Heating Repair in Quebec City: Electric Baseboards, Oil Furnaces and the Coldest Big-City Winter in Quebec

Three systems, three licensed trades

Electric baseboards fail simply: a thermostat, a heating element, or a breaker. In Quebec that is electrical work, and it must be done by a licensed master electrician who is a member of the Corporation des maîtres électriciens du Québec, which publishes a member lookup; a handyman is not permitted to replace a baseboard thermostat. Oil and gas furnaces, boilers and radiators belong to heating contractors who are members of the Corporation des maîtres mécaniciens en tuyauterie du Québec, with gas work also needing a certified technician. Every contractor needs a Régie du bâtiment du Québec licence.

Identify what you have before booking: baseboards with a thermostat in each room, a furnace with ducts, radiators fed by a boiler, or a heat pump with wall units. Tell the company which, because they are different trades.

Checks before a no-heat call

For baseboards, check the breaker for that room and the thermostat setting; a room that is cold while the others are fine is almost always one of those two or a failed element. For a furnace, check the thermostat batteries, the furnace switch, the breaker and the filter, then go outside and look at the exhaust and intake pipes: in a Quebec City snowstorm they drift over or ice up and the furnace shuts down as a safety measure. For a heat pump, some frost on the outdoor unit is normal; a coil encased in ice with cool air inside is a fault.

For oil, a furnace that will not start after a delivery or in extreme cold may have a gelled line or an empty tank with a stuck gauge. Do not press the reset button more than once; repeated resets flood the combustion chamber with oil.

• System type and approximate age
• Which rooms are cold
• Breaker and thermostat checked
• Furnace exhaust and intake clear of snow
• Oil level and tank age, if oil

Oil heating: the rules have changed

Quebec has adopted regulations restricting oil-fired heating: new buildings cannot install it, and in existing buildings replacing an oil-fired appliance with another oil-fired one is restricted. When an old oil furnace or boiler fails beyond repair, the replacement will usually be electric, a heat pump or in some buildings gas, and the oil tank comes out. Ask the contractor to explain how the current regulation applies to your building before paying for any oil-side repair beyond a service call.

Old oil tanks are a liability of their own: insurers in Quebec have age and condition requirements, and a leak is an environmental cleanup. Get tank removal quoted with any conversion. Hydro-Québec and provincial programs have helped pay for oil-to-electric conversions; check what is currently offered.

Heat pumps in a Quebec City winter, and getting a fair quote

Cold-climate heat pumps are now common in Quebec City, almost always with electric backup that carries the coldest weeks. Ask any installer for the balance point for your home and make sure the backup is in the quote; a heat pump sized for Montreal will not hold a Quebec City January on its own. Hydro-Québec’s residential programs have offered financial assistance for heat pumps and efficiency upgrades; the terms change, so get current figures in writing.

Check the RBQ licence, the CMEQ or CMMTQ membership and liability insurance before paying a deposit, and ask for the estimate and contract in the language you read. The Office de la protection du consommateur handles complaints about contractors who came to your door or did not honour an estimate.