Running heat through a change of fuel

Our delivery planning used to rest on a simple relationship: an oil-heated house burns a fairly steady number of litres for each degree-day of cold, so we could estimate when its tank would need filling. A hybrid home breaks that relationship. Its heat pump carries the load for most of the winter, and then the furnace takes over in deep cold, sometimes burning a week's fuel in two days. I manage this by treating hybrid accounts as a separate population: remote tank monitors where the risk justifies them, larger minimum fills agreed with customers, and a register of households where a run-out would endanger someone. Dispatch holds trucks and drivers back for forecast cold snaps rather than filling every day with routine work. The cost per litre delivered is higher, and I report it that way.

A heat pump sold in September is tested in January. Most of our callbacks have come from a few causes: units sized for a brochure rather than a Maritime winter, outdoor heads mounted below the drift line, condensate lines that freeze, and commissioning rushed at the end of a long day. I run installation as an operations discipline, not a sales channel. A trained assessor sizes the home before a price is confirmed, installers complete a written commissioning record with photographs, and the job is not invoiced until a technician has signed it. Our apprenticeship intake supplies most of the crew, supported by licensed refrigeration mechanics. I watch ninety-day callbacks and warranty cost per installation, and I will slow sales intake when those figures move in the wrong direction.

Our crews handle heating oil, pressurised propane, refrigerants and household electrical connections, often alone, in the dark and on ice. I hold the safety programme accountable to the work rather than to the paperwork. Drivers are trained and audited under the transportation of dangerous goods rules, propane technicians hold the provincial certifications their work requires, and every serious incident or near miss is reviewed with the people involved. Winter fatigue is the risk I watch most closely. In a cold snap, the willing driver who offers another four hours is the one I most need to send home, so storm-day crews and rest periods are scheduled before the season. After a major storm we check propane installations before appliances are relit, even when customers are cold and impatient.

A heating company's depots are its promise of response. When fuel volume falls, the obvious saving is to close depots and serve customers from fewer, larger sites, and some of that is right. I test each closure against our written winter standard: a technician on site within four hours for a no-heat call from a service-plan customer, and same-day emergency fuel. We model drive times on actual storm days, using road closures and snow-clearing patterns from previous winters, not on summer averages. Where a closure would push response beyond the standard, I look for a smaller arrangement, such as a crew base with one truck and two technicians, before recommending that a full depot stay open. The board then sees the saving, the service consequence and the cost of each alternative together.