Choosing a heating system looks like a long list of options, and most of that list is not actually open to you. Your house, your budget and how long you are staying rule out most of it before a single quote arrives. These five questions do that narrowing quickly, and they are the same ones our advisors ask on a first visit.
1. Are you renovating or building? This is the question that changes everything else. In a renovation you are usually working with what the house already has, and the practical move is to build on the existing distribution rather than tear it out. In a new build the field is genuinely open, and decisions made on paper cost a fraction of what they cost once the walls are closed. If you are building, settle the heating before the framing.
2. What is heating the house now, and how does the heat move around it? Distribution matters more than most people expect, and it is the first thing our advisors look at. A house with ductwork can take a central heat pump straightforwardly, because the ducts are already there, and it can equally take a furnace or both. A house heated room by room has no distribution at all, which points toward wall-mounted units or toward adding ducts, and adding ducts to a finished house is its own project. A house with a working furnace rarely needs to lose it: pairing it with a heat pump is usually the better move. Knowing which of those three you are means two thirds of the answer is already decided.
3. How big is the house, and how well is it sealed? Size and insulation together set the capacity you need, and the calculation is a real one. In Canada it follows CSA standard F280-12, which is what a proper contractor uses instead of a rule of thumb. Both directions hurt: an undersized system never catches up in January, and an oversized one short-cycles, dehumidifies poorly in summer and wears out early. Insulation and air sealing also come first in sequence, because improving them often reduces the size of the system you have to buy.
4. What do you want it to cost to run, not just to buy? These are two different questions and only one of them shows up on the quote. A heat pump delivers roughly two to four units of heat for every unit of electricity it draws, where resistance heating can only ever deliver one, and that gap is what shows up on the bill every month for fifteen years rather than once on the invoice. A furnace sits differently again: what it costs to run follows the price of the fuel rather than the efficiency of the machine, which is why an oil furnace and a gas furnace of identical efficiency cost very different amounts to operate. Our comparison of the most economical methods of home heating puts numbers to it, and efficient equipment also qualifies for government rebates.
5. How long do you plan to stay? A system that pays for itself over twelve years is a good decision if you are staying twenty and a different decision if you are selling in three. This is the question that most often separates geothermal from an air-source heat pump for an otherwise suitable house. It is worth answering honestly at the start rather than discovering it halfway through a quote.
So what are your actual options? For a house in the Montreal area the realistic list is short. An air-source heat pump, central if you have ducts or wall-mounted if you do not: two to four units of heat per unit of electricity, and it air conditions in July. A furnace, electric, natural gas or oil: the thing a furnace does that a heat pump does not is deliver full heat output at any outdoor temperature, which is why it remains the backbone of a ducted house here. Bi-energy: a heat pump for most of the winter with the furnace taking the coldest hours, which is what Hydro-Québec’s Rate DT is built around, with a switchover sensor they supply that hands the work over at −12 °C or −15 °C depending on your region. And geothermal where the lot allows it. If you are still on oil, replacing that furnace is usually the first move, whatever you choose next. Our guide to choosing an electric furnace covers that option in detail.
A note on what is actually greener here. You will still read that electric heating is the cheap but less responsible option. That describes a grid running on coal or gas. Quebec’s grid is roughly 94% hydro and over 99% renewable, so electricity here is already the low-carbon choice, and the environmental question becomes how much of it you use rather than what fuel you burn. That is exactly what a heat pump improves. Wood remains a Quebec option, but it is a supplement rather than a heating system, and municipal bylaws in Montreal and several suburbs restrict wood-burning appliances, so check yours before counting on one.
Answer those five and the shortlist is usually two options, not ten. Talk to one of our advisors and we will work through them against your actual house rather than a category.
