The house comes first, then the equipment

Caledonia has three kinds of house, and each one has different equipment in the basement. The oldest homes around Edinburgh Square and Caithness Street were built for wood or coal and converted later. A technician there expects worn boilers and radiators, cramped retrofitted ductwork and a chimney that may need a liner when the equipment changes. The 1960s houses north of the Grand River, around Shetland Street, usually started with a standard-efficiency gas furnace vented into the chimney. The newer homes in Avalon have high-efficiency condensing furnaces with plastic side-wall vents, and sealed shells with mechanical ventilation. Knowing which house you live in tells the technician where to look first.

A visit starts with what the system is doing and when it started. The technician tests it, finds the fault and shows you what failed. You get the price in writing and decide before any part is fitted. If the furnace is young and the fault is small, repair it. If it is old and the failure is major, replacement usually makes more sense, and you see both numbers. A cracked heat exchanger is not left running, because it can let carbon monoxide into the air the furnace moves through the house. See furnace repair.

A replacement is sized to the house and its ducts, not to the label on the old unit. When a 1960s furnace is swapped for a side-wall vented model, the water heater can be left alone in an oversized chimney, where it may condense and draft poorly. The venting is checked, and a liner is advised where one is needed. Where the original ducts are too small for central air, a ductless system or a heat pump may fit better. Gas appliances are installed to the CSA B149.1 installation code. Work is performed by TSSA-certified gas technicians.

Parts of Haldimand County are still off the gas network, and homes there heat with other fuels. For those houses, a cold-climate or hybrid heat pump is worth pricing, and current rebates are checked before you decide. The Ontario Fire Code requires a working carbon monoxide alarm next to each sleeping area in a home with a fuel-burning appliance, a fireplace or an attached garage, so check yours before the heating season. Seasonal maintenance covers what new sealed homes tend to miss: condensate lines, vent terminals and ventilator filters.