Strategy sessions for HVAC owners in British Columbia

Two climates, two business calendars

The southwest coast around Vancouver and Victoria has mild, wet winters, while the Interior and the North face much colder and longer heating seasons. That split shapes the business more than most owners realise.

On the coast, the heating peak is gentler, so a company's year can be less lopsided, and agreement visits can be spread across more of the calendar. Owners who also sell cooling should check their own call history to see how big the summer has become. In Kamloops, Prince George or the Kootenays, the heating season is longer and harder, the summer quieter, and the drive between jobs often much longer.

What it means in a session: a coastal company and an Interior company with the same revenue need different price structures. Drive time is a bigger line in the Interior, which pushes up the true cost of a repair call. The pricing and margin session builds that into every job type.

A split fuel mix

According to Statistics Canada, 42% of BC households used natural gas for their main heating system in 2023, and 36% used electricity. Few provinces are as evenly divided.

For an owner, that means two customer bases with different needs. Gas customers produce furnace and boiler repairs and replacements; electric customers are often the strongest prospects for heat pumps. Ali often asks BC owners to split revenue by fuel type as well as job type, because the growth and the margins rarely sit in the same place.

Programs to watch, as of October 2026

The province's Energy Savings Program offers income-qualified rebates for heat pumps and related upgrades. As of October 2026, invoices dated on or after 6 July 2026 fall under new requirements: some rebates were removed and some upgrade paths are now limited to certain income levels or home types. Confirm the current rules with Better Homes BC before quoting any figure to a customer.

On the federal side, the National Heat Pump Rebate announced in October 2026 hadn't opened as of this writing. Customers who hear about it may delay decisions while they wait.

What it means in a session: rebate changes can move demand overnight. Ali helps owners avoid building a marketing budget around a single program, and plan messaging that still works if the rules shift again. The marketing budget session covers how to test that.

Regulators to know

Technical licensing and safety matters sit with Technical Safety BC, which covers gas, electrical, boilers and refrigeration among other areas. Workplace safety and workers' compensation sit with WorkSafeBC. Ali doesn't advise on either; he links them so owners can go straight to the source.

The BC business mix, and how Ali approaches it

BC's largest municipalities include Vancouver, Surrey, Burnaby, Richmond and Kelowna. Metro Vancouver is crowded with HVAC companies competing for the same searches and the same technicians. Outside the big centres, companies tend to be smaller, more reliant on referrals, and more exposed when a key person leaves.

Ali's own HVAC work sits partly in BC. GasBoilers.ca, a gas-boiler division built for CANRO Heat, serves 26+ BC communities, and BCWide.ca tripled its leads in 90 days. The lesson he takes into sessions isn't the tactic but the structure: a focused offer, a defined service area and measured results.

Common BC session topics:

• Metro Vancouver: cost per booked job in a crowded search market, and whether to narrow the service area
• Interior and North: pricing drive time properly, and filling the summer with agreement visits
• Island and coast: building a heat pump line without abandoning the gas customers who pay the bills
• Everywhere: finding and keeping technicians, which feeds the hiring and owner-time session

Next step

If you run an HVAC company anywhere in BC, call, text or email Ali with your city, your truck count and the decision you're weighing. You can also start with the owner numbers sheet, or compare regions on the areas page.