Heat Pumps & Ductless Mini-Splits

A heat pump is now the most common heating and cooling upgrade in Metro Vancouver, and the mild coastal winter suits it well: most days sit between 0°C and 10°C, where a modern inverter heat pump works at its best. The two shapes are a ducted system, which replaces or sits beside a furnace and uses the existing ducts, and a ductless mini-split, where one outdoor unit feeds one or more wall, ceiling or floor heads. Mini-splits are the usual answer for homes heated by electric baseboards, for additions and suites, and for many townhouses and condos.

Sizing is where quotes differ most. A proper quote starts from a heat loss calculation for your house, not the size of the old furnace, and it names the outdoor temperature the system is designed to fully heat at. A cold-climate model matters less here than in the Interior, but it still decides whether the backup heat ever runs during a January cold snap.

Placement matters too: the City of Vancouver lets a ground-mounted inverter unit go in without a development permit only in set zones close to the house and at least 90 cm from the property line, Burnaby enforces 55 dBA by day and 45 dBA at night, and a strata needs written approval before any unit goes on a wall or balcony.

Almost every heat pump install needs an electrical permit, issued by your municipality in Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, both North Vancouvers, West Vancouver and Maple Ridge, and by Technical Safety BC elsewhere. The City of Vancouver also requires a mechanical permit when a heating or cooling system is installed or replaced with a different type, and removing a gas furnace means a gas permit as well.

Rebates depend on what you heat with today: BC Hydro rebates replacing electric heat, and income-qualified households can get much larger CleanBC amounts. Your contractor should tell you which one you qualify for before you sign.