Installation of a GREE FreeMatch R32 2-Head Heat Pump in Hemmingford (Jardins-de-Napierville RCM)

There are two Hemmingfords, they share the same building, and only one of them regulates heat pumps

Before any technical consideration, here is a check almost nobody makes: do you know which of the two Hemmingford your house is in?

There are two legally distinct municipalities. The Village of Hemmingford, 1.07 km², with 829 residents in the 2021 census. And the Township of Hemmingford, 157.22 km², with 1,995 residents. The village is entirely enclosed within the township—an administrative island in the middle of an agricultural territory one hundred and fifty times larger.

They have two councils, two administrations, two sets of bylaws that do not overlap, and two telephone numbers. They share an address—505 Frontière Street—but not an office: the Village occupies Room 5, while the Township occupies Room 3.

And on the question at hand, they give two opposite answers.

The project at a glance

What the Village states in black and white

The Village of Hemmingford Zoning By-law No. 293, in Chapter 5, “Setbacks and Yards,” Section 5.2, contains a table of uses and structures permitted in yards. On the nineteenth row of this table is an entry titled “Heat pumps and air-conditioning equipment”.

This is rare. Most Quebec bylaws deal with the equipment indirectly, under a general accessory-equipment category. Here, it is named, with four completed columns:

Three things follow from this, and the third is the one nobody anticipates.

The front yard is excluded. No qualification, no exception listed in the table. The accessory elements expressly permitted in the front yard—galleries, verandas, bay windows, integrated chimneys, temporary shelters—do not include any mechanical equipment. For a village house whose façade faces Frontière Street, that immediately rules out the most convenient location.

No screening requirement and no maximum height appears near this provision. We note this as an observation, not a conclusion: the absence of a rule in the section we were able to read does not mean that it is absent from the by-law as a whole.

And there are two numerical constraints pulling in opposite directions. That is the subject of the second part of this article, because this is where the actual feasibility of an HVAC installation in Hemmingford is determined.

What the Township does not say

We searched the Township’s zoning by-law No. 309, both the basic version and the consolidated version incorporating 309-20: the words heat pump, air conditioner, air-conditioning unit, and mechanical equipment do not appear.

The provisions that then apply are the general provisions governing accessory structures:

Section 4.3.1—“Accessory structures are permitted in the rear yard and side yards of the main building.”

supplemented by section 4.2.1, which automatically authorizes anything normally accessory to a principal use, provided the setbacks in Chapter 5 are respected.

Practical result: in the Township, side and rear yards, with no distance specified for the equipment itself. But we do not claim to have read By-law 309 in its entirety—it is a lengthy document, and we stopped reading before the end. We are saying that we found nothing, not that there is nothing.

The permit: two regimes, and a surprising distinction

As for the Village, By-law No. 296 respecting permits and certificates, in section 3.6.1, lists sixteen activities requiring an authorization certificate. Heat pumps and air conditioners are not included. However, the thirteenth item on the list is telling:

“13) any new geothermal system (a system using energy from the ground)”

In other words: geothermal systems require a certificate; air-source heat pumps are not mentioned. That said, section 3.5.1 of the same by-law requires a building permit from “anyone wishing to erect, reconstruct, enlarge, or modify a structure.” Does an outdoor unit on a ground-level base constitute a structure under this by-law? That is a matter of interpretation for the inspector, not for us. We therefore will not publish “no permit required in Hemmingford.”

On the Township side, the general rule is the same, accompanied by a list of minor exempted work — including the “conversion of a central heating system.” The wording refers to a central system, presumably indoor equipment; applying it to an outdoor unit would be an extrapolation. And the Township provides no heat-pump permit form among the roughly fifteen it posts online.

Noise: qualitative on both sides

The Village's By-law No. 339 on nuisances sets no decibel threshold. Section 13 prohibits noise “in a manner that disturbs the peace and quiet of one or more people in the neighbourhood,” and its section 14 — the one under which a noisy heat pump would be challenged — requires the use of quiet equipment where available, or otherwise noise-mitigation devices. Section 17 prohibits construction or repair work from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. on weekdays and from 6 p.m. to 9 a.m. on weekends.

One caveat to note: By-law 339 expressly repeals By-laws 302 and 266, but not By-law 283, an older by-law enforced by the Sûreté du Québec, whose section 3 addresses excessive noise “perceptible beyond the property line.” Two texts may therefore coexist. Check with the municipality before relying on this.

For the Township, we found no by-law on nuisances or noise. Once again: we found nothing, which is not the same as stating that none exists.

The two numbers, and the hours that matter

• Village of Hemmingford — 505 Frontière Street, Office 5 · 450 247-3310
• Hemmingford Township — 505 Frontière Street, Suite 3 · 450 247-2050 · open Monday and Wednesday only, 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.; Friday by appointment

This scheduling detail is not incidental. A project scheduled on a Tuesday in the Township must wait until Wednesday. We take this into account in our timelines.

A two-metre strip: what a maximum does to a property's geometry

Let us return to the Village table's two figures, because they are unusual in nature.

Minimum distance from any lot line: 2 m. This one is standard. It is the classic setback that protects the neighbour.

Maximum distance from any wall of the main building: 2 m. This one is unusual. The by-law does not merely say what you must keep away from — it also says what you are prohibited from keeping away from.

What the overlap of the two produces

Taken together, these two rules do not define a permitted area. They define a strip: a two-metre-wide ribbon pressed against the house, from which everything less than two metres from a lot line must be subtracted.

On a large property, this strip is generous and no one notices. On a village lot—and the Village of Hemmingford covers just 1.07 km² in total—the subtraction becomes significant.

Take a house situated three metres from the side lot line. The permitted strip begins against the wall and ends two metres away; the prohibited zone begins two metres from the line, or one metre from the wall. A one-metre-wide corridor remains. A unit 352 mm deep fits in it—but once the rear intake clearance and service space are added, the space is consumed.

And if the house is situated two metres or less from the side lot line, that façade offers nothing at all: the two restrictions overlap completely.

The options, in the order in which we examine them

1. Change façades. The backyard is permitted and is not subject to the same restriction on most lots. It is the first thing to look at, and it is free.
2. Check which of the two lot lines is actually restrictive, using the location certificate—not the fence. A fence marks use, not a boundary.
3. Mount it on wall brackets. A unit fixed to the wall is, by definition, against the wall: it satisfies the maximum without question. The wall must still be able to support it—and that is where weight matters.
4. Choose a smaller unit, which brings us to the final point.

The legal envelope chose the unit

That is the selection logic used for this project, and it reverses the usual order.

The GWHD(18)ND6MO measures 822 × 550 × 352 mm and weighs 35.5 kg. It is the smallest and lightest in the entire FreeMatch range—for comparison, the GWHD(30) measures 1,020 × 826 × 427 mm and weighs 66 kg, while the GWHD(42) reaches 79 kg. Almost half the depth, and less than half the weight.

Within a two-metre strip, these centimetres matter. And if the chosen solution is a wall-mounted support, 35.5 kg suspended does not pose the same problem as 79 kg—without publishing here any anchoring values, which belong in the manufacturer's manual and, if necessary, with a building professional.

Two 9,000 BTU/h indoor units, totaling 18,000 BTU/h — exactly the rated capacity, in both cooling and heating. We openly note that this is a configuration already published in this series: it is the suitable pairing, not a new development.

A model-specific warning, and a serious one: its factory charge covers only 10 metres — the shortest in the lineup, compared with 30 m for the GWHD(24) and 40 m for the GWHD(30). In a Township country home where the outdoor unit is far from the rooms being served, those ten metres are quickly used up, and each additional metre requires 20 g of R-32, weighed and recorded. A quote that does not specify the actual developed length cannot be compared with another.

Its 900 g charge, the lowest in the lineup, also has a favorable consequence: the minimum room sizes printed on the indoor-unit labels are correspondingly more modest when the circuit is lightly loaded. We explained this mechanism on our Contrecœur page; here, it works in the right direction.

Hemmingford, in a few verified facts

The name comes from Hemingford in the English county of Huntingdonshire. The village was initially called Scriver Corners for nearly three decades, after Frederick Scriver, a Loyalist who settled there around 1800. The township dates back to 1799, the village separated from it in 1878, and the official demonym — Hemmingfordien — dates back to 1986.

The Commission de toponymie itself notes what defines the region: approximately 100,000 apple trees. Hemmingford has been part of Quebec's main apple-growing region since the mid-19th century, and cideries have long been established there. Parc Safari, opened in 1972, is located within the Township. The Mooers–Hemmingford border crossing on Route 219 has operated since 1935, twenty-four hours a day.

At 485 Frontière Street, La Maison Jaune—built before 1815, and an artisanal bakery from 1889 with its two basement ovens—is listed in the Répertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec. Listed, which is neither “cited” nor “classified.”

Mistakes to avoid

• Assume you are in the Village because your address says “Hemmingford.” The Township accounts for 99% of the territory.
• Apply one municipality's rule to the other. They do not have the same rule.
• Read only the minimum two metres and forget the maximum, which is the truly limiting constraint on a small lot.
• Consider the front yard in the Village: it is excluded from the table.
• Rely on the fence instead of the certificate of location.
• Compare two quotes without the actual developed line length, especially for a GWHD(18) with its 10 m precharge.
• Call the Township on a Tuesday.

Rebates and service area

These units are eligible for local rebates, and the AHRI reference numbers above are required by the programs. We support every application for LogisVert, Rénoclimat, and Chauffez vert, recording the reference numbers in the final project file without promising amounts that are not ours to guarantee.

In the Jardins-de-Napierville RCM, we have documented installations in Napierville, Saint-Édouard, Saint-Cyprien-de-Napierville, Sainte-Clotilde, and Saint-Chrysostome. Our teams cover Montréal, Laval, Longueuil, the North Shore, and the South Shore, extending to the border municipalities of southwestern Montérégie.

Why AirGreen

Two municipalities with the same name, in the same building, with opposing rules: this is exactly the kind of situation where a rushed contractor makes a mistake and the homeowner is left to deal with the consequences. At AirGreen, we read the regulations before proposing an installation, quote them without interpretation, call the inspector when the wording is silent or ambiguous, and write down what we were unable to verify rather than filling in the gaps.

For an assessment in Hemmingford—Village or Township—write to us: we measure before making a proposal.