Planning a heating business in British Columbia

The heating mix in British Columbia

BC's homes are split roughly three ways between furnaces, baseboards and everything else. According to Statistics Canada's Table 38-10-0286-01, for 2023:

Inside those systems, 84% of furnace households and 64% of boiler households used natural gas in 2023. Across all homes, gas was the main heating energy for 42% and electricity for 36%. Part of the furnace decline reflects new categories added in 2023, so we treat the trend as real but smaller than the raw numbers suggest.

Competitors and density

BC had 2,933 employer locations in plumbing, heating and air-conditioning in the June 2026 Business Counts, the third-largest provincial total. By our calculation, 60.3% had one to four employees and 311 had 20 or more.

Dividing BC's 1,038,201 residential gas customers at the end of 2025 by those locations gives about 354 customers per location, well below Alberta's ratio. That is our analysis, and plumbers sit in the denominator, but it hints that gas furnace work in BC is shared among more firms per customer.

Seasonality and climate

BC has the flattest heating curve of the gas provinces. By our reading of Statistics Canada's gas distribution table, 68.1% of the province's 2025 residential gas was delivered from November to March, and the peak month was about 6.3 times the lowest.

That average blends very different places. The south coast has mild, wet winters, while the Interior and the North run longer and colder. For a capacity plan, that means coastal crews have a longer shoulder season to sell maintenance and heat pump work, while Interior crews face a sharper winter peak.

Regulators to know

• Technical Safety BC is the body behind gas contractor licensing in BC, and it also covers boilers and refrigeration.
• SkilledTradesBC runs Skilled Trades Certification, which now covers gasfitters, refrigeration mechanics and sheet metal workers among others.
• WorkSafeBC covers workplace safety and compensation.
• Consumer Protection BC handles consumer complaints about businesses.

We link these for reference only; compliance questions go to the regulator.

Programs as of October 2026

• CleanBC Better Homes Energy Savings Program. Income-qualified rebates for heat pumps and related upgrades. The program rules changed for invoices dated on or after 2026-07-06, with some rebates removed and narrower eligibility for some upgrades.
• Home Renovation Rebate Program. Listed on Better Homes BC for households that aren't income-qualified; we have not confirmed current amounts.
• Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program. Under an agreement announced 2026-06-29, BC Hydro is to serve about 6,000 lower-income households with no-cost upgrades and FortisBC about 1,000, including dual-fuel systems.

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How we would approach BC

We would start by drawing your service area tightly and treating each climate zone as its own market. On the coast, the plan usually leans toward heat pumps and maintenance agreements, with furnace replacement held steady. In the Interior, furnace and boiler replacement keep a bigger role, and winter capacity becomes the main constraint.

Marketing follows: separate service pages for each line, Google Business Profiles that reflect real service areas, and paid search budgets weighted to the months each zone can serve. Our growth plan and capacity planning services do this work.

BC clients pay our listed prices plus 5% GST, with provincial sales tax only where it applies to the service; see pricing and the CRA rate table. We are a marketing and consulting service, not a contractor. Two of our BC results, GasBoilers.ca serving 26+ BC communities and BCWide.ca with 3× leads in 90 days, are on our results page.