The nameplate read in full, and the three words no one reads
The photo from this project in Très-Saint-Rédempteur is taken straight on and up close, and it shows something that most installation photos hide: the entire strip of labels affixed beneath the unit is legible. A GREE nameplate with its QR code, a red warning about flammable refrigerant, a certification sticker, and a bilingual label displaying two numerical values.
The second value is what interests us, and especially the parenthetical note that accompanies it. It changes how a serious contractor stores and handles equipment, and almost no one in our industry talks about it.
The context: the smallest five-zone configuration the range allows
Très-Saint-Rédempteur is one of the smallest municipalities in the Vaudreuil-Soulanges RCM, nestled against the foothills of the Rigaud Hills, away from the main routes. The buildings there are old and rural: the house in this project is a village residence divided into small rooms, with electric baseboard heaters, no ductwork, and five separate spaces that the homeowners all wanted to air-condition.
Five zones require the GWHD(42)ND6MO: it is the only unit in the FreeMatch R32 range that accepts five indoor units, as we detailed in our article about the Sainte-Martine installation.
The selected distribution:
- 6,000 BTU/h — kitchen
- 6,000 BTU/h — living room
- 6,000 BTU/h — primary bedroom
- 6,000 BTU/h — second bedroom
- 6,000 BTU/h — office
Total: 30,000 BTU/h of indoor heads on a 42,000 BTU/h compressor, or 71%. This is the smallest five-head configuration the range allows us to build, and the lowest ratio we have published.
The hidden cost of a five-zone project: the number of ports sets the price, not the load
This is the argument we presented to the homeowners before signing, and that we would rather put in writing publicly than leave them to discover it on the invoice.
This house only needs 30,000 BTU/h of indoor capacity. The GWHD(30)ND6MO would be a perfect fit for this load—it is even the most efficient model in the range, with a COP of 4.19 versus 3.9. But it only accepts four indoor units. Increasing the number of rooms from four to five therefore forces the purchase of the largest compressor in the range, not because the house needs 42,000 BTU/h, but because it needs a fifth connection.
The fifth room does not cost the price of one head. It costs the price of one head plus the difference between two compressors.
We therefore priced both scenarios and let the homeowners decide:
- Four heads on a GWHD(30), serving the office from the living room through a door left open—less expensive, more efficient, but one room without its own setpoint;
- Five heads on a GWHD(42), one independent room each—the choice we made.
The technical consequence must be accepted. The system’s modulation floor is 8,870 BTU/h, a property of the entire system rather than a value that can be divided by five. It is therefore higher than the capacity of a single 6,000 BTU/h head, and even two heads calling together are not far below it. The mechanism is explained in our article about the Saint-Chrysostome installation; here, the practical consequence was to configure the zones in pairs rather than let a single small head call on its own, and to keep all the baseboard heaters.
We will not revisit the argument for granularity here—why five small heads are better than three large ones in a highly compartmentalized house—because it is covered in full in our article about the Saint-Télesphore installation.
What is actually written under the appliance
On the bilingual label visible at the bottom of the indoor unit:
- Minimum installation height: 2.5 m (8.2 ft.)
- Minimum room area (for operation or storage): 7.1 m² (76.5 sq. ft.)
Beside it are the red warning about the A2L flammable refrigerant, the statement that the refrigeration piping may be handled only by qualified personnel, the certification label, and the QR code leading to the manufacturer’s documentation.
The two numerical values themselves, and what they imply for choosing which rooms can receive a head, are explained in detail in our article about the Dundee installation, where we recorded them for the first time. We will not explain them again here.
“For operation or storage”: the three decisive words
Here is what has never been written elsewhere. The minimum area of 7.1 m² is not a requirement that applies only to the room where the appliance operates. The wording says “for operation or storage”.
The reason is physical and simple: an appliance containing a slightly flammable A2L refrigerant always contains refrigerant, whether it is running, turned off, or still in its box. A leak in a space that is too small produces the same concentration, whether or not the appliance is operating.
This has three practical consequences that we apply and that a customer should require from any contractor.
How we store appliances before installation
- No appliance containing refrigerant is left in a utility closet, a cramped shed, or a wardrobe while awaiting installation, either at our premises or at the customer's.
- On a job carried out over several days, indoor units not yet installed remain in a large enough and ventilated space, not in the smallest room in the house simply because it is available.
- The appliances remain in their original packaging and upright, which protects both the heat exchanger and the connections.
What this means for a project carried out in two phases
This is the most common scenario, and the one that catches people out. A homeowner has three zones installed this year and keeps two indoor units for next year. Where are those two units stored for twelve months?
Almost always in a storage space—and that is precisely the type of room that fails the 7.1 m² criterion. Our position: if an appliance has to wait, it must wait in a compliant space, or it must not be delivered in advance. Ordering all the equipment twelve months in advance to “lock in the price” is not a good idea when the equipment contains A2L refrigerant and the customer has no compliant place to store it.
The same logic applies to a removed appliance: an old unit taken off a wall still contains refrigerant until it has been properly recovered. It cannot be stored in a closet while waiting for the recycler to come by.
The smallest room governs, and the value depends on the charge
Two brief reminders, since they are covered elsewhere but apply in full here.
On a multi-zone system, the smallest connected room governs the entire A2L assessment, not the average room size. In a village house with small rooms like this one, this is a check done with a tape measure, room by room, before making any promises.
And the required minimum area depends on the system's refrigerant charge: it is not a constant of the model. Adding refrigerant because the lines exceed the factory charge increases the total charge and shifts the threshold. We explored this interaction in our article about the Sainte-Martine installation.
When something goes wrong, the paperwork determines who pays
The second half of this article focuses on what remains of an installation once the technicians have left: the paperwork. It is not the most appealing part of an HVAC project, yet it determines whether a repair costs zero dollars or four figures.
Five identical heads, five serial numbers
On this job, the five indoor units are strictly identical: same capacity, same casing, same appearance. The advantages of a uniform configuration—one filter reference and identical performance from one room to another—are explained in our article about the Saint-Polycarpe installation. There is, however, one drawback that no one mentions, and it is administrative: from the street or on a form, five identical heads are interchangeable. They are not interchangeable at all in a file.
Each head has its own serial number, printed on the nameplate visible at the bottom of the casing, along with a QR code. This number identifies the unit with the manufacturer and distributor—the model number, on the other hand, only identifies a product family.
Our standard practice on multi-zone projects:
- Record the serial number of each head and link it to its part at the time of installation, not at the end of the day.
- Photograph each nameplate before the furniture is put back or the height makes the label unreadable.
- Record the outdoor unit's serial number and the certification number of the installed combination.
- Give this table to the customer with the commissioning documentation, and keep a copy.
What the distributor actually requests
Here is the practical detail that justifies everything above. When a part must be ordered under warranty for a defective head, the request is submitted using the serial number of the affected indoor unit—not that of the outdoor unit and not the model number.
Without the table, the sequence is: a technician travels to the site, opens the five heads one by one to find which one bears the correct number, leaves, orders the part, and returns. Two visits instead of one, to a house located in a municipality where no contractor has a storefront.
The same table is used to register the extended warranty—10 years of coverage on the compressor and parts as standard, 12 years when registered with the distributor with proof of installation—and it is still useful twelve years later, when no one remembers anything anymore.
Water damage and the condensate line
This is by far the most common claim associated with a wall-mounted heat pump. A head produces water all summer; a clogged, improperly sloped, or detached drain spreads it into a wall or ceiling.
What we tell clients, without claiming to speak for their insurer:
- Water damage is settled based on documented facts. The installation date, the contractor’s licence, the commissioning record, and the maintenance history are exactly what a claims adjuster asks for.
- Missing maintenance is the most common weak point. A pan or drain that has not been inspected for six years weakens any claim, regardless of the policy.
- Having the work done by a licensed contractor is more than a formality. An installation that does not comply with regulations is the kind of fact that complicates a claim, both on the manufacturer’s warranty side and on the insurance side.
We documented the complete design of a five-zone condensate system—slopes, supports, and why you should never connect five drains together—in our article on the installation in Les Cèdres.
Theft, hail, and the outdoor unit
An outdoor unit is a 79 kg object, full of copper, left outside and unattended. Three facts we remind people of:
- It is visible from the street in many installations. On an isolated property, positioning it out of sight costs nothing during design if you think of it before pouring the base.
- Hail and falling branches damage the coil fins without triggering an error code: capacity drops, and no one understands why.
- A photo of the new unit, with its serial number clearly visible, taken on the day of installation, is the most useful document there is if the unit disappears or is damaged.
What we suggest checking with your insurer
We are neither brokers nor insurers, and policies vary widely. But three questions are worth asking after installing a multi-zone system:
- Is the main heating source declared on the policy still accurate now that a heat pump has been added to the baseboards?
- Does the insured amount take into account the addition of equipment of this value?
- Are water damages caused by an air-conditioning unit covered, and under what maintenance conditions?
A ten-minute call, once, after commissioning. It is the best effort-to-results ratio of the entire project.
Two observations about the photo
The display reads 17. This is not a comfort setpoint: it is a low setting, the kind left during periods of absence or at the end of a project. Managing a house with intermittent occupancy, including the low setpoint limit of a wall-mounted unit, is covered in our article on the Saint-Anicet installation.
Under the unit, there are also slight tracing marks on the wall. They show that the location was marked with a pencil before drilling — the right method — and remind us that repainting the wall is not part of the HVAC work scope, a point we had clearly made in our article on the Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle installation.
Mistakes to avoid
- Store a new or removed unit containing refrigerant in a cramped room while awaiting installation or recovery.
- Order all the equipment too far in advance without having a compliant place to store it.
- Fail to link each serial number to its component in a system where the heads are identical.
- Assume that the fifth zone costs the price of one head. It requires the largest compressor in the product line.
- Remove the electric baseboards, even though they remain the backup heat and freeze protection.
- Cross a copper line and its interconnection cable between two ports — the verification procedure is described in our article on the Hinchinbrooke installation.
- Forget to register the warranty within the distributor's deadline.
Maintenance
- Every 6 to 8 weeks during the season: rinse the five filters — they are identical, so there is only one method and one replacement reference
- Twice a year: inspect the five pans and drains, and test the drainage
- Annually, per technician: cleaning the outdoor coil, recording pressure and temperature readings, checking terminal tightness, and verifying that the base is level
- Ongoing: clearance around the outdoor unit
Rebates and eligibility
The GWHD(42)ND6MO is ENERGY STAR qualified and certified for cold climates, placing it in the categories generally targeted by Hydro-Québec's LogisVert and Rénoclimat programs. Chauffez vert does not apply here because the home is already heated with electricity.
Two constant caveats: the criteria and amounts for these programs change over time, and we verify eligibility when preparing the file; and the declared certification number must correspond exactly to the combination actually installed, otherwise the application is rejected for an administrative reason. This last point is discussed in our article on the installation in Saint-Anicet.
Our approach in Très-Saint-Rédempteur and Vaudreuil-Soulanges
Commissioning according to our usual protocol: deep vacuum evacuation with a standing pressure-rise test maintained below 500 microns, weighing any additional refrigerant charge, and functional testing of one indoor unit at a time in both modes, with physical verification that air is being supplied to the correct room. The file provided to the homeowners contains the table of the five serial numbers by room, the outdoor unit's serial number, measured line lengths, the weighed charge, startup readings, the circuit number at the panel, and the warranty registration date.
At AirGreen, we install wall-mounted heat pumps, multi-zone systems, central heat pumps, and air conditioners in Très-Saint-Rédempteur, Rigaud, Sainte-Marthe, Saint-Lazare, and Vaudreuil-Dorion, as well as throughout Montreal, Laval, Longueuil, the North Shore, and the South Shore. We hold an RBQ licence, and we serve small municipalities where no contractor is established—which is precisely why we document every unit so carefully.
Before signing a multi-zone quote, ask one simple question: will the list of serial numbers for each room be provided with the invoice. The answer will tell you a great deal about how the contractor works.