Growing an HVAC company in Quebec

The market and its buyers

Montréal, Québec City, Laval, Gatineau, Longueuil, Sherbrooke, Lévis and Saguenay are the largest cities, each with its own competitive landscape.

In 2023, 70% of Quebec households used electricity as their primary heating energy, with natural gas at 5% and wood at 4%, according to Statistics Canada. That shapes everything: heat pumps, electric heating upgrades and cooling are the core, while gas furnace work is a much smaller niche than elsewhere.

Seasonality and climate by stage

Quebec has cold, snowy winters and a long heating season, especially beyond the St. Lawrence lowlands. Summers drive real cooling demand.

• Stage 1 and 2: heat pumps sell year-round, but research peaks before winter and before summer. Content published in late summer and late winter catches buyers early.
• Stage 3: installation capacity becomes the bottleneck when program-driven demand spikes, so booking and scheduling need to keep up with marketing.
• Stage 4: companies expanding between Quebec regions need region-specific pages, because a Saguenay buyer and a Laval buyer face different winters.

Regulators and rules to know

We link to these for reference; confirm requirements with each one directly.

• The Régie du bâtiment du Québec (RBQ) licenses anyone carrying out construction work for others, with the subclasses that match the work.
• The CCQ issues competency certification for construction-industry workers, which affects hiring at every stage.
• The CNESST handles workplace health, safety and compensation.
• The OQLF oversees the Charter of the French Language. French must be clearly predominant in commercial advertising and signage, and since 2025-06-01 non-French trademarks displayed outside premises must be accompanied by French. Websites and social content for Quebec customers must be available in French.

Programs relevant to growth, as of October 2026

• Hydro-Québec's LogisVert program offers grants for qualifying heat pumps, calculated per 1,000 BTU/h of capacity with a higher rate for cold-climate units, up to $6,700, plus support for geothermal systems and other measures. Hydro-Québec says requests are being processed normally despite the federal rebate planned for 2027.
• Rénoclimat changed on 2026-10-01: the pre-work evaluation became optional and new caps apply.
• Chauffez vert, the old provincial aid for moving off oil or propane, took its last applications on 2026-03-31, so remove it from any older conversion pages.

Pages that explain these programs clearly, in French, with links and a "confirm current terms" note, are among the most useful assets a Quebec HVAC company can build.

A Quebec example: French-first, not translated

Here's an invented scenario. A four-truck company in Gatineau runs an English site with a machine-translated French version. Its French pages get traffic but few calls, because the wording reads as foreign and local terms for equipment and programs are wrong.

Rewriting the core service and LogisVert pages in natural Quebec French, written for local buyers, is usually worth more than any new ad campaign at that stage. It also keeps the company on the right side of the language rules.

How we'd approach growth marketing in Quebec

• One truck and crew: a French-first site and Business Profile, reviews from local jobs, and clear heat pump program pages. See the one-truck foundation and crew-stage lead flow.
• Full shop: French content on heat pumps in cold climates, and CRM reporting that tracks program-driven installs separately. See full-shop marketing.
• Multi-city or cross-border: for companies entering Quebec from another province, the licensing and language work comes before the marketing. Our second-city guide covers the sequence.