North Carolina’s Heating Group No. 1 Contractor licence covers wet comfort heating as the statute defines it. The Board examines it in a technical part of 4.0 hours and a business and law part of 1.5 hours, open book, each passed at a grade of 70 of 100, on each part, keyed to the 2018 North Carolina codes. This guide maps the licence, the route, and the study sequence.
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The credential at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Program | North Carolina Heating Group H1 |
| Regulator | State Board of Examiners of Plumbing, Heating, and Fire Sprinkler Contractors |
| Scope | Wet comfort heating under G.S. 87-21(a)(2), Class I and Class II |
| Structure | Technical part plus business and law part; both must be passed |
| Duration | Technical 4.0 hours; business and law 1.5 hours |
| Passing standard | A grade of 70 of 100, on each part (21 NCAC 50 .0305) |
| Tested basis | 2018 North Carolina codes; Board Laws and Rules 2025 or 2026 edition |
| Administrator note | PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with the Board or PSI |
The scope sentence, and why it is the whole guide in miniature
Everything in H1 flows from one statutory sentence. Under G.S. 87-21(a)(2), heating, group number one is the heating system of a building which requires the use of high or low pressure steam, vapor or hot water, including all piping, ducts, and mechanical equipment appurtenant thereto, within, adjacent to or connected with a building, for comfort heating.
Parse it the way the Board must. The heat medium is steam, vapour, or hot water, at high or low pressure. The appurtenances — all piping, ducts, and mechanical equipment belonging to that system — travel with it, within, adjacent to, or connected with a building. The purpose is comfort heating. Work that lacks any element of that sentence is not H1 work, however heating-adjacent it feels, and work that carries every element is H1 work even when it also touches ducts, controls, or fuel supply. The Board’s plain language compresses the same point: H1 is wet, water-based comfort heating systems — Class I in any building, Class II in single-family detached dwellings only.
The class division is general Board architecture: Class I covers plumbing, heating, and fire sprinkler systems for all structures, and Class II covers plumbing and heating systems in single-family detached residential dwellings. For H1, class changes the buildings the licence reaches and, in the reference matrix, the size of the book set. It does not change the examination time, the passing standard, or the book status.
The neighbouring groups exist to keep this sentence clean. Heating Group H2 is a separate licence for an integral conditioned-air system above the capacity line the statute draws, and Heating Group H3 is a separate licence for direct systems at or below that line, with single-family systems included in H3 as its statute provides — except where heat is provided by hot water or steam in an H1 system, as the Board’s rule states the boundary. A candidate who can sort described work into those three licences, and say which sentence of the statute does the sorting, has mastered the first and most repeated skill this licence examines.
Specific rules hang off the scope sentence. A heating group number one licence is required for the installation or replacement of a boiler in an H1 system. Fuel piping — from an approved fuel source at or near the premises to a point within the premises — may be contracted or installed under a plumbing, Heating Group 1, Heating Group 2, Heating Group 3, or fuel piping licence, regardless of the system served. A ducted heating system supplied by ground water, or by a coil supplied from a domestic hot water heater not exceeding 150 degrees Fahrenheit, splits its licences by task: either a plumbing or an H1 licence for extending piping from valved connections to the coil, and either an H1 or an H3 licence for the coil, duct work, controls, drains, and related appurtenances. The licensing duty attaches to verifying, inspecting, evaluating, testing, installing, altering, restoring, or offering to do any of those for valuable consideration, and a licence must be obtained before engaging or offering. Minor repairs and minor replacements to an installed system — part replacements such as a compressor, coil, contactor, motor, or capacitor, with no change in energy source, fuel type, or routing or sizing of venting or piping — sit outside Article 2.
Contractor and technician: two legal positions, one of them this guide’s
A contractor licencee has passed both parts and may contract. A technician licencee has passed the technical examination but not the business and law examination, holds no contracting licence, and shall not contract work on the technician licence. An H1 Technician must be a full-time employee of a Heating Group No. 1 Contractor and a sub-licensee of that contractor. The technician tier has its own experience figures in the Board’s rules, and they are a different tier’s gates: this guide never states them as the contractor gate, and contractor candidates should not borrow them in either direction.
The route, step by step
Step one — confirm scope and class. Match the intended work to the statutory sentence and the building to Class I or Class II. Step two — assemble the experience record. Two years of full-time experience related to the category sought, as detailed below, with notarised employer verification. Step three — apply to the Board, with the application items and the Board-layer fee. Step four — receive approval and the authorisation period, the ninety-day window in which the examination must be taken, with the candidate and exam identification for the PSI account. Step five — sit both parts through PSI, open book with approved references only, and receive the pass or fail result immediately at the centre. Step six — activate. On passing, submit the activation form and the Board-layer licence fee within forty-five days of notification of the result; a passing applicant who misses that step will have to retest. A person who passes on or after October 1 may elect a licence for the following year, and the statute provides a remainder-of-year licence at one-half the usual fee.
Rescheduling and retaking have their own clocks. Contact PSI at least three days in advance and the sitting may be rescheduled at no additional charge; miss that window and the fee is forfeited, the Board’s Exam Coordinator must be contacted, and the fee paid again. A candidate who arrives with unauthorised materials or devices is not allowed to test and must wait ninety days before rescheduling. A person who fails shall not be reexamined until after ninety days from the date last examined, on a re-examination application, with a criminal background report more than six months old updated. The failed portion may be retaken within six months of the approval date without retaking the portion passed, and the Board may require a person who fails any part three times to receive additional education before retaking, or to wait one year before retaking any portion. Examination review is available on written request, at a time and place the Board determines, with review offered in Raleigh before retesting.
The two parts and the standard on each
The technical part runs 4.0 hours. The business and law part — a common part across the heating contractor groups — runs 1.5 hours. This guide covers the business and law part as structure only: its place in the route, its timing, its standard, and its exemption. That exemption is specific: the part is not required if the applicant holds a currently active contractor licence with this Board and passed the Board’s business and law examination after August 2003.
The passing standard is a rule, and it is stated here only in rule form. Under 21 NCAC 50 .0305, examinations provided by the Board are based upon a maximum obtainable grade of 100 points, and a grade of 70 is required to pass. Under 21 NCAC 50 .0301(b), both parts must be passed, so the standard applies as a grade of 70 of 100, on each part. The current PSI bulletin states no passing score and reports only pass or fail, so there is no vendor figure competing with the rule. Any different percentage a candidate meets in secondary material belongs to another board or another examination and has no place in this licence’s preparation.
No question totals for either part are published in the Board’s rules, its examination information, or the current PSI bulletin, and this guide prints none, in either direction. Preparation planning should rest on the published times, the published reference matrix, and the statutory scope — the three things the Board actually publishes.
Books in the room: the approved-reference discipline
Both parts are open book, and the discipline is exact. Candidates bring their own books, and only the books for the approved licence category are allowed in the room. Books must be original editions in hard, spiral, or ring binding; printed copies from digital files are not permitted. Commercially available permanent tabs are allowed, and the divider inserts the Board’s list approves are the only approved inserts of their kind. Highlighting is the only permitted alteration — no notes, formulae, or underlining may be added to a book. Pencils, scratch paper, calculators, and the North Carolina heating and plumbing figures are provided at the site and must be returned at the end.
That discipline shapes study method. Because nothing may be added to a book, preparation cannot be stored in the margins. It must be stored as knowledge of structure: which code carries which system, where the amendments sit in the North Carolina editions, and how the Laws and Rules volume is organised. Timed practice should use the books exactly as they will enter the room.
The tested layer: 2018 codes on a 2015 basis
The Board’s Book Reference List and Requirements, effective July 1, 2025, as updated June 1, 2026, bases the examinations on the 2018 North Carolina codes plus the Board’s Laws and Rules. The list’s letters name: the Administration Code and Policies, 2018 edition; the Fuel Gas Code, 2018 edition; the Mechanical Code, 2018 edition; the Energy Conservation Code, 2018 edition; the Residential Code, 2018 edition; the Board’s Laws and Rules, 2025 or 2026 edition, comprising Article 2 of Chapter 87 and 21 NCAC 50; and the business and project management reference for contractors named in the list, in the editions it specifies. The Board’s June 2026 update states the holding position in substance: until the codes that follow become effective, all examinations for plumbing, heating, fuel piping, and fire sprinkler licensing will be based on the 2018 edition of the codes.
The H1 reference set is class-sensitive. H1 Class I carries the fullest set in the matrix, including the Uniform Boiler and Pressure Vessel Act — held as a study copy, with the examination copy provided at the PSI centre — and the ACCA manuals the matrix assigns to this group and class, among them the load-calculation, duct-design, and related manuals in their listed editions. H1 Class II carries a reduced set drawn from the same list. Common heating references include Modern Refrigeration and Air Conditioning in its current listed edition, and each heating and cooling candidate furnishes their own duct calculator slide rule. The matrix row for the exact group and class is the only safe shopping list: a neighbouring row is a different licence’s sitting.
The field layer is the same vintage, stated on its own terms. The 2018 North Carolina codes took effect January 1, 2019, include the state’s committee amendments along with the 2015 International Codes, and the 2018 Mechanical Code is based on the 2015 International Mechanical Code with state amendments that revise, delete, or add to it; in the 2018 Fuel Gas Code, references to the International Codes mean the North Carolina Codes, with state amendments underlined in the published text. The North Carolina Building Code as adopted by the Building Code Council is the minimum standard of competence for Board licensees. The 2024 North Carolina code is not in effect, is not the examination basis, and has no settled effective date printed anywhere in this guide — candidates should treat any date offered for it in secondary material as unsettled and build nothing on it.
Eligibility in full
The contractor experience gate is set by rule: evidence, submitted with the application, of two years of full-time experience in the installation, maintenance, service, or repair of plumbing or heating systems related to the category sought, whether or not a licence was required for the work. The Board outlines the same gate as two years, or 4,000 hours, of on-site full-time experience in the category, with up to one-half — 2,000 hours, stated as 45 quarter hours or 30 semester hours — permitted as directly related academic or technical training. Part-time work below forty hours a week and part-time academic work are prorated, and experience hours from other states can be submitted. The statute sets the ceiling the rule works under: the Board may not require more than two years, up to one-half may be academic or technical, and registration is not required when the experience period begins. Certified code-enforcement experience, and certificates in engineering or any other field not directly related to the licence sought, do not meet the requirement. Military personnel and military spouses may receive credit for experience gained during active service, on the Board’s listed documentation.
Before taking the examination, an applicant may be required to establish that they are at least eighteen years of age and of good moral character. The application collects the licence and examination type requested, identifying information, tax documents evidencing experience as an employee of a licensed contractor, an experience description, notarised experience verification from current or former employers, the examination fee, disclosure of whether the applicant has ever been charged or convicted of a crime, incarceration, parole, or probation status, and a signed authorisation for a criminal background check. Identification may also be required at the examination itself: a valid driver’s licence, a DMV-issued identification card, or a passport.
Recognition from other states is layered, and the layers must not be merged. The Board’s applicant information states that there are no licence reciprocity agreements with any other state, and that all persons desiring licensure must meet the Board’s requirements and complete the applicable examinations. The Board’s rule provides for licensure by reciprocity only under reciprocal agreements worked out with other states after mutual review. The statute gives the Board discretion to grant an equivalent licence without written examination on satisfactory proof of substantially equivalent qualifications and payment of the usual licence fee. Alongside those layers sit two published routes: a technical examination waiver agreement with South Carolina for plumbing and HVAC contractors, whose applicants must still pass the North Carolina business law examination, and a neighbour-state recognition route for current permanent North Carolina residents licensed in the states the Board names. A licencee may also be examined for expansion of licence qualifications, on the required fee, where the requirements for the classification sought are met. None of this is an automatic transfer, and this guide presents it only as the Board publishes it.
Fees: three layers, never one total
The Board-layer application for a licence by examination is $150 — a $75 application fee and a $75 examination fee — and it is nonrefundable; application and examination fees are not refunded, and the application fee for a licence without examination is a separate, smaller instrument in the Board’s schedule. The PSI-layer examination fee is $75, valid one year from payment. The licence-layer annual fee for a heating contractor licence is $150, payable on activation within forty-five days of notification of the examination result, and capped by statute at that figure. Smaller Board instruments — reissue and transfer, copies of a licence, an abstract of a licence record, a copy of the Board’s rules, the late-renewal processing fee, and the criminal-history predetermination petition fee — each belong to their own item in the Board’s schedule. Fees belonging to other tiers are not this program’s fees. No figure in this guide adds the layers together, because the Board never presents them as one charge and a candidate budgeting from a merged total will misread at least one deadline attached to a separate layer — most dangerously the forty-five-day activation window.
Holding and working the licence
Renewal is annual and unforgiving of inattention. All licences expire on the last day of December in each year following issuance or renewal. The secretary-treasurer must send renewal notice at least one month in advance; in practice invoices are mailed in early October and email notices are also sent, the renewal period begins ninety days before expiration, usually October 1, and a licensee who receives no invoice or notice is still responsible for renewing. Failure to renew and pay during January increases the licence fee by the statutory late amount, stated in the Board’s current renewal material as a processing fee due where the renewal is not received correctly before the end of January, and the Board may require payment of all unpaid annual fees before reissuing a licence. Reinstatement runs to three years: an expired licence may be reinstated within three years of expiration on written request and payment of the current fee, the fees for the unpaid prior years, and the processing fee. Beyond three years the Board shall require reexamination, and a licence expired more than three years cannot be renewed — the licencee must take and pass the required examinations to reinstate. North Carolina does not require continuing education as a condition of renewal for this Board’s licensees: that requirement was eliminated on December 31, 2012, and replaced from the following day by disciplinary education — Board-approved courses the Board may require after an investigated or adjudicated complaint, which licensees may also attend voluntarily. A permissive statutory power to adopt renewal-education rules exists but is not exercised as a current renewal condition.
The firm rules decide who may do the work day to day. A licence may issue in the name of a corporation, partnership, or assumed trade name, where licensed individuals execute contracts to the extent of their qualifications and exercise general supervision to completion. In each business location, at least one contractor licencee in the required classification must be on duty for the lesser of 1,500 hours annually or all the hours licensed activities are carried out; if that licencee is employed elsewhere during those hours, no licensed work may be performed by the firm on that qualification. Each licencee qualifies only one business location and is listed on only one contractor licence at a time. A bona fide W-2 employee of a licencee is not construed to be engaged in the contracting business; 1099-paid persons are not bona fide employees and may not be used to perform licensed work. A licencee shall not permit use of their licence by any other person, nor bid work requiring a classification they do not hold. If the firm’s licence holder cannot perform a licencee’s duties, all contracting activity must cease until another licencee is in place.
General supervision requires review of the work by a licencee of the firm while the work is in progress, and on-site supervision requires a properly qualified licencee to personally supervise and review all work before it is covered or placed into service. The current licence is posted in the business location, and its number appears on all proposals, contracts, and permit requests. A contractor ensures a permit is obtained before commencing licensed work, and ensures a request for final inspection within ten days of the system being made operational or placed in service. Residential duties include a maximum four-degree-Fahrenheit room-to-room and floor-to-floor differential for newly installed systems, a room-by-room load calculation for newly installed residential structures — with a copy kept in the job file for at least six years — and at minimum a whole-house block load calculation for listed replacements in existing homes. Discipline runs from reprimand and probation to suspension and revocation. Unlicensed practice is a Class 2 misdemeanour, and the Board may seek injunctive relief.
No hands-on, practical, or drawing component of either examination part is stated in the sources for this guide. The statute describes the Board’s examination as designed to ascertain technical and practical knowledge of subjects including plan and specification analysis, estimating, installation and design fundamentals, codes, and fire hazards — a description of the written examination’s subject design, not a practical test, and this guide does not convert it into one.
A study sequence for a statute-first licence
First, the scope sentence. Drill the statutory definition and the H2 and H3 boundaries until any described system sorts itself. Second, the route and its clocks. Authorisation window, three-day rescheduling, ninety-day retake wait, forty-five-day activation — the dates are examination content in their own right because they govern the candidate’s own file. Third, the 2018 codes by structure. Learn each listed code’s organisation and the state’s amendments as printed, on the 2015 basis the codes carry. Fourth, the H1 reference matrix for the candidate’s class, including the boiler and pressure-vessel material for Class I and the ACCA manuals the row assigns. Fifth, the working rules. Supervision, bona fide employment, permits, and renewal — the rules a licencee is disciplined under are the rules the technical candidate will be held to the day after passing. Sixth, timed practice in approved books only, highlighting permitted and nothing else added, at the published durations for each part.
For the program overview, see the companion page: North Carolina Heating Group H1 Exam Preparation.
Frequently asked questions
Why does this guide print no question totals?
Because no primary source publishes them. The Board’s rules, its examination information, and the current PSI bulletin state durations, book status, and the passing rule — and no totals. This guide prints only what those sources publish.
Where does the passing standard actually live?
In the Board’s rule at 21 NCAC 50 .0305: examinations are based upon a maximum obtainable grade of 100 points, and a grade of 70 is required to pass — applied to each part under .0301(b). The PSI bulletin reports pass or fail only.
Is the business and law part a technical syllabus in this guide?
No. It is covered as structure only — its place in the route, its 1.5-hour duration, its standard, and its exemption for holders of a current contractor licence with this Board who passed that part after August 2003.
My field work uses a later code cycle. Why study the 2018 codes?
Because the Board’s list and its June 2026 update base every heating examination on the 2018 editions, and the 2024 North Carolina code is not in effect. The sitting answers to the tested layer.
What happens if I pass but delay activation?
The licence fee and activation form are due within forty-five days of notification of the result. A passing applicant who does not complete that step will have to retest.
When does enrollment open for the PassProfessor program?
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