HVAC installation and replacement in Scarborough, Durham and the GTA
Replacing a complete heating and cooling system is a different job from replacing either half of one. The two halves share a blower, a coil cabinet, a duct network and a thermostat, so the decisions interlock — and the duct system, which nobody is quoting on, sets a ceiling on what any equipment you buy can do.
Metropolitan Heating and Air Conditioning has installed complete systems across Scarborough, Durham Region and the GTA since 1979. We install Carrier, Lennox, Napoleon, Trane, Bosch and Daikin.
Call (416) 283-5698, Monday to Friday 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, to arrange an assessment.
Matched equipment, not two separate purchases
The efficiency rating on a cooling system is measured for a specific combination of outdoor unit, indoor coil and blower. Put a different coil in front of that condenser and you no longer have the system that was rated — refrigerant flow through the metering device, the airflow the coil was designed around, and the capacity you were sold all shift.
The same applies to the blower. A furnace blower sized for a heating airflow will not necessarily move the air a larger cooling coil needs, and a coil starved of airflow runs cold, sheds capacity and can ice. When both halves go in together, they are chosen as one combination. When only one half is being replaced, the existing half has to be checked for compatibility rather than assumed.
The ducts decide how the system feels
Most complaints about a new system are not equipment complaints. Rooms that never warm up, a floor that runs three degrees off the rest of the building, noise at the registers, and a blower that sounds like it is straining are nearly always distribution problems.
The usual cause is high static pressure: undersized returns, long inflexible runs, crushed flex duct, closed-off branches, or a filter cabinet that restricts more than the system can tolerate. New equipment installed onto that duct system inherits every one of those limits and adds nothing. This is why static pressure gets measured before anything is quoted, not after the equipment is running.
A changeover is also the cheapest moment to correct it. Opening up the plenum for new equipment is exactly when a return can be added or a branch resized, at a fraction of what the same work costs as a standalone job later.
Replacing both halves at once, or staging it
Doing both together gives you a matched, rated combination, one disruption, one set of labour, and one commissioning. It is the stronger technical outcome and the larger single cost.
Staging makes sense when the two halves are at genuinely different points in their lives — a fifteen-year-old furnace and a five-year-old air conditioner, for instance. What it requires is planning the second half at the time you do the first, so the equipment you install now is compatible with what will follow rather than boxing you in.
Either way, it is worth asking whether a heat pump belongs in the plan, since a heat pump paired with a furnace covers both modes from one outdoor unit and overlaps heavily with work you are already paying for.
The survey that comes before a quote
- Heat-loss and cooling-load calculations for the building as it now stands, including any additions or insulation work since the last system went in
- Measured static pressure, duct sizing, return capacity and the condition of accessible runs
- Gas line capacity and the venting route, including whether high-efficiency venting and condensate can be run properly
- Electrical supply, disconnects and existing thermostat wiring
- Combustion air supply for the space the equipment occupies
- Rooms that have never been comfortable, treated as a problem to solve during the changeover rather than after it
Commissioning closes the job: gas pressure set to specification, temperature rise brought inside the rated band, refrigerant charge verified against superheat and subcooling, airflow balanced, safeties tested, and a full cycle run in both modes. Financing is available through Vista.
Related services
- HVAC Maintenance & Tune-Up
- HVAC Repair & Service
- Ductless mini-splits — for spaces the ducts do not reach
- All HVAC services
Arrange an assessment
Call (416) 283-5698 weekdays between 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM, or send us your details and we will get back to you. Licensed and insured, all makes and models, from our shop on Venture Drive in Scarborough since 1979.