Home › Service Areas
Eleven places, grouped by the question that decides everything else out here: who, if anyone, inspects a system changeout at that address. It is not a technicality — inside a city a mechanical permit is a backstop, and outside one the load calculation is the only backstop there is.
A changeout here is permitted work, and in several of these cities the contractor has to be registered with the city before pulling one. That is a real second check, and it is worth using.
Permits & inspections — 2024 codes from 21 Jan 2026, 2023 NEC
The county’s largest city and its oldest stock — median year built 1994 against 2005 county-wide. Second and third systems, on original ductwork.
Permits & contractor registration — 2021 codes, 2023 NEC
The widest span of equipment ages of any city in the county: Quail Valley on a third or fourth system, the Sienna side on its first.
The county’s newest code cycle — 2024 codes, 2023 NEC
County seat since 1837, so the oldest built environment in Fort Bend and the widest range of equipment ages. Repair-or-replace arithmetic, not efficiency tiers.
HVAC permits issued; code edition unverified
An older rail-town core inside a ring of new construction, up 11.6% since 2020. Two opposite conversations in one city.
Trade Permit covers HVAC — 2015 codes, 2014 NEC
Second-fastest-growing city in America two years running. Almost nothing is old, and the equipment is failing anyway.
Contractor registration; mechanical permit not published — check
38.7% owner-occupied, the lowest in the county. A landlord and property-manager market, where repair-or-replace is decided about somebody else’s comfort.
Own Mechanical Permit — cash or check, inspections Tue–Fri
About 3,000 people running a full permit program, and far enough south that response time is a real variable.
A Texas city cannot enforce building codes or require permits in its extraterritorial jurisdiction, and Fort Bend County has adopted no residential building code. On this ground a full system changeout is permitted by nobody and inspected by nobody — whatever the mailing address says.
Unincorporated — Houston ETJ — Katy addresses
Opened 1991, so a genuine 1990s and 2000s cohort in a 2005-median county: second and third systems, on original ductwork.
Unincorporated CDP — mostly Missouri City ETJ — boundary moving
Development began 1978, resumed 1994. Most equipment is at first replacement, and parts of it have been annexed since 2023.
Unincorporated — Houston ETJ — Richmond addresses
The mailing-address-is-not-jurisdiction case in its purest form. 2010s equipment at first service interval, under nobody’s inspection.
City limits span three counties; most Fort Bend ground is unincorporated
1990s through 2010s master-planned housing, wide floor plans and long duct runs. No published source splits Katy’s population by county, and this site does not invent one.
Simonton, Orchard, Beasley, Kendleton, Fairchilds, Weston Lakes, Pleak
Acreage houses, metal shops, propane instead of a gas main, septic instead of sewer — and a permit position that varies town by town.
Fort Bend County covers roughly 885 square miles and this site does not carry a page for every place in it. Meadows Place, Arcola, Thompsons and Fresno are all within the county and all served; so are the smaller unincorporated communities that do not have a page of their own. The permits page covers the jurisdiction position for several of them, including Meadows Place, which issues mechanical permits explicitly for air conditioners and heaters.
Two things are true county-wide regardless of address. The climate is the same — Climate Zone 2A, hot-humid, roughly 89 days a year at or above 90°F and a mean August dew point of 73.5°F, which is what wears equipment out early and what makes correct sizing matter. And the state license is the same: air conditioning and refrigeration contracting is licensed by TDLR everywhere in Texas, inside a city or not.
It is an address-level question, and it changes whether anybody inspects the work. Get connected with an independent, TDLR-licensed contractor working across Fort Bend County.
Call (346) 623-3250 Request a Quote
Fort Bend