WHAT IT COSTS

One price, and where it goes

C$7,000 installed is a target price for developers, not a quote. This page shows what is in it, what it is being measured against, and where you can check the outside numbers yourself.

TARGETFirstLaw is pre-production. These are the costs we are designing to, taken from our own cost model. They are not a bid, and they will move as we move from prototype to volume. If you are pricing a real project, talk to us and we will give you the current figure in writing.
THE USUAL WAY

A ductless split for heating and cooling, plus a separate electric tank for hot water. Two machines, two circuits, two footprints in the apartment.

Heat pump hardware
12,000 BTU ductless split, mid-tier brand
$2,500
Water heater hardware
40 to 60 gallon standard electric tank
$1,000
Electrical work
Two separate 240V circuits, labour, breakers and cabling
$1,500
Mechanical work
Line set, vacuum, charge, plumbing and strapping
$3,500
Total installed$8,500
FIRSTLAW

One machine doing all three jobs, on one refrigerant line and one circuit.

Integrated hardware
Heat pump, thermal battery and controls, target wholesale price
$4,500
Install
Single 240V circuit, single footprint, roughly half the labour hours
$2,500
Total installed$7,000
Difference per unit
$1,500 17.6% lower

Across a 100-unit building that is about C$150,000 before a single kilowatt-hour is saved. The operating saving comes on top and is estimated separately in the calculator.

Where the difference actually comes from

One circuit instead of two

A dedicated 240V circuit runs about C$650 in Canada, inside a range of roughly C$250 to C$900 depending on the run and the panel. Removing the second one takes that straight off the job.

Less work to do

Hanging one machine on one refrigerant line is a smaller scope than hanging a ductless split and then placing, plumbing and wiring a separate tank. Most of what comes out of the price is hours, and those hours come out because there is less to install, not because anyone is paid less.

No tank to buy or place

The hot water store is inside the unit, so the tank, its stand, its plumbing and the floor it stood on all come out of the job. That is where the reclaimed floor area comes from as well.

What is in it for the installer

The hardware is sold to the contractor at wholesale. The gap between that and the installed price is the installer's labour and margin, and it is deliberately wide, because the scope is smaller than the job it replaces.

That margin is the whole reason a contractor would carry an unfamiliar product. We would rather set it wide and get specified than shave it and get skipped.

$4,500
Wholesale hardware price to the contractor
$2,500
Left for labour and margin on a C$7,000 job
10 to 15%
Discount on developer orders of 50 units or more

How that sits against what else you can buy

Quilt publishes a single installed price, which is rare in this industry and makes it worth comparing against. It is 6,499 USD per zone, about C$8,950 at late-August 2026 rates. That price is for heating and cooling only. Hot water is still a separate machine, a separate circuit and a separate footprint.

We are not comparing against Jetson here, although they are the other name people raise. Their product is a whole-home ducted replacement at 15,000 to 19,000 USD, so putting it beside a per-apartment number would flatter us and tell you nothing useful.

What would make these numbers wrong

The honest version. These are the assumptions the model rests on, including the ones that cut against us.

  • Labour rates. Blended union and non-union at C$85 to C$120 an hour. Below that band the baseline falls and our advantage narrows, because most of what we remove is labour.
  • Scheduling contingency. The baseline carries 15% for the schedule risk of fitting two separate systems into the same apartment. If your general contractor already schedules tightly, that padding is smaller and so is the gap.
  • Floor area is excluded. A unit frees roughly 15 square feet, worth on the order of C$10,000 in a dense urban build. None of that is counted above. We left it out because it depends entirely on your market.
  • The hardware price is a target. C$4,500 wholesale covers the compressor, the thermal battery and the control board at volume. It is the number in this model we would most expect to be challenged, and it is the one that depends most on reaching production scale.
  • The baseline is urban Canadian. It reflects 2025 sub-contractor pricing for high-density multi-family in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Outside those markets both columns move.

Sources

Outside prices we checked our baseline against, in August 2026. Follow them and argue with us.

  1. Single-zone ductless installed cost in Canada, C$4,500 to C$7,500 Boldr
  2. Toronto single-zone installed cost, C$3,000 to C$4,500 basic and C$5,000 to C$9,000 cold-climate MegaCity HVAC
  3. 40 gallon electric tank, C$1,000 to C$1,500 installed Lord Mechanical
  4. Electric tank replacement in Ontario, C$1,500 to C$2,200 installed Go Lime
  5. Dedicated circuit, C$250 to C$900 with about C$650 typical HomeGuide
  6. Canadian electrician hourly rates HomeStars
  7. Quilt at 6,499 USD per zone installed, air to air only TechCrunch
  8. USD to CAD at 1.378, 21 August 2026 Trading Economics
  9. Salt-based phase-change storage at four times the energy density of water Sunamp
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