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How to Compare HVAC Quotes in Ontario: The Line-by-Line Grid That Makes Three Heat Pump or Furnace Quotes Price the Same Job
Heating, Cooling & Ventilation
Three HVAC Quotes, One Grid: How to Make Them Price the Same House Before You Pick the Cheap One
Three heat pump quotes arrive at $9,800, $13,400 and $16,900, and the natural thing is to throw out the top one and argue about the other two. Usually that is the wrong way round. A quote is only cheap compared with another quote for the same job, and HVAC contractors almost never write the same job unless you make them. This is the grid I use for the $99 quote review: thirteen lines, every quote filled in on every line, and a blank counts as zero.
The thirteen lines
| Line | What the quote has to say | If it is blank |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Heat loss | A room-by-room CSA F280 heat loss and gain, with the design temperature used, minus 24 to minus 25 C in Simcoe | The size is a guess, usually the old furnace sticker or the square footage. |
| 2. Model numbers | The exact outdoor and indoor model numbers, matched, not “3 ton cold-climate unit” | You cannot check the listing, the capacity or the rebate, and the unit on the day can be anything. |
| 3. Capacity at design temperature | Heating output at minus 25 C from the listing, against the heat loss in line 1 | Nobody knows if it heats the house in February or where the backup takes over. |
| 4. Backup heat | The furnace kept, or the electric strip size in kW in a new air handler | The backup is either missing or oversized for the panel. |
| 5. Ducts | What is reused, what is modified, return air added, and the static pressure measured before and after | Duct changes, $300 to $1,500, show up as an extra on the day. |
| 6. Electrical | The 240 V circuit and disconnect by an ESA licensed electrical contractor with a permit, and whether the panel has room | Add $500 to $1,500, and $2,500 to $4,500 if the panel has to go to 200 A. |
| 7. Line set and pad | New or reused line set, length, the pad or wall bracket, how high off the ground | An outdoor unit on the ground in a snowbelt, or an old line set full of somebody else’s oil. |
| 8. Condensate | Where the indoor drain goes, a pump if needed, and where the defrost water from the outdoor unit goes | A drip on the basement floor and an ice rink on the walk. |
| 9. Venting | For gas: the vent route, the termination, what happens to the chimney and what is left on it, makeup air | A furnace vented wherever was easiest, and an orphaned water heater on an oversized chimney. |
| 10. Commissioning | Refrigerant charge set to the manufacturer’s numbers, airflow, static pressure, thermostat and switchover settings, a written sheet | Nobody measured anything. This is the line the cheap quote drops. |
| 11. Warranty and registration | Parts and labour in years, who registers it, and whether the installer is certified by the manufacturer | The 10-year parts warranty on the brochure may be 5 unregistered. |
| 12. Permit, removal and licences | Building permit where needed, TSSA and 313A or 313D credentials, old unit removed and refrigerant recovered | You inherit the old unit and the risk. |
| 13. Rebate | Participating contractor, pre-installation application before the install, and the rebate shown as a separate later cheque | No rebate, however good the heat pump. |
The licensing page has line 12 in full and the rebate page has line 13. The installation checklist turns lines 7 to 10 into what you check on the day.
Why Ontario prices are all over the map: before you blame a contractor for being high, know that the contractors and price guides we checked could not agree either. For a cold-climate ducted heat pump, a home-services marketplace said $4,500 to $10,000 with existing ducts, a national HVAC cost guide $7,000 to $12,000, and a heat pump price guide $12,000 to $18,000 and up. That is about $13,000 of spread for one class of equipment. Ducts, electrical, line set, condensate, permit, removal and rebate paperwork are in some and out of others, and some units sold as cold-climate are not. Budget about $13,000 for 3 tons on existing ducts, and get two or three quotes on the same written scope.
Three real quotes on the grid
The house: a 2,000 sq ft 1990s two-storey in Barrie, gas furnace 12 years old, AC dead, ducts in fair shape, 200 A panel with space.
Quote A, $9,800. “Supply and install 4 ton heat pump, standard installation.” No heat loss, sized from the old furnace. Model number given, and it is a standard heat pump, not a listed cold-climate one, which puts it in the $7,000 to $12,000 class, not the $9,000 to $18,000 one. Electrical “by others”, so add $500 to $1,500. No commissioning, no condensate, no rebate. Like for like, add the circuit and $2,000 to $5,000 for a real cold-climate unit and it is $12,300 to $16,300.
Quote B, $13,400. 3 ton cold-climate unit, model numbers matched and on the NRCan list. New line set, wall bracket, electrical tie-in, thermostat, rebate paperwork. Sized by “room count”, not a heat loss. Capacity at minus 25 C not stated. Commissioning “included” with no sheet. Participating contractor, so if the house qualifies, 3 x $500 = $1,500 back afterward on a gas-heated house, after pre-approval.
Quote C, $16,900. Same 3 ton listed unit as B. An F280 heat loss at minus 24 C attached, 41,000 BTU/h, with the unit’s output at minus 25 C beside it and the switchover temperature to the furnace written down. Return air added to two bedrooms. ESA permit named. Condensate pump and the defrost drain routed away from the walk. A commissioning sheet with charge, airflow and static pressure. 10-year parts and labour, registered. Permit pulled. Same rebate as B.
B and C are the same machine. C has written down the design, the duct work and the commissioning that B is promising with “included” or not at all. A is a different machine sized from a guess. I would ask B to put the heat loss, the capacity at minus 25 C and the commissioning sheet in writing; if B will do that for under $16,900, B. If not, C.
Reading the grid
- Get the heat loss first, from someone who is not selling the box. OntarioHeatLoss.ca does a CSA F280 report for $395. With it in hand, every contractor quotes the same size, which ends most of the argument.
- Look up every model number yourself. If the outdoor and indoor pair is not on the NRCan list as cold-climate, it is not one, whatever the quote says.
- Treat “included” as “unpriced”. Commissioning, ducts and electrical that are included but not described are a day nobody is planning to spend.
- Price the quotes without the rebate. Compare contract prices. The rebate is a later cheque, if you qualify, and only from a participating contractor with pre-approval.
- Walk away from a door-knocker. A furnace, AC or water heater contract signed at your home without you calling them first is void under the Consumer Protection Act. That is not a price difference.
Questions people ask
How many HVAC quotes should I get?
Two or three on the same written scope. More than three and you are comparing salesmen, not jobs. Send each contractor the same heat loss and the same list of thirteen lines.
Why are heat pump quotes so different?
Because they are rarely for the same job. One includes ducts, electrical, line set and commissioning and one does not; one is a listed cold-climate unit and one is a standard heat pump at $2,000 to $5,000 less; one is quoted in September and one in January.
What should an HVAC quote include?
At minimum: a heat loss, matched model numbers, capacity at design temperature, backup heat, ducts, electrical, line set and pad, condensate, venting for gas, commissioning, warranty and registration, permit and licences, and the rebate as a separate later cheque.
Is the cheapest HVAC quote usually bad?
Usually incomplete rather than bad. The cheap quote most often drops the heat loss and the commissioning, and those are the two lines that decide whether the system works. Fill in the grid; if the cheap one survives it, take it.
Build the comparison column before the quotes arrive
The system cost comparison calculator prices your house five ways at this site’s ranges, which gives you the column every quote is read against. If the quotes are already on the kitchen table, the $99 review is me filling in the thirteen lines for up to three of them, with a written note on what each one is missing.
Sources and further reading
- NRCan Searchable Product List: where you check that the exact outdoor and indoor model numbers on a quote are a listed cold-climate heat pump.
- OntarioHeatLoss.ca services: heat loss reports, full HVAC permit packages and radiant heating design, with prices.
- Your rights when starting home renovations or repairs: Ontario government: written contracts, estimates and the cooling-off rules for work done at your home.
