Sarasota, FL Noise from Specific Sources: HVAC & Mechanical Noise (2026)

1(a) requires every air conditioner and component of an air-conditioning system, including towers, condensers, evaporators and radiators, to be designed, constructed, installed, located, maintained and operated to meet listed minimum standards. Subsection (a)(1) is the operative noise rule: air-conditioning equipment, alone or combined with other noise sources on the same premises, cannot produce noise levels exceeding those set in Section 10-3 of the Zoning Code's performance standards for noise, meaning the AC-specific cap is enforced by cross-reference to the citywide zoning noise-performance table rather than a stand-alone decibel number in Chapter 11 itself.

The same subsection also regulates air-handling equipment (no perceptible acceleration of air movement across property lines from intakes, exhausts or blowers), water and liquid-handling equipment (no water spray, liquid or minerals may be propelled across property lines by the equipment or by wind up to 25 mph) and condensate drainage (condensate must be piped to a public storm sewer, dry well, flowing stream or public drainage ditch, never allowed to stagnate on-site or cross a public sidewalk, street or thoroughfare). Subsection (b) makes every system installed after September 4, 1956 subject to these standards, so the rule reaches essentially all existing residential and commercial AC equipment in the city.

Subsection (c) assigns personal responsibility: sole proprietors, partners in a partnership, general partners of a limited partnership, and a corporation's president, vice-president, secretary or treasurer must each ensure that AC equipment owned, leased or under their business's active control complies with subsection (a), and any on-site manager or plant superintendent is separately responsible as well.