How We Size Your Furnace, and Why It Comes Out Smaller
An oversized furnace is the most common fault we find in a basement, and you pay for it twice, once when you buy it and again on every cold day. It fires at full output, reaches the thermostat setting in minutes, and shuts off again. Those short bursts wear the igniter out early and still leave the far bedroom cold.
We do not read the old nameplate and order the same output again. Your technician works through the house room by room, counting the windows, the insulation and the places the heat escapes. That figure is usually smaller than the old furnace's output, and a smaller one costs less to buy and less to run.
We handle the paperwork either way. A straight replacement needs no building permit here, but installing or modifying a heating system does, so a change of fuel is a different job. Where a permit applies, the City asks for a heat loss and heat gain calculation from a qualified designer, and that is the sum we run on your house anyway.
What Your Furnace Installation Price Includes
The same eight steps go into every furnace we install, and none of them returns later as an extra charge.
- We measure every room and size the furnace from what we find, not from the old unit.
- We read your job against the City's permit list and tell you in writing where it falls.
- We drain the old furnace, disconnect it, lift it out, and cap the gas line properly.
- We size and route the new venting and finish the opening in the exterior wall.
- We measure the return air and rebuild the sheet metal where it restricts the blower.
- We take the condensate to a proper drain, which is what protects a finished basement.
- We set the gas pressure and prove the burner on a live cycle before we leave.
- We set up the thermostat with you and file the warranty in your name.
Please tell us on your first call if the air conditioner is the same age. The cooling coil sits in the box above the furnace, so a single visit covers both and you pay for that sheet metal once.
The Three Ways a Furnace Can Run
In an older house the ductwork was designed for a furnace nobody builds now, and what it can carry decides this choice. We size the furnace to the air those ducts can move, and we tell you on the first visit which type suits your home. You can read our comparison of single stage, two stage and variable speed furnaces before we visit, and how we right-size a furnace explains the arithmetic behind the size we quote.
| How the furnace runs | What a winter feels like indoors | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Single stage, one output | It runs at full output whenever it lights, so a room overshoots your setting and then cools below it again. | A sound house whose ducts already move the air, when the budget is the deciding factor. |
| Two stage, low and high | It runs on the low output for most of the winter and uses the high one when the night demands it. | The usual answer here, and the one for a back bedroom that lags behind. |
| Modulating, adjusting as it runs | It raises and lowers its output in small steps, so the room holds the temperature you set. | Long duct runs, and homeowners who notice every swing in temperature. |
The vent route, the return air and the commissioning decide what you notice through the winter. The efficiency number printed on the carton matters less than buyers expect.
Who Installs Your Furnace, and Who Answers Afterwards
Sina owns the business and is the technician on most of these installations, which is deliberate. The company has worked on gas heating here for over a decade, and homeowners have voted it a HomeStars Best of Award winner five times.
In an older house the venting, the return air and the size are all judgement calls. We would rather one person make all three, because that person has to come back and answer for them.
Our Furnace Stopped working and We call Local Heating and Cooling, Sina arrived that night and by the end of the next day we had a new Furnace. Sina is very professional, explained everything that he did and found. There was no surprises and he did excellent job. I would highly recommend Local Heating and cooling for all your heating and cooling needs.
Clayton CornishGoogle reviewWhat Sets the Price of Your Installation
Your quote prices each finding on its own line, because one figure at the door tells you nothing. On most of these jobs the furnace is the smaller part of the total and the house accounts for the rest.
Our financing options page explains how to pay monthly.
| What the visit finds | How it affects your price |
|---|---|
| The size your rooms actually need | It usually comes out below the furnace we are removing. A smaller furnace costs less on the invoice and less every winter after that. |
| Which of the three types you choose | The same basement produces three different prices, and the type that runs most gently costs the most to buy. |
| The chimney, and anything else venting into it | The chimney comes out of service, so the new exhaust needs its own route out through a wall. That route costs more when the only clear wall is at the far end of the basement. |
| The return air duct | Cutting and rebuilding sheet metal on site costs hours of labour, and a return that cannot feed the blower limits whatever furnace sits beneath it. |
| The gas supply and the electrical panel | This line stays small when both have spare capacity. A long new gas run, or a panel with no spaces left, adds to it. |
| The City fee, usually nothing | A like-for-like replacement needs no permit here, so most quotes show nothing under that heading. Where a permit applies, the fee starts at $140 and appears on its own line. |
| Anything else fitted while the basement is open | A humidifier, a better filter housing or a modern thermostat costs far less fitted now than on a second visit. |
How a Furnace Installation Runs, Step by Step
We order nothing until the written price is in your hands and you have picked the date.
Tell us which rooms never warm up
Call us or send the form. We need the age of the furnace, the rooms that stay cold in winter, and whether anything else is still venting into the chimney.
We measure the house and ask the City
Your technician measures every room and follows the venting and the ductwork. We ask the building department about the permit ourselves, so you never have to phone them.
You get the price in writing
Your quote shows the output, the vent route, any sheet metal, the make and model, and the City fee if a permit applies. Every line is named and priced.
Installation day, and the handover
The old furnace goes out on our truck. The new one goes in with its own venting, and we reconnect the gas and the electrical circuit. We run a complete heating cycle with you before we leave. Most of these jobs take one day.
The parts of Stratford we work in
People here give you a street rather than a neighbourhood, so that is how we work. A brick house around John Street South needs a different furnace job from a new build at Coventry on McCarthy Road, and we do both. Tell us your street and we will send a technician who has worked on it.
- Downtown Stratford
- Avon Ward
- Romeo Ward
- Hamlet Ward
- Falstaff Ward
- John Street South
- Cobourg Street
- Water Street
- William Street
- Romeo Street North
- North Pointe Estates
- Verona Village
- Devon Street
- Mornington Street
- Huron Street
- O'Loane Avenue
- Avon West
- McCarthy Road
- Coventry
- Queensland
- Lorne Avenue
- Dufferin Park
- Erie Street
- Avondale
- The Fields
- Forest Road
We also install these in Stratford: heat pump installation and central air conditioning. Our Stratford HVAC page lists everything we do here.
