Installation of a 5-head GREE FreeMatch R32 multi-zone heat pump in Rivière-Beaudette (Vaudreuil-Soulanges RCM)

Three kilometres from Ontario: the unit you buy on the other side is not installed on the same side

At AirGreen, projects in Rivière-Beaudette raise a question we almost never hear in Longueuil or Laval, and that comes up here with every other quote: “I saw the same unit for less in Ontario. Will you install it if I buy it?”

It is a legitimate question in a municipality located on the shore of Lake Saint-François, where the Beaudette River flows into the St. Lawrence River and Highway 20 reaches the border to become Ontario's 401. Residents shop on both sides of the line, and HVAC equipment inevitably becomes part of the comparison. The answer is more interesting than a simple yes or no, and it deserves to be written out in full.

Here, then, is the project — a GREE FreeMatch R32 five-head multi-zone wall-mounted heat pump — and, along with it, the regulatory side of the trade that almost no one puts in writing.

The project: five small zones in a lakeside house

The property is a modestly sized village house heated by electric baseboards, without a duct network, with five relatively small enclosed spaces rather than one large open area.

The outdoor unit is the GWHD(42)ND6MO — the only one in the lineup that accepts five indoor units — AHRI certification 214931590 for non-ducted, 214931596 for ducted, and 214931600 for mixed installations. MCA 30 A, maximum protection 45 A, 2,700 g of factory-installed R32, 79 kg, 63 dB(A).

The indoor total represents 93% of the compressor's rated capacity. We will not repeat the explanation of intentional undersizing here; it is covered in detail in our Beauharnois and Pointe-Fortune articles. Suffice it to say that in a house made up of small rooms, no room warranted more than 9,000 BTU/h, and a system where no head is ever deprived is better than a system that is oversized on paper.

The five runs total 54 metres of developed length, four metres beyond the 50-metre factory charge: 80 g of R32 added and weighed, recorded in the file. The length-budgeting method is explained in our Varennes article.

Buying the unit elsewhere: what happens next

Four consequences, in the order in which they hit.

The warranty follows the distribution network, not the purchase invoice

This product line is covered for 10 years, with 2 additional years conditional on registering the product with the distributor, with proof of installation. These two conditions are set out by the manufacturer and are not merely decorative.

A unit purchased outside Quebec’s distribution network—online, from a liquidator, or across the border—generally cannot be registered this way. The owner is then left with a unit that looks identical, a lower purchase price, and coverage that no one can say with certainty who will honor in seven years. With a multizone system, this is particularly costly: the most expensive component is the compressor, and that is exactly the part you want covered.

Our position is not “it’s prohibited”; it is “before paying, get written confirmation from the distributor that this specific unit can be registered in Quebec”.

The work permit: the licence and refrigeration certification

The installation of heating and air-conditioning equipment in Quebec falls under a contractor holding a Régie du bâtiment du Québec licence. A duly licensed contractor in Ontario is not automatically licensed in Quebec: these are two distinct regulatory systems. The licence number must appear on the quote—ours is RBQ 5645-9605-01, and it can be verified online in two minutes in the public registry.

The refrigerant aspect also comes into play. Quebec regulations on halocarbons prohibit the intentional release of refrigerant into the atmosphere and require its recovery; work on a refrigeration circuit requires the appropriate certification. R32 is also an A2L refrigerant—slightly flammable—which adds handling and minimum room-size verification requirements, a topic covered in our Dundee article, where the indoor unit’s rating plate was legible in the photo.

In other words, the savings made on the purchase quickly disappear if the installation has to be redone, or if no qualified person is willing to commission equipment whose origin and charging history they do not know.

Rebates require eligible equipment and a qualified installer

Financial assistance programs do not fund an object; they fund a documented project. Two requirements come up consistently: the equipment must be listed among the eligible models, and the installation must have been carried out by a qualified contractor, with an invoice as proof. Equipment brought in from outside the network often fails the first condition; an installation done “among friends” fails the second.

There is a subtler issue specific to multizone systems: AHRI certification qualifies a combination—a specific outdoor unit with specific indoor units, in a specific configuration. Sourcing the outdoor unit on one side of the border and the heads on the other is the fastest way to end up outside any certified combination, and therefore without a valid AHRI reference number to include in the file. This mechanism is explained in detail in our Saint-Anicet article.

“Supply and install” or “install only”

The question deserves a frank answer because it concerns responsibility.

When we supply the equipment, one company is responsible for everything: if one head does not heat, determining whether the fault lies with the product or the installation is our problem, not the customer's. When the customer supplies the equipment, the warranty is split: we are responsible for the labor, while the supplier is responsible for the equipment—and on a five-branch system, determining which side is responsible for a defect can take several visits. A temperamental electronic expansion valve on one port looks a lot like a pairing error; the reverse is also true.

That is why most reputable contractors refuse, or charge differently for, installing equipment supplied by the customer. This is not a sales tactic: it is a refusal to accept a division of responsibility that cannot be fairly determined.

Check a contractor in ten minutes

A short list, valid for any HVAC installation in Quebec:

1. The RBQ licence number appears on the quote and matches the company named in the public registry.
2. The licence categories genuinely cover the requested work.
3. Halocarbon-handling certification for the personnel who will work on the circuit.
4. Up-to-date proof of liability insurance.
5. A written quote naming the exact outdoor model, the capacity of each indoor unit room by room, the AHRI code corresponding to the configuration, the planned piping lengths and additional charge, the scope of the electrical work, and the disposal of the old equipment.

A contractor who provides these five items without hesitation has already shown you the essentials of how they work. The complete comparison checklist for multi-zone quotes can be found in our Saint-Chrysostome article.

What happens to old appliances: the part of the project that takes place after the truck leaves

The second topic of this project is one that no quote mentions, yet it has real legal and environmental consequences.

Before our work, the house in Rivière-Beaudette had three window air conditioners and an end-of-life dehumidifier. All of these appliances contain refrigerant.

Refrigerant must not be vented into the air

This is the central point, and it is regulated. The intentional release of halocarbons into the atmosphere is prohibited in Quebec, and recovery is mandatory before disposing of any appliance that contains them. In practical terms, this means that a window air conditioner must not be put out for collection, dismantled with pruning shears, or given to a scrap dealer without recovery equipment.

On a replacement job, recovery is carried out with dedicated equipment, using clearly identified recovery cylinders, and the recovered refrigerant is sent to a treatment facility. It is neither time-consuming nor spectacular; it is simply a step that a rushed installer can skip without anyone noticing.

There is a simple way to verify that it was done: ask for the recovery to be recorded on the invoice, along with the type and approximate quantity of refrigerant recovered. A company that does this routinely will have no difficulty writing it down.

The units themselves

Once the refrigerant has been recovered, the rest can be handled like a household appliance: a municipal ecocentre, a refrigerant-appliance recovery program, or take-back by the contractor. In the Vaudreuil-Soulanges RCM, as elsewhere, ecocentres have their own rules for appliances containing halocarbons—the municipality is the source to consult, not us.

The compressor of an old unit also contains oil, and the electronic boards belong in the electronics recycling stream. None of this is complicated. The problem is the old air conditioner left behind the shed for three years, eventually leaking on its own.

The file that should remain with you

At the end of a five-zone project, the homeowner should have, in addition to the usual technical documents:

• the invoice bearing the contractor’s licence number;
• the AHRI code corresponding exactly to the installed configuration;
• the measured lengths and the weighed added charge—here, 54 m and 80 g;
• confirmation of warranty registration, completed by the contractor in the homeowner’s name;
• the notation confirming refrigerant recovery from the removed units;
• a commissioning sheet for each zone, with each indoor unit tested separately in heating and cooling mode, including a physical check that the air comes out in the correct room.

This file may not seem like much on the day of commissioning. It is worth its weight in gold when making a warranty claim, applying for a subsidy, or selling the house. The rationale behind the commissioning file is developed in our Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle article.

The photo of this project, and what it does not reveal

We prefer to point this out rather than embellish: the image of this installation shows a white wall-mounted indoor unit installed high and snug against the ceiling, on a plain light-colored wall, near a door frame, with the factory labels still legible along the lower edge and the display showing 61It reveals neither the room, nor the fenestration, nor the pipe routing. The 61 is a Fahrenheit setpoint left after commissioning, at the low end of the range—what a low setpoint does and does not do is explained in our articles on Saint-Édouard and Saint-Anicet, the latter concerning a property located across the lake, on the opposite shore of Lake Saint-François.

Mistakes to avoid

• Buying the equipment before having its eligibility for assistance programs and its warranty registration eligibility verified.
• Confusing an Ontario licence with a Quebec licence.
• Sending a window air conditioner to the dump with its refrigerant charge still inside.
• Accepting a quote without a licence number or a written scope of work.
• Mixing brands of outdoor units and indoor heads in a multi-zone system.
• Have the baseboard heaters removed: in 93% of cases, they remain the backup heat source, and a written balance point was provided to the homeowners.

Maintenance and next steps

Five filters to rinse according to the actual use of each room, and a single outdoor coil on which five spaces now depend. Along the shores of Lake Saint-François, the outdoor coil collects pollen, poplar fluff, and agricultural dust; rinsing it annually maintains the advertised performance—it does not improve it.

As for financial assistance: since the home is heated with electricity, programs aimed at phasing out fossil fuels do not apply, and the relevant options remain Hydro-Québec's energy-efficiency programs and Rénoclimat. The terms change from year to year, and we verify them when the file is opened rather than advertising an amount that will quickly become outdated.

AirGreen in Rivière-Beaudette and Soulanges

We regularly work in the western part of the Vaudreuil-Soulanges RCM—Rivière-Beaudette, Saint-Zotique, Les Coteaux, Coteau-du-Lac, and Saint-Polycarpe—and we understand the reality of an area where the Ontario border is just minutes away and the range of available equipment is broader than elsewhere. Our advice can be summed up in one sentence: compare prices as much as you like, but also compare what remains after installation—that is, the warranty, compliance, and documentation.

We carry out this type of HVAC installation and HVAC maintenance in Montreal, Laval, Longueuil, on the North Shore, and throughout the South Shore. For a multi-zone project, the first step is still an on-site assessment and a room-by-room load calculation—not a price quoted over the phone based on the number of rooms.