Nobody Here Should Be Sold More Furnace Than This City Needs
Cambridge gets a line of its own in the Building Code, and it is a degree milder than the towns either side of us. At 295 metres we are the low ground of the area, down where the Grand meets the Speed.
That one degree is worth money to you. The sum we do on your house lands lower than the same sum one town over, so the furnace we put in is often a size smaller than the one coming out, and smaller costs less to buy and less to run every winter after. It is why we measure your rooms rather than read the label off the old unit. Guess high and you get a furnace that fires in short bursts, burns its igniter out early, and still leaves the back bedroom cold.
There is no building permit to pull for this, which is a fee and a week of waiting you never pay for. Cambridge says so on its own list of work that needs none, in these words: "Replacement of existing forced-air furnace". The gas side is a different desk and that one we carry for you. Our registered fuels contractor does the gas work, new wiring goes to the Electrical Safety Authority, and you chase neither of them.
What Is In the Price, and What Never Gets Added Later
The things people expect to be charged for as extras are already in our number. A price that moves after you agree to it is not a price.
- Your rooms measured one at a time against the minus 18 this city has to cover.
- Your job read against the City's published no-permit list, with the wording shown to you.
- The chimney checked for whatever else vents into it, which matters in a house built before 1961.
- A vent route to daylight that keeps the three feet Enbridge wants clear of the gas regulator.
- The old furnace lifted out, the gas capped, and the metal taken away on our truck.
- The return air side measured, then rebuilt where it chokes the new blower.
- A condensate route agreed with you before anybody cuts into a finished basement.
- Gas work by our registered fuels contractor, and new electrical filed with the Electrical Safety Authority.
- A full heating cycle run, your thermostat set up, and the warranty registered in your name.
Cambridge sits where the Grand meets the Speed, and parts of it are mapped floodplain. On those streets the heating equipment has to sit above the flood level, so we read the mapping before we decide where your furnace goes rather than after.
Three Ways a Furnace Can Run
Just under half the homes in this city were finished by 1980, and their duct runs were drawn for a machine nobody sells now. We fit the furnace to what those ducts can move. The furnace installation page lists the Lennox range we carry, and our guide to right-sizing a furnace shows how we reach the number.
| Furnace type | What you notice | Where it earns the difference |
|---|---|---|
| Single stage | It fires flat out or not at all, so the room swings either side of your setting. | A tight house whose ducts already work. |
| Two stage | It runs on low for most of a Cambridge winter and steps up to full only when it has to. | Most houses here, and the first thing we try when one bedroom never catches up. |
| Modulating | It slides its output up and down by degrees, so you get the temperature you asked for. | A house where the ducts fight you, and anyone who feels every swing. |
Most Cambridge houses land on two stage. It costs a little more than single stage, and it is the one that fixes a bedroom that never catches up.
The People Who Do the Work
The owner, Sina, is still the technician on most driveways, and that is deliberate. The person who sizes your furnace is the person who fits it and the person who picks up the phone next winter. More than ten years of furnace work in this region stands behind that, along with five HomeStars Best of Award wins, which are voted by the customers whose houses we worked in. We are an Authorized Lennox Dealer, so the training and the parts come from the factory rather than off a shelf.
They did a phenomenal job, very prompt and professional. High quality equipment provided at a reasonable price.
JC, CambridgeHomeStars reviewWhat Moves the Price of a Cambridge Furnace
We build the number after we have stood in your basement. Most of it is labour and sheet metal rather than the furnace itself, which is why a price given over the phone is a guess.
If you would rather pay monthly, the financing options page lays out the choices.
| What we look at in your house | What it does to the number |
|---|---|
| The size your house actually needs | Measured properly, the answer often lands under the furnace coming out, and a smaller right-sized one costs less to buy and less to run. |
| What else is on the chimney | In an older house the water heater may share the flue that the new furnace stops using, and sorting that out is work on the day. |
| Where the vent reaches daylight | A condensing furnace takes its own intake and exhaust. A long run, or a wall crowded by the gas regulator, buys more pipe and more labour. |
| How gently the furnace can run | Two stage costs more than single stage, and one that slides up and down costs more again. |
| The return air side | We rebuild a return that cannot feed the new blower. That work is hours rather than parts. |
| Gas load, where the job adds any | When we add or upgrade a gas appliance, Enbridge wants the application in before the work starts. |
| The permit line, usually empty | The City asks for no building permit on a straight replacement, so most quotes here carry no municipal fee. |
How the Job Runs, Start to Finish
We order the furnace after you approve a written price, not before.
You give us the street and two dates
Ring us, or send the form with the year the house went up and the age of the furnace. Those two dates tell us most of what waits in the basement.
We measure to the minus 18
Your technician sizes the furnace to the minus 18 this city has to cover, walks the vent route, and checks what else uses the chimney.
The price arrives in writing
We price it line by line: equipment, capacity, venting and sheet metal. Nothing has to be decoded later.
We fit it and prove it
The old unit goes out on our truck. We set the new furnace, vent it and connect the gas and electrical. A full heating cycle runs before we hand it over.
The Cambridge neighbourhoods we work in
Most people here answer with Galt or Preston or Hespeler rather than with the city name. The newer subdivisions sit north of all three. Tell us which one you are in and we will find you a date.
- Downtown Galt
- East Galt
- Eastview
- Elgin Park
- Glenview
- Lincoln Oaks
- Riverview
- Shades Mills
- Southwood
- St Andrews Hills
- Preston Centre
- Preston Heights
- Blair
- Central Park
- Langs Farm
- Riverside
- Downtown Hespeler
- Blackbridge
- Cambrian Hills
- Centennial
- Hillcrest
- River Flats
- Silverheights
- Beaverdale
- Chilligo
- Kossuth
- Maple Grove
- Royal Oak
Also in Cambridge: central air installation and cold climate heat pump installation, plus every service on our Cambridge HVAC page.
