Local knowledge, island standards.
Shawnigan's housing history shows in its heating: wood stoves everywhere, baseboards added in renovations, and a steady stream of cottages converted to full-time family homes. A cold-climate heat pump is the modern answer — efficient heat for frosty lake mornings, real air conditioning for the afternoons when the lake breeze quits — and your wood stove stays right where it is, because the programs allow wood as backup.
Full-time residences carry the full rebate stack: $4,000 any-income for electric-heated homes, income-tested conversions to $16,000. Converted cottages sometimes need electrical work first — older 60–100A services are common — and our in-house electricians fold that into the same project, rebated up to $5,000 on qualifying conversions.
We're twenty minutes away in Duncan, we know which roads flood in November, and we mount outdoor units above the snow line the lake occasionally remembers it can produce.