and what the association’s position is on an owner altering any of it. Those answers come from the governing documents and the managing agent, not from us and not from what a neighbour did in 2019.
The practical version. If a shared riser, a shared condensate line or a common roof penetration is involved, expect the association to be a party to the work rather than merely approving it. Some buildings require their own contractor for anything touching common elements, and that is legitimate even when it is inconvenient.
We will survey, write down exactly what we found and what it appears to serve, and hand that to whoever needs it. What we will not do is start work on equipment when it is unclear whose it is.
Replacing what is already there
The easiest case, and the one people most often assume needs no approval at all. Sometimes true. Frequently not, and the difference matters.
Many associations treat a straight replacement in the same position as maintenance and do not require a submission. Others require notification of any exterior work, and a few require approval for anything visible regardless of whether it changes.
Two things that turn a replacement into a change. Modern equipment is often physically larger than what it replaces, particularly in height, which alters what is visible over a fence. And it may sit on a different pad, or need different clearances, which moves it. Either can convert “maintenance” into “alteration” in an association’s language.
So the sensible move is a short written notice with the dimensions of old and new side by side. It costs nothing, it takes one email, and it means nobody can say afterwards that it appeared without warning.
Adding cooling where there is none
The full submission case, because you are putting something outside that was not there before. Expect this to be the slowest part of the whole project and plan around it.
What a committee will ask. Where exactly, measured from the property line or the building. How big, in all three dimensions. How loud, from the manufacturer’s published figure. What it will be seen from — the street, a common area, a neighbour’s window. Whether anything is fixed to or penetrates a common wall or roof. What it stands on. And whether it will be screened.
What helps more than anything else. A drawing or a marked-up photograph showing the unit in position. Committees are not being difficult when they ask; they genuinely cannot picture it from a paragraph, and a picture converts a long meeting into a short one.
It is also worth finding out early whether your association has a preferred position for this equipment across the whole development. Many do, and matching it is the fastest approval there is.
Moving the unit somewhere better
Usually the right instinct, and nearly always an alteration in the association’s eyes even though nothing new is appearing.
People want to move a unit for three reasons: it is too close to a bedroom window, it has no room to breathe, or it is in the way. All three are good reasons and the second is worth money — a unit with inadequate clearance runs hotter, costs more and fails sooner.
What changes technically. A longer line set has limits set by the manufacturer, the condensate has to go somewhere from the new position, the electrical supply has to reach it, and if the move crosses a common area the association is involved in a different way.
A note on the neighbour. If the reason for moving is somebody else’s complaint, tell the committee that in the submission. An application that solves an existing dispute is a very different proposition from one that merely changes something.
A ductless system with wall units
Frequently the only workable answer in attached housing, and the one that raises the most association questions, because it puts things on the outside of the building in more than one place.
What gets asked about. The outdoor unit as usual. Then the wall penetrations — one per indoor unit — and the line-set covers running down the exterior, which is what most committees actually object to. Colour, routing and whether they can be concealed is the conversation.
What we can do about it. Group penetrations so there is one route rather than three. Run the covers down a corner or behind a downpipe rather than across a face. Match the cover colour to the wall. None of it is expensive and all of it is much easier to agree in advance than to retrofit after somebody objects.
Also worth knowing: a multi-zone system with one outdoor unit usually raises fewer objections than several single systems, even where the indoor units are the same. One box on the outside is one box to argue about.
A heat pump replacing gas heat
Two projects at once: an association question and an electrical one, and the electrical one is the part that surprises people.
The association side is much like adding cooling, with one addition: a heat pump runs in winter as well as summer, so the noise question is about evenings and early mornings rather than only hot afternoons. Committees that have approved cooling equipment have not necessarily thought about that, and raising it yourself is better than having it raised later.
The electrical side is where the cost can move. The load changes, the panel may need work, and in an attached building the panel is sometimes in a location that is itself shared or restricted. If there is a chance the service needs upgrading, that is a utility conversation with its own timescale, and it belongs at the start rather than in the middle.
We check the panel before quoting, not after. It is the single most common reason a heat pump project turns out to cost what nobody expected.
A detached house inside an association
The most straightforward, and the one where people most often skip the submission because it feels like their own land. It usually still is not, in the sense that matters: architectural control frequently extends to anything visible from a street or a common area, whatever the lot lines say.
The practical advantage you have is space. If there is a choice of positions, offering the committee the least visible one, screened, is a very short conversation. If the only position is the visible one, say so in the submission and explain why — clearance, service access, line-set length — rather than leaving them to assume it was chosen for convenience.
An attached townhouse
The commonest property here and the one where the neighbour matters more than the committee.
A four-foot side yard means the unit is close to somebody’s wall whatever you do, and the two things that decide whether it becomes a problem are placement relative to windows and isolation from the structure. Vibration transmitted into a shared wall is a different complaint from airborne noise and it is the one people find hardest to live with.
Talk to the neighbour before the committee. Not as a courtesy — as strategy. A submission with a neighbour’s written support is approved. A submission that generates an objection from the person it affects most is the one that gets deferred to the next meeting, and then the one after.
A condominium with shared plant
See the note above, which is the substance of it: establish what is actually yours before anything else.
The additional practical point is scheduling. Work that touches common elements — a roof, a riser, a shared drain — usually means access arranged through the managing agent, notice to other residents, and sometimes restricted hours. That is a week of coordination rather than a phone call, and it is much easier when it is planned rather than discovered.
If you are on the board, or you own it and let it
If you are on the board, the most useful thing you can do for your association is publish what you want: a standard position for outdoor equipment, an acceptable screening detail, a sound limit and a preferred line-set treatment. Most committee time on this subject is spent re-deciding the same question, and a one-page standard ends that. We are glad to help write one and we will not charge an association for the conversation.
If you own it and let it, two things. The approval is yours to obtain, not your tenant’s, and a tenant who applies on your behalf usually gets a letter saying so. And access has to be arranged with somebody who lives there, which means a submission timetable and an installation date that suit a third person.
What to do next
Send a short written notice with old and new dimensions side by side, even if you think none is needed. One email, and nobody can say later that it appeared without warning.
What to do next
Ask the managing agent two questions before you do anything else: is there a standard position for this equipment in this development, and when does the committee next meet? Those two answers set your whole timetable.
What to do next
Put the reason in the submission, particularly if it is clearance or an existing complaint. A move that solves a problem reads completely differently from a move that creates a question.
What to do next
Settle the line-set routing and cover colour before you submit, and show it on a marked-up photograph. The covers, not the outdoor unit, are what committees object to.
What to do next
Get the electrical panel assessed before the association submission, not after. If the service needs work, that has its own timescale and it should run alongside the approval rather than behind it.
What we will and will not do
We will produce the sheet. Dimensions, placement measured from a fixed point, manufacturer’s published sound rating with the source named, fixings, penetrations and a marked-up photograph. As a matter of course, before anything is ordered.
We will not interpret your governing documents, and we will not tell you that something is “probably fine”. That sentence has cost people the price of removing equipment they had just paid to install.
We will not install something that breaches your rules. Not quietly, not as a favour, not because the neighbour did it. Work that gets ordered out afterwards comes out at your expense.
And we will not claim a noise level. We will quote the manufacturer’s published figure and say where it came from. What it sounds like at a particular window depends on the building, the surfaces around it and the time of day, and anybody giving you a number for that has not measured it either.
Start the paperwork early
A visit, the positions measured, the options photographed and a submission sheet you can send to your board. Done in winter, it takes the association out of the critical path entirely.