HVAC Services in Vancouver

This page is the hub for every HVAC service we run in Vancouver. Furnace repair and replacement, air conditioning service and installation, cold-climate heat pumps with CleanBC rebate paperwork, boiler and radiant service, water heaters, and genuine 24/7 emergency dispatch all live one click from here. Start with the service you need in the grid below, or read on for how Vancouver’s climate and housing stock change the way an HVAC company should work.

Climate matters here too. Vancouver winters are the mildest in the valley, but the rain is relentless, and damp shoulder seasons film flame sensors and block condensate lines the way dry cities never see. When outflow cold does reach the city, it lands on the oldest housing stock first — a 1912 Dunbar gravity-furnace conversion works harder in January than a 2019 condo ever will. Our busiest calls cluster in November and the first cold week of February, and our routes run from West Point Grey to Killarney daily.

Since 2010, BC Home Service has completed more than 12,000 jobs across Metro Vancouver, with Vancouver consistently among our heaviest service files. Every era of house is in the same dispatch book, and the $199 a year maintenance plan keeps the busiest of them ahead of the season. For the parent service overviews, see the heating and furnace services and cooling and AC services pages.

A hundred years of heating on one block

Kitsilano, Dunbar, Kerrisdale and West Point Grey are full of pre-1940 houses whose heating has been patched through every era since: original cast-iron radiators still running off updated boilers, gravity furnaces converted to forced air in the fifties, and mid-efficiency furnaces from the eighties hanging on past their design life. Vancouver Specials from the sixties through eighties carry their own signature — basic forced-air systems, minimal insulation and upstairs-downstairs temperature splits that proper zoning or a pair of ductless heads fixes in a day. Our technicians carry the parts and the patience for all three generations, often on the same street in the same afternoon.

The laneway and suite era changed everything

Vancouver has the densest mix of secondary suites and laneway homes in the region, and nearly every one was retrofitted into a lot whose heating was never designed for it. Laneway homes overwhelmingly run ductless heat pumps — right-sized, quiet at the property line and rebate-eligible — while basement suites in Mount Pleasant character homes and Shaughnessy duplexes need their own zone, thermostat and controls. We design those splits constantly: a shared condenser serving suite and main floor, or separate systems when the load calculation says so. The BC Building Code’s cooling requirement for new homes, plus Step Code pressure on multiplex infill, has made heat pumps effectively the default for anything new being built in the city. The complete Vancouver heat pump guide covers the sizing and rebate math.

Density, parking and strata logistics are part of the job

Working in Vancouver means planning around permit-parking zones, laneway access, heritage streetscapes and strata councils. Our vans are stocked to finish repairs without a second trip, because a parts run across the city at 4pm can cost an hour. For condo and strata work — Fairview towers, Mount Pleasant lofts — we carry the documentation property managers ask for: licence, $2M insurance certificates, work timelines and noise windows. It is the least glamorous part of HVAC work in the city, and the part that decides whether a job runs smoothly. Homeowners weighing a full replacement should start with the furnace repair versus replacement decision guide and the regional service areas overview.

The $89 diagnostic, in sequence

Modern furnaces, ACs and heat pumps refuse to run when any safety device in the chain objects, so the diagnostic works that chain in order: verify the complaint under real running conditions, then measure the electrical circuit, the refrigerant or combustion side, and the airflow path against what the nameplate says each should be. On a pre-war Kitsilano home the answer is often a $180 part on a forty-year-old furnace that deserves one more season; on a laneway home it is more likely a control, condensate or sensor issue. The fee is credited in full to any repair you approve, so diagnosis never costs extra.

What every HVAC visit includes

• Full fault isolation across heating, cooling and controls
• Combustion analysis and CO safety check on gas equipment
• Refrigerant charge and pressures measured against nameplate
• Airflow, filter and blower condition assessment
• Condensate line and pan check — a top Vancouver leak cause
• Repair-versus-replace math with real SEER2, AFUE and rebate numbers
• One flat-rate written quote, approved before work starts
• Photos and documentation for warranty, strata and insurer files

Manual J sizing — measured, never guessed

Every replacement quote we write in Vancouver starts with a Manual J load calculation — the industry-standard, room-by-room measurement of heat loss and heat gain that sizes equipment to the house actually standing there, not to a rule of thumb from 1975. It matters more in this city than almost anywhere: a 1912 Dunbar character home with updated windows, a Vancouver Special with original everything and a laneway home all have wildly different loads on the same street. Oversized systems short-cycle, wreck humidity control and die early; undersized ones never catch up in a heat dome. Manual J is also the document rebate programs expect to see, and it is included with every installation quote we write.

The problems Vancouver systems actually present

The problems Vancouver systems actually present: furnaces fail on ignition — flame sensors filmed by damp shoulder seasons, igniters at end of life. ACs fail on capacitors and contactors when July heat arrives after a forgotten spring. Heat pumps on character lots pack their coils with maple and cedar debris. Heritage homes with radiators need the boiler-side attention our Vancouver boiler service crews handle. The dedicated Vancouver furnace repair page and Vancouver AC repair page detail each failure pattern, prices included.

Combined CleanBC Better Homes, BC Hydro, FortisBC and municipal top-ups can reach $16,000 for cold-climate heat pumps in 2026, and we complete the paperwork, including the pre- and post-install EnerGuide evaluations by a licensed energy advisor. For a laneway home or a baseboard-heated Vancouver Special, the comparison is often a straight line: a cold-climate heat pump strips the rebate off the invoice first, then heats at a fraction of baseboard running cost through ten months of the year. Older single-family electrical services usually carry a ductless retrofit without panel work, and suites and main floors can often share one outdoor condenser. The full CleanBC rebate guide lists every program and top-up.

The calendar is a pricing instrument. Book furnace tune-ups in September and AC service in May, while schedules are open. Book replacements and ductless installs in late spring — not the middle of a heat warning or a February cold snap, when repair triage takes every van. Homeowners who pre-season their HVAC rarely meet us at 2am; the ones who skip it meet us in January and July, which we handle, but would rather not. Payment plans for larger projects live on the financing and rebates page.

“BC Home Service fixed our furnace on the coldest night of the year. They answered the phone at 11 PM, arrived within 30 minutes, and had us warm by midnight. Professional, honest, and incredibly fast. Will never use another company.”

“Our heat pump installation qualified for $8,400 in CleanBC rebates — BC Home Service handled ALL the paperwork. I didn’t have to lift a finger. The system is incredible. Best home improvement decision we’ve made.”