Furnace Maintenance in Ottawa: What a Tune-Up Should Cover, Who May Do It, and What a Red Tag Means

Have a gas furnace inspected and serviced once a year, by a TSSA-registered contractor, and book it before the heating season rather than during it. TSSA encourages a yearly inspection, Enbridge Gas tells its customers to have a certified heating contractor inspect gas appliances at least once a year, and Ontario's gas regulation puts the legal duty to keep the appliance safe on you, the owner or user.

This page carries no prices. What a tune-up costs in Ottawa, with each publisher named, is in our furnace repair and maintenance cost guide. This one covers the part the price does not tell you: what the visit should include, who is allowed to do it, and what happens when the technician finds something.

The duty is yours, and it is written down

Section 15 of O. Reg. 212/01 (Gaseous Fuels) is one sentence: an owner or user of an appliance employed in the use of gas shall ensure that the appliance is maintained in a safe operating condition. It sets no interval. The yearly figure comes from the safety bodies, not the regulation, and each of them lands on the same number.

TSSA says it on its fuel scams page: it encourages you to have your furnace or other fuel-burning devices inspected every year, but you are responsible for asking for the inspection. Nobody books it for you. Enbridge Gas says the same on its appliance safety page: have your furnace inspected and maintained yearly by a certified heating contractor.

The utility does check the installation, but on a very different clock. Section 16 of the same regulation stops a distributor supplying gas unless it has inspected the appliance at least once within the previous 10 years, or under a quality assurance inspection programme. A ten-year utility check is not a maintenance schedule, and nothing in the regulation treats it as one.

If your furnace vents into a chimney, the Fire Code adds a harder interval. O. Reg. 213/07, Division B, Article 2.6.1.4 (1), requires every chimney, flue and flue pipe to be inspected for dangerous conditions at intervals not greater than 12 months, when any appliance is added, and after any chimney fire. Article 2.6.1.7 requires heating systems, including appliances, chimneys and flue pipes, to be operated and maintained so as not to create a hazardous condition. The Code defines a flue pipe as the pipe connecting the appliance to a chimney, so an older furnace or a gas water heater venting into a chimney is what the article describes.

September is when Ottawa books it, and why that matters

Searches for the exact phrase furnace maintenance ottawa peak hard in September. Monthly volume across Canada for that phrase, as reported by DataForSEO on 2026-09-26:

September 2025 reads 720 and no other month passes 390. The demand bunches into one month, so heating companies' calendars fill from the same direction at the same time. Book in August or early September and you choose the date. Book once that rush has started and you take the date you are given, which is a much weaker position from which to ask the questions further down this page.

Two notes on reading that table. The volumes come in fixed steps, so one step up or down means nothing; September standing well clear of every other month is the signal. And furnace service ottawa returned the identical twelve months, which is how the tool reports two phrases Google counts as one.

What the visit should actually cover

Natural Resources Canada's Heating with Gas booklet lists what a serviceperson should do during regular maintenance. It is the closest thing to a neutral checklist a homeowner can hold a tune-up against, because it was written by a government department with nothing to sell.

Four of the six rows are safety checks. A visit that vacuums the cabinet, swaps the filter and leaves has done the two easy rows and skipped the rest. The heat exchanger and the venting decide whether combustion gases leave the house, so ask for the result of each in writing on the work order, where next year's technician can see what was found.

NRCan also separates two products the market often blurs. A maintenance service is the annual inspection, cleaning and adjustment. A parts-replacement planis a separate annual fee that covers the repair, adjustment or replacement of controls, motors and parts. A quote can be either, or both, and the word "plan" alone does not tell you which.

Who is legally allowed to do it

Section 6 (1) of O. Reg. 212/01 reserves the work to certificate holders: no person shall install, alter, purge, activate, repair, serviceor remove any appliance employed in the use of gas unless they hold a certificate for that purpose. TSSA's page on fraudulent fuels workers states the practical version: under Ontario law, furnaces and fuel-fired appliances must be maintained by TSSA-registered contractors, who in turn must employ certified gas technicians.

The certificate classes come from O. Reg. 215/01, and a maintenance visit is where the lowest one matters most.

• A G.2 may install, inspect, alter, purge, activate, repair, service or remove a natural gas or propane appliance of 400,000 Btuh input or less (s. 21 (1)). A house furnace sits far below that, so a G.2 can do every part of your visit.
• A G.3 may do four things, and one of them is clean and lubricate an appliance (s. 22 (1), paragraph 3). The others are gas piping under two and a half inches, reactivating a previously installed appliance, and cleaning or replacing vent connectors and draft controls.
• Those four G.3 functions are allowed only under the general supervision of a G.1, G.2 or DA holder, and only after the supervising holder has documented and signed off the G.3's skills on the director's form. Anything outside the four needs direct supervision (s. 22 (4)).

So a G.3 arriving alone to clean your furnace can be entirely legal. If the same visit turns into a repair, a control or a motor replaced, that work is outside the four functions, and the question to ask is who is supervising it. The company's own registration, and how to check it on TSSA's register before anyone arrives, is covered step by step in our guide to who may install a furnace in Ottawa.

Section 6 (3) adds one exception: a person without the certificate may do the work in the presence of a holder. The holder has to be there, in the room, for that to apply.

What you can do yourself between visits

Some of it, and the sources are specific about which part. NRCan's owner maintenance section starts with a warning in capitals: turn off the power to the furnace before you open the access panel to check the filter or fan. Then:

• NRCan says the filter should be cleaned or replaced regularly, and that permanent aluminium or plastic mesh filters can be washed and reused. Enbridge sets a number on it: change or clean the filter at least every three months, because a dirty filter restricts airflow and makes the furnace work harder.
• On a direct-drive fan with an internal motor, NRCan says there is no maintenance a homeowner can perform beyond superficial vacuuming. Only the belt-driven fans of some older furnaces may have small oiling ports.
• Keep warm air registers and cold air returns clear so air moves through the system.

That is where the homeowner list ends. The burner, the heat exchanger, the gas valve and the safety controls are the appliance itself, which is what section 6 (1) reserves. NRCan closes its own list the same way: even if you do these tasks properly and regularly, you should still have the system serviced by an expert heating contractor or the gas utility.

The Ottawa job a September tune-up cannot do: the vent in the snow

A high-efficiency condensing furnace does not use a chimney. NRCan explains that it vents out through the side wall of the house in approved plastic pipe, and tells owners to keep the outside vent terminal free from obstructions, including ice, and to call a service person on any sign of the pipe cracking or shifting. In a city where the snowbank grows up the side of the house all winter, that terminal is the part of the heating system a snowbank can bury, and it is outside, where no tune-up in September will see it in February.

Enbridge's keep your meter clear page gives the method. After every storm, clear snow and ice from the meter and appliance vents gently, with a soft broom or brush. Never use a shovel, a sharp object or a blower on them, never hit or kick them, and do not try to break or melt ice build-up. Remove large icicles hanging above the meter and vents. Enbridge lists what skipping it risks: a blocked vent can cause the appliance to malfunction and can let carbon monoxide into the home. If you cannot clear it safely, Enbridge asks you to call, and its Ontario line is 1-866-763-5427.

When the technician finds something: A tags, B tags and the 14 days

Enbridge says that during a service call, a certified gas technician may place a safety violation notice, the tag people call a red tag, on equipment that is not operating safely. Enbridge Gas supplies natural gas in Ottawa (its St. Laurent pipeline directly and indirectly supplies about 168,000 customers in Ottawa and the surrounding area, Gatineau included), so in this city Enbridge is the distributor the regulation names. Its safety violation page describes two kinds:

• An "A" violation is an immediate hazard. The gas to the appliance or the building is shut off at once. This is section 13 (3) of O. Reg. 212/01: the technician shall immediately shut off the supply, tell the distributor orally, hand you a written notice describing the condition, and attach a notice to the appliance.
• A "B" violation is an unacceptable condition that is not an immediate hazard. Enbridge gives you up to 42 days to repair or replace, and shuts the gas off if the repair is not made. The regulation allows a distributor up to 90 days (s. 14 (1)); Enbridge's window is the shorter one, and the notice in your hand is what counts.

Once a notice is issued, three obligations sit with you rather than the technician. You may not run the appliance, or let anyone else run it, until the condition is corrected (s. 13 (4)). After an A violation is corrected, the owner or user has to notify the distributor within 14 days (s. 13 (5)). And the tag itself may be removed only by a certificate holder, who writes their certificate number, name and address on it and sends it to the distributor (s. 13 (6)).

Enbridge's own instruction is to hire a TSSA-registered HVAC contractor, who makes the repair and sends Enbridge the required information so that the service is not interrupted. It also states that Enbridge Gas does not repair or service natural gas appliances. If Enbridge does not receive notice of the repair before the expiry date, it states that for a B violation it is required to visit the property to verify the repair, and that a service charge may apply. You can get a second opinion from a different registered contractor. You cannot run the furnace while the tag stands.

If the fix turns into a replacement, the price ranges are in our Ottawa furnace and air conditioner cost guide, and the provincial rebates on a heat pump are in the Home Renovation Savings Program guide.

"Free furnace inspection" at the door, and the question to say no to

TSSA's answer: no one can force you to have your furnace inspected. If someone calls or arrives saying you require one, you do not need to comply. TSSA inspectors do not go door to door and never sell products or services, and TSSA publishes 1-877-682-8772 for checking anyone who claims to be one. Since Enbridge does not service appliances either, a caller offering to service your furnace on Enbridge's behalf is describing work Enbridge says it does not do.

TSSA says the people who pose as inspectors typically sell furnaces, water heaters and energy services, and that sale is restricted by the Consumer Protection Act, 2002. Section 43.1 bars a supplier from soliciting you at home for prescribed goods and services unless you initiated contact and asked them to come, and O. Reg. 17/05 section 35.1 (1) lists them: furnaces, air conditioners, air cleaners, air purifiers, water heaters, water treatment devices, water purifiers, water filters, water softeners and duct cleaning services. A tune-up on its own is not on the list. The furnace it can lead to is paragraph 1.

The exception is the part that matters when you book maintenance. Under section 35.1 (2) (c) and (4), the protection falls away when three things line up: you already have a written agreement with that supplier for one of the listed goods or services (a rented water heater, for example), you invite them to the house, and during that call they ask whether they may also sell to you while they are there and you agree. So if the company booking your tune-up asks that question, the answer that keeps your protection is no. A supplier relying on the exception has to keep records of that contact for three years (s. 35.2).

One more rule sits in the same section. Section 35.1 (3) says a supplier that received data from a measuring or monitoring device in your home, directly or indirectly, cannot treat that as you initiating contact. A connected thermostat reporting a fault is not an invitation.

Is an old furnace still worth maintaining?

A yearly visit keeps an old furnace safe to run, and its efficiency stays where the unit's design left it. NRCan gives the number worth having for that decision: replacing a 20-year-old furnace at 78 per cent AFUE with one at 95 per cent reduces annual energy costs by 18 per cent. AFUE, annual fuel utilization efficiency, is the measure NRCan uses for furnace efficiency, and the booklet (revised October 2012) sets ENERGY STAR for a gas furnace at a condensing unit of 95 per cent or higher.

So for a furnace of 20 or 25, the yearly visit answers one question: is it still safe to run? The other question, whether that efficiency gap plus the cost of keeping it going still beats a replacement at today's prices and rebates, no inspection answers for you. Maintenance records help with that decision, which is one more reason to keep the written work order from every visit.

The carbon monoxide alarm is part of the same job

Ontario's Fire Code applies its carbon monoxide section to homes with a fuel-burning appliance, and Division B Article 2.16.2.1 (1) requires an alarm adjacent to each sleeping area and on each storey without a sleeping area. Enbridge's carbon monoxide page asks you to test alarms monthly and check each alarm's expiration date. If one sounds, Enbridge's instruction is to go outside immediately, call 911 from a safe location, and not go back in until a qualified professional such as a firefighter says it is safe. The yearly furnace visit is a sensible day to test the alarms too, since the technician is already looking at the thing that makes the gas.

What to ask when you book

• Your TSSA registration number?Then check it and its expiry date on TSSA's register.
• What certificate class will the technician hold?A G.3 may clean, but only under a G.1 or G.2 holder's supervision.
• Does the visit include the six items NRCan lists? Combustion and venting, heat exchanger, exhaust and other safety controls, fan wheels, filter.
• Is this a maintenance service or a parts plan? One pays for a visit, the other for what breaks.
• Will the findings be written on the work order? Especially the heat exchanger and the venting.
• "May we talk to you about new equipment while we are there?" Say no, unless you want the sales visit.

A company that answers the first two without hesitation and puts the rest on paper is doing what the regulation expects of it. Between visits, your share is the filter every three months and a soft broom on the vent after each storm.