Vancouver Island's east coast
How a Heat Pump Job Gets Scoped Here
Ladysmith Heat Pumps sizes equipment from a room-by-room heat loss calculation and checks the electrical service with a CEC Rule 8-200 load calculation before quoting. The electrical permit comes from Technical Safety BC, and rebate registration with the CleanBC Energy Savings Program happens before install, because the approved amount — up to $16,000 — is deducted from the invoice rather than claimed back.
Heat pumps are sold on rebate headlines and bought on sizing. What follows is the order the work actually happens in, and what this operation does not claim.
Sizing before selling
Equipment selection is the last decision, not the first. Selection follows a room-by-room heat loss calculation that accounts for insulation, window area, air leakage and orientation — because two houses of identical floor area on the same street routinely need different systems.
An oversized system short-cycles, wearing the compressor and never settling into its efficient range. An undersized one runs continuously and hands off to backup electric heat, producing the hydro bill a heat pump is meant to avoid.
Square-foot rules of thumb come from furnace sizing, where oversizing is tolerated. Applied to a heat pump they produce equipment that costs more and performs worse.
The electrical check, done properly
The most common unnecessary line on a heat pump quote is a panel upgrade added defensively. A CEC Rule 8-200 load calculation settles whether one is required, and many 200-amp services carry a heat pump with capacity to spare. Some 100-amp services do too.
Where an upgrade genuinely is needed it adds $2,000 to $5,000, and households switching off fossil fuel can claim up to $5,000 of electrical service upgrade support through CleanBC.
The electrical permit itself comes from Technical Safety BC, and where a contractor is hired the contractor applies on the owner's behalf.
Rebates handled at the front, not the end
The CleanBC Energy Savings Program is income-tested and paid by deduction from the contractor's invoice. That mechanism only works if the contractor is registered with the program before the work happens.
The practical consequence is that eligibility gets confirmed at the start of a project rather than at the end. A household qualifying for $16,000 that hires an unregistered installer receives nothing, and no correction is available afterward.
Households switching from electric baseboards have a second stream — BC Hydro funds that conversion directly at up to $5,000 — which stacks with whatever CleanBC amount applies.
What this operation does not claim
There are no customer reviews on this site, because none have been collected in a form that could be attributed honestly. There are no team photographs, no founding year, and no award badges, for the same reason.
Rebate figures are quoted as published and dated, with the Better Homes BC energy coach line, 1-844-881-9790, named as the independent source. The amounts are income-tested and have already been revised upward once, so any number here is a snapshot rather than a promise.
There is no email address. The contact channels on this site are the ones that are actually monitored, and an inbox nobody watches is worse than no inbox — a lead sent there simply disappears.
More on how the work gets scoped sits in how the numbers are built, and the full service list is at the rebate and permit path in full.
Sizing, electrical and rebate band all get settled before equipment is ordered. Send the property details and get a system quote with the assumptions written down.