Heat Pump and Furnace Repair in Richmond: Stratas, Slab Houses and the Damp Delta Air

What fails in Richmond

Heat pumps run year-round here, cooling in the humid summers and heating in the damp winters, and their outdoor coils sit in air full of cottonwood fluff, wet leaves and, close to the water, salt. A coil that cannot breathe loses capacity, ices in winter and trips faults. Rinsing the coil with a garden hose a few times a year prevents most of it. Fan motors, capacitors and defrost sensors are the common repairs; refrigerant leaks show up as gradual loss of heat.

Furnaces in slab houses live in closets and garages with the return air and the condensate drain in awkward places. Condensate lines block with algae in the mild, wet climate and shut the furnace down. Older mid-efficiency furnaces from the 1990s are at the end of their lives and their parts are scarce.

Stratas: whose equipment, whose ducts

In a Richmond townhouse, the furnace or heat pump in your unit is normally yours to maintain; the flue, the gas line and the ducts may be yours or common property depending on the strata plan and bylaws. In a tower with a central plant, the fan coil in your suite is usually yours and the risers are the strata’s. Read your bylaws, and tell the strata before any work that touches a flue, a gas line or a shared wall, because the strata may require an approved contractor and proof of insurance.

A replacement heat pump on a townhouse needs the strata’s approval for the outdoor unit’s location and noise, and some stratas have a standard model and installer. Ask before you buy.

Who may do the work in BC

Gas furnaces and gas water heaters fall under Technical Safety BC: the contractor must hold a gas licence, the technician a gas fitter certificate, and an installation or major repair needs a permit and inspection. Heat pump refrigerant work must be done by a technician with refrigerant handling certification, and electrical work on the circuit needs a licensed electrical contractor and a Technical Safety BC electrical permit. If you smell gas, leave the building before making any call, then phone FortisBC’s emergency line, 1-800-663-9911, or 911 from outside.

Carbon monoxide alarms belong outside every sleeping area in a home with gas appliances, including townhouses with gas fireplaces.

• Equipment make, model and age
• Whether the home is a strata unit and what the bylaws say
• Outdoor coil condition and last cleaning
• Error code on the furnace board or heat pump
• Current CleanBC and utility rebate terms

Repair or replace, with the rebates counted

A fouled coil, a capacitor or a fan motor on a heat pump under twelve years old is worth repairing; a compressor on an old unit usually is not. A cracked heat exchanger on a 1990s furnace means replacement, and in Richmond’s mild climate the replacement is often a heat pump, which adds the cooling that a furnace cannot. CleanBC, BC Hydro and FortisBC have all offered heat pump rebates with terms that change each year; ask the installer for the current figures in writing and whether they are in the program network.

For a strata unit, get the strata’s written approval of the location and model before the installer orders anything.