Furnace repair, replacement and tune-ups in Orléans

Convent Glen and Queenswood Heights were the first subdivisions, built in the 1970s and early 1980s on the slope down to the Ottawa River. The houses there are on their second furnace at least, and that second furnace is often a mid-efficiency unit from the 1990s that has outlived its design. Fallingbrook and Chapel Hill came through the 1980s and 1990s with larger two-storeys, and Avalon filled in from the 2000s onward with builder-grade equipment that is now between ten and twenty years old and starting on igniters, flame sensors and inducer motors.

Orléans has the largest francophone community in Ottawa, and a lot of the houses have been in the same family since they were built, which means the furnace history is known and the maintenance has sometimes been skipped for a decade. A first tune-up after years without one usually turns up a cracked igniter, a loaded blower wheel or a condensate trap full of sludge, and catching those in September is a great deal cheaper than a no-heat call in a cold snap.

The north side of Orléans takes the wind straight off the river, and the exposed two-storeys along the ridge in Convent Glen and Fallingbrook lose heat faster than the same floor plan further inland. We size replacements to a measured heat loss, not the old label, and a two-stage furnace is usually the right fit for the larger homes. Orléans is on Enbridge natural gas throughout.

• Convent Glen and Queenswood Heights: 1970s and 1980s homes, second furnace past its life
• Fallingbrook and Chapel Hill: 1980s and 1990s two-storeys, river wind on the ridge
• Avalon: 2000s and 2010s builder-grade furnaces reaching their first real repairs