Updated July 2026 · Modeled market estimates, not quotes
Oshawa & Durham Region HVAC Cost & Demand Data (2026)
What Durham homeowners actually ask us for, when demand peaks, and modeled 2026 install cost ranges — with the methodology and caveats spelled out.
We’re Fortis Heating & Air Conditioning, a local HVAC company serving Oshawa and the wider Durham Region. We built this page because the “average HVAC cost” numbers online almost never reflect what Ontario equipment and labour actually run in 2026 — and they never show their work. So here’s ours: modeled planning ranges you can budget against, the real demand patterns we see in search and in our own customer inquiries, and a straight answer on which rebates you can actually claim this year. Where a number is measured from our own data, we say so. Where it’s modeled, we say that too. Nothing here is a quote — for a real number for your home, the on-site assessment is the source of truth.
- 30.9% Furnace work is the single largest reason customers reach out to us — nearly 1 in 3 contacts. 29 of 94 classified customer items
- 45.7% of contacts are about putting in something new — a new install or a full replacement — more than double the 20.2% that are repairs. 43 of 94 items (vs. 19 repair)
- 42.3% of our reviews specifically call out how fast we responded — a recurring trust signal, not a one-off. 33 of 78 reviews
- 63× jump in monthly heat-pump search interest in our area — far faster than furnace or AC. This is search interest, not jobs booked. 80/mo avg (spring 2025) → 5,021 (Jun 2026), Google impressions
Search demand in our area, month by month
Monthly Google impressions for furnace/heating, AC/cooling, and heat-pump searches across Fortis's territory — Mar 2025 through Jun 2026, plus a partial July. Impressions measure how often people in our area searched these terms — they are not jobs booked.
Two honest takeaways. First, all three categories step up together in spring 2026 — furnace/heating roughly quadrupled off its year-ago baseline and AC more than doubled, so this reads like a real demand wave, not a heat-pump-only story. Second, heat-pump search interest grew far faster than the rest: from about 80 impressions a month in spring 2025 to 5,021 in June 2026 (~63×), versus 4.5× for furnace and 2.3× for AC. That said, heat pumps are the smallest category in what customers actually call and review us about — the search interest is real, but it hasn’t yet become booked jobs. Clicks to our site on these broad terms are still near zero, which is exactly why we built this page.
View data table
| Month | Furnace / heating | AC / cooling | Heat pump |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 2025 | 5,606 | 4,269 | 106 |
| Apr 2025 | 5,990 | 4,456 | 59 |
| May 2025 | 7,608 | 6,047 | 78 |
| Jun 2025 | 6,398 | 5,177 | 77 |
| Jul 2025 | 9,478 | 7,628 | 73 |
| Aug 2025 | 11,230 | 8,492 | 135 |
| Sep 2025 | 5,226 | 4,325 | 46 |
| Oct 2025 | 4,170 | 3,958 | 25 |
| Nov 2025 | 4,334 | 3,431 | 37 |
| Dec 2025 | 5,624 | 4,886 | 183 |
| Jan 2026 | 5,871 | 5,198 | 155 |
| Feb 2026 | 4,788 | 3,590 | 190 |
| Mar 2026 | 14,329 | 6,240 | 2,133 |
| Apr 2026 | 19,839 | 9,528 | 2,951 |
| May 2026 | 24,275 | 12,240 | 4,816 |
| Jun 2026 | 28,920 | 11,659 | 5,021 |
| Jul 2026 (partial) | 6,982 | 2,559 | 1,177 |
| 16-month total | 163,686 | 101,124 | 16,085 |
Source: Google Search Console (sc-domain:fortisheating.com), impressions. 16-month total covers Mar 2025–Jun 2026 and excludes the partial July stub.
What customers actually contact us about
Read from 94 of our own first-party items — 78 reviews (2019–2026) and 16 genuine form messages (Mar–Jun 2026). Counts are the honest unit here; percentages are shares of all 94.
By type of system
By kind of job
Put the job kinds together and the pattern is clear: new-equipment demand outweighs repair by more than 2 to 1 — 43 new-install-or-replacement contacts versus 19 repairs. Furnace is the single biggest system category (29), just ahead of AC (20). Smaller service categories (heat pump, water heater, tune-ups) each fell below our 5-item reporting floor and are combined into “Other services” rather than shown individually. We don’t publish a city breakdown from this data — reviews almost never name a city, so any per-city count would be too small to be meaningful.
View data table
| Category | Count | Share of 94 |
|---|---|---|
| System — Furnace / heating | 29 | 30.9% |
| System — General / unspecified | 26 | 27.7% |
| System — AC / cooling | 20 | 21.3% |
| System — Other (combined small categories) | 8 | 8.5% |
| System — Gas line | 6 | 6.4% |
| System — Ductwork / IAQ | 5 | 5.3% |
| Job — New install | 27 | 28.7% |
| Job — General / unspecified | 25 | 26.6% |
| Job — Repair | 19 | 20.2% |
| Job — Replacement | 16 | 17.0% |
| Job — Maintenance | 7 | 7.4% |
How old was the equipment before it got replaced?
Only 4 of our 94 items happened to mention the age of the old system — far too few to call a “typical” lifespan. We share them as individual stories, not as a statistic, because the spread is genuinely striking.
- 35 yrsForm message · Apr 2026
- 10 yrsReview · May 2021
- 5 yrsForm message · Apr 2026
- 2 yrsForm message · Apr 2026
The honest read: replacement calls come from both ends of the age curve. We’ve seen a furnace soldier on for 35 years before giving out, and we’ve seen equipment need attention just 2 years in. With only 4 data points, this is colour, not a lifespan claim — the age signals in the “when to replace” guidance below are the better planning reference.
What HVAC rebates can you actually get in Ontario right now?
We verified every figure below against the program pages on July 10, 2026. Rebate programs change often — treat these as a starting point and always check the current program status before you count on any amount. We can’t guarantee your eligibility; the program administrator makes that call.
| Program | Status (Jul 2026) | Heat pump — gas home | Heat pump — non-gas home | Furnace |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Renovation Savings (Enbridge Gas / Save on Energy) | Active homeowner applications open; contractor registration paused | Up to $2,000 air-source / $3,000 ground-source | Up to $7,500 air-source / $12,000 ground-source | No direct rebate |
| HER+ (Enbridge, legacy) | Closed to new applicants since Feb 2024; wind-down ended Dec 31, 2025 | Up to $6,500 — existing enrollees only | Not listed | |
| Canada Greener Homes Grant | Closed to new applicants since Oct 1, 2025 | Not available to new applicants | ||
| Canada Greener Homes Loan | Closed funding fully committed (NRCan) | Not available to new applicants | ||
The honest bottom line for a new Fortis customer today: the only rebate you can currently claim is through Home Renovation Savings, and only for a heat pump — there is no direct rebate on a gas furnace. And the widely-quoted “$7,500–$12,000” number that shows up on a lot of blogs only applies to homes that don’t currently heat with gas. Since most of our customers heat with gas, the realistic figure is the $2,000–$3,000 tier. Three other well-known programs — HER+ and both Canada Greener Homes options — have closed to new applicants, so we don’t want anyone budgeting around money that isn’t there.
Sources (retrieved Jul 10, 2026): Home Renovation Savings — Heat Pumps; Enbridge Gas — HER+; NRCan — Canada Greener Homes Loan. Program terms and amounts can change without notice — confirm the current status directly with the administrator before relying on any figure.
Modeled 2026 install cost ranges for Durham Region
| System / service | Modeled range (CAD) | Public basis & main cost drivers |
|---|---|---|
| High-efficiency furnace | $3,500–$7,500 | Public AFUE-tiered gas-furnace price bands + Ontario forced-air install-labour norms. Drivers: AFUE rating, home size, venting, ductwork condition. |
| Central air conditioner (2–3 ton) | $3,800–$7,000 | Public SEER2-tiered condenser price bands + regional AC install-labour norms. Drivers: SEER2 rating, tonnage, line-set/pad, electrical. |
| Cold-climate heat pump | $6,000–$14,000 | Public cold-climate heat-pump equipment ranges (NRCan-listed classes) + Ontario install norms. Drivers: capacity, back-up heat, single vs. multi-zone. |
| Tankless water heater | $3,500–$6,500 | Public tankless unit price bands + Ontario gas/venting install-labour norms. Drivers: gas-line/venting upgrades, flow rate, relocation. |
| Gas hot water tank (40–50 gal) | $1,600–$3,200 | Public tank-unit price bands + standard install-labour norms. Drivers: tank size, venting type, code updates. |
| Custom ductwork | $2,500–$8,000+ | Regional sheet-metal material + labour norms for residential duct work. Drivers: layout complexity, baseboard-to-forced-air conversion. |
| New gas line run | $500–$2,000 | Regional licensed-gasfitter labour + materials norms. Drivers: distance from source, finishes to restore. |
| Maintenance plan (monthly) | $15–$30 | Typical Ontario residential HVAC maintenance-plan pricing. Drivers: systems covered, visit frequency. |
Why publish modeled ranges at all if they aren’t our quotes? Because when we looked, the national “average cost” numbers online rarely reflect Ontario 2026 equipment and labour, and never explain why two homes get different prices. The last column is the honest part: the drivers listed there are what actually move your number. For a real figure, book an on-site assessment — that’s the only source of truth.
How we put this page together
What’s real (our own data)
94 classified first-party customer items:
- 78 customer reviews
- 16 genuine homeowner form messages
Plus 16 months of Google Search Console demand data for our own domain, and rebate figures verified against each program’s own page.
The time periods
- Reviews: Sep 1, 2019 – Jun 24, 2026 (a ~7-year archive)
- Form messages: Mar 25 – Jun 7, 2026 (a narrow recent window)
- Search demand: Mar 2025 – Jun 2026 (16 full months) + a partial July
- Rebates: verified Jul 10, 2026
What’s modeled (not measured)
Every dollar figure in the cost table and the seasonal pattern are modeled from public Ontario 2026 equipment and labour norms. We hold zero Fortis quote or invoice pricing records in this dataset — so no price on this page is an actual Fortis quote, and none is a guarantee.
How we read the customer items
Each review and form message was read and sorted by an automated classifier into what the person wanted (the system, the kind of job) — nothing was left unclassified across the 6 classification passes. Because this is a small dataset (94 items), we lead with raw counts, not percentages; any category with fewer than 5 items is combined into “Other” rather than shown on its own, and the replacement-age stories (only 4 items) are shared as individual colour, never as a statistic.
What we left out — and why no city breakdown
We started with 110 raw items (78 reviews and 32 form submissions) and removed 16 before counting: 15 form submissions that weren’t genuine homeowner inquiries and 1 solicitation. That leaves 94. Those 94 do include 5 reviews that were a star rating with no written comment — they count toward volume and timing, but a star rating with no written text contributes nothing to the system or job-type categories. We also do not publish a city-by-city breakdown: reviews almost never name a city (about 1 in 73), so 94.7% of items carry no reliable location — any per-city count would be far too small to report honestly.
What’s still missing
Two honest gaps. First, we have no invoice or estimate pricing data in this set, which is why the cost ranges are modeled rather than measured. Second, our genuine form-message record only reaches back to March 2026 — a ~2.5-month window against a 7-year review archive — so the “what people ask us” and replacement-age figures are a recent, small snapshot, not our full history. We’d rather flag both than paper over them.
How to cite this page
Fortis Heating & Air Conditioning. “Oshawa & Durham Region HVAC Cost & Demand Data (2026).” Based on 94 classified first-party customer items — 78 reviews (Sep 2019–Jun 2026) and 16 genuine form messages (Mar–Jun 2026) — plus 16 months of Google Search Console demand data (Mar 2025–Jun 2026) and Ontario rebate figures verified July 2026. fortisheating.com/oshawa-hvac-cost-data/
If you’re a journalist, researcher, or fellow contractor and want to reference these figures, please link back to this page and keep the sample size and time period attached to any number you quote.
Frequently asked questions
What is this data, and how big is it?
It’s what we learned from reading 94 of our own customer items — 78 reviews going back to 2019 and 16 genuine homeowner form messages from spring 2026 — alongside 16 months of Google search-demand data for our area and Ontario rebate amounts we verified in July 2026. It’s a deliberately small, honest first-party dataset, not a national survey.
What do most people contact Fortis about?
Furnace work is the single biggest category — 30.9% of contacts (29 of 94). Overall, 45.7% of contacts are about putting in something new, a new install or a full replacement (43 of 94), which is more than double the 20.2% that are repairs (19). AC/cooling is the next-largest system category after furnace.
Are the cost ranges on this page a quote from Fortis?
No. Every dollar figure is a planning range modeled from public Ontario 2026 equipment and labour norms — we hold zero of our own quote or invoice pricing records in this dataset. Nothing here is an offer, estimate, or guarantee of price. For a real number, book an on-site assessment.
What HVAC rebates can I actually get in Ontario in 2026?
As of July 2026, the only program open to new applicants is Home Renovation Savings, and only for a heat pump — there’s no direct rebate on a gas furnace. If your home currently heats with gas (most of our customers do), that’s up to $2,000 air-source / $3,000 ground-source. The larger $7,500–$12,000 figure only applies to non-gas homes. HER+ and both Canada Greener Homes programs have closed to new applicants, so always check a program’s current status before you count on it.
Is heat-pump demand really growing?
In search interest, yes — heat-pump searches in our area grew about 63× between spring 2025 and June 2026, far faster than furnace or AC. But that’s search impressions, not booked jobs: heat pumps are still the smallest category in what customers actually call and review us about. It’s a real trend worth planning for, not a claim about how many we install.
When should I think about replacing my furnace or AC?
As an industry rule of thumb — not from our own measured data — a furnace often runs about 15–25 years and central AC about 15–20, with rising bills, short-cycling, or delayed ignition as warning signs. In our own data we’ve seen a furnace last 35 years and other equipment need attention far sooner — so age is only a signal. A maintenance visit or on-site assessment is the real way to know.
Related pages
Want a Real Number for Your Home?
Call Fortis Heating & Air Conditioning at (289) 688-4822 or book an on-site assessment. We’ll give you an honest, written estimate for your Oshawa or Durham Region home — no modeled ranges, just your number.