A new heat pump. That was not on my Christmas list, let me tell ya! But as of Thursday, 22 January, 2026, I have a new cold-climate-3-ton one heating my home. It’s been a trek! From December 10th to January 22nd, I experienced horror, relief, confusion, upset, frustration, despair, growing insanity, learned helplessness, adaptation to the insurance mode of living (wait in between a flurry of repairs, repeat,), disbelief, broiling on one floor while freezing on another, and cautious relief.
None of this would’ve happened if Toronto Water ensured sediment doesn’t get into our drinking water supply. By that day in December, it had at such levels that it blew up in a horrifying cascade my main air-to-water heat pump.
For those who want to get to the conclusions right away:
- Install a whole-house water filter.
- Replace every part that water could’ve damaged, including refrigerant linesets.
The Long of It
I’ve lived in Toronto for decades. I’ve been proud of how our city cleans our water — my ex even took me on a tour of the Ashbridges Bay water treatment plant in the last century — and I’ve never worried about stuff getting into it. That’s why I didn’t think seriously that brown stuff I’d spotted on my faucet’s aerators in the summer could be from the city. Or why I believed him yet didn’t think it could be true when the plumber said the stench of throw-up from my water for a while there in the spring and summer was from a contractor doing city work on water lines on a nearby main street.
But on December 10th, and thereafter, I realized Toronto Water has changed.
Sediment travelling from closeby watermain construction/repair, and probably from Metrolinx screwing around with our water as much as they screw up transit builds, entered my pipes, travelled to the pressure-reducing valve for my air-to-water heat pump, and shoved it open.
I was attending some webinar on 10 December 2025 when I heard an odd sound from my radiators. Yes, radiators bang from air being in them; less when you bleed them properly. Those bangs have a certain pitch and sound. These bangs were weird. Wrong pitch. Wrong sound. Wrong frequency. They may have either come from pressure increasing in the tank for the air-to-water heat pump or the expansion tank bladder bursting.
When I went downstairs, I heard my hot water heater alarm screaming. Crap! I couldn’t believe my hot water tank had sprung a leak or the pipes to it had. A couple of years ago, I had had to replace my hot water tank because it had leaked all over the basement. That was fun. Not.
I raced to it. The hot water tank was fine, but water was dripping from the pipes and wiring above it. What was leaking?! I searched. I turned on my phone’s flashlight. I resorted to waving my hand in the general vicinity.
My hand found the source.
And once my hand indicated the direction, my brain saw it. (Regular readers may recall that after my eye surgery I saw much better than before, but my perception needed guidance. Once what I was looking for was pointed out, I saw it perfectly well.)
The pressure-reducing valve was spraying a fine spray.
I made several calls and messaged photos until my brain told my mind to call my HVAC company. Luckily, though it was near the end of the day, the co-owner arrived not long after I’d discovered the fine spray.
He shut the water and air-to-water heat pump off, immediately emptied the tank because the pressure was too high in it, determined what would need replacing, and left. Luckily, the spray wasn’t a deluge, and so I didn’t have to mop up a flood.
Repairs Begin
All I had to do was wait for a new pressure-reducing valve and new expansion tank to arrive, him to install it, and I’d have heat from my main air-to-water heat pump again. Meanwhile, I turned on my ductless air-to-air heat pump. It’s designed to cool my home, which means the mini-splits are located to allow cold air to drop. That means, with hot air rising, the upstairs was a furnace while the downstairs an icebox. I moved one of my space heaters to the kitchen and left another in the basement.
I wasn’t too worried. The parts arrived with a day; he installed them quickly. And then the cascading damage hinted at its presence. The heat pump wouldn’t run.
When sediment from the city of Toronto propped open the pressure-reducing valve, it led to the pressure in the tank for the air-to-water heat pump rising to over 70psi.
WHY we here in Canada have to deal with American Imperial units for our heat and hot water equipment enrages me. We use Celsius for everything. Yet our HVAC industry insists on using Fahrenheit, the most ridiculous, insanity-inducing, hair-pulling measurement system ever devised. I refuse to use it. Refuse! Then there’s the btus (what the fuck are those?) and the psis (sounds like a ditty not a reliable measurement system) and gallons (which gallons?!! For those old enough to know, we have two different sizes for gallons. Who thought that nonsense up?!)
The only thing I understood about the pressure was that normally it should be 12 to 15; above 70 was obviously damage-inducing pressure. That’s why the bladder in the expansion tank blew out.
But that’s not the only damage the city-sediment-instigated too-high pressure caused.
When he refilled the tank, and I bled the rads of air, and he turned the air-to-water cold climate 3-year-old heat pump back on, it spat out error codes.
He called tech support. But no luck. It was mid-weekend by this time. So Monday he’d return to fix it.
Reality smacked plans into oblivion.
We found another problem.
Remember I mentioned cascade? Well, the sediment had not only increased tank pressure and blown out the expansion tank bladder, it had also led to damaging the heat exchanger.
The heat exchanger is where water from the tank flows through pipes and refrigerant from the heat pump flows through their own pipes, and the two sets are separated by thin metal fins through which heat moves from the refrigerant into the water. The water circulates from the bottom of the tank — or from the radiators when my thermostat is calling for heat — through the heat exchanger, and back into the tank to heat up the water that then flows into the radiators. The refrigerant flows to and from the heat pump through the heat exchanger.
Water and refrigerant do not mix in the heat exhanger.
Water must never get into the refrigerant, otherwise it turns into a sludge and bungs up the heat pump.
Water got into the heat pump via the damaged heat exchanger.
Keep Ice Out of The Refrigerant Linesets
The weather was forecast to drop below zero at this point. He zoomed to my place, found water pouring out of the heat pump, stopped the flow, and emptied the refrigerant lines of water before the water turned to ice.
Neither of us wanted to replace the refrigerant linesets. The absolute worst part of replacing my furnace with a heat pump back in 2022 was pulling the refrigerant linesets into the house from the heat pump.
It’s amazing how the mind can rationalize an illogical choice when the logical choice terrifies one at the very notion of having to do an extremely unpleasant, exhausting task.
Replace the Lines!
This past week, weeks after the water in the heat pump damaged it, a different crew replaced the refrigerant lines over two days of cold-numbing hard work. Kudos and lots of hot tea for them!!
Meanwhile, the HVAC company replaced the heat pump and the heat exchanger. One of the different crew turned the backup on so that I could have warm water circulating through my radiators while they worked on getting the new heat pump running. (I’m skipping a few events, otherwise this post will go on forever.)
The backup is an electric element or electric something in the tank that heats the water up to what the weather compensation controller tells it to when the heat pump cannot. After he turned on the backup and checked the water in the tank was rising — from 15C in to twenties — he left. My backup reached 26C, went, yeah, no, don’t wanna work, and stopped heating the water.
By this time, I’d figured out which mini-splits to run so that my home was a bit more evenly heated, although my kitchen remained at 14 to 15, reaching a balmy 18 after I turned on the space heater in the morning. If the weather kept above zero a few degrees, then between the space heater and circulating water being warmed up from the ambient air (no backup running, remember), it crept up to 20, even 21 or 22 with cooking added in. Yes, I boiled a big pot of water when I didn’t need to.
Unfortunately, despite nitrogen flushing and vacuuming (as I understood the process) the refrigerant lines may have retained a few molecules of moisture, enough to do something to the new heat pump. Out it came, and another new one brought in.
From Tuesday to Thursday in January’s penultimate week, the crew fixed the backup, exchanged the heat exchanger again, replaced the refrigerant lines, installed the new cold climate heat pump, and fixed the weather compensation controller’s settings (I have no idea how they got out of whack), and commissioned the whole before turning it on.
They asked me to jack up the thermostat. Even as I obeyed, I couldn’t process that instruction meant the heat pump was on!
I dared not believe after so many false starts that this time, for sure, for sure, I had a working cold climate heat pump and stable heat. But the other co-owner of the HVAC company had promised me that, no matter what, I’d have heat by Thursday before the polar vortex descended and a planned visit from my mother. She’d ensure the men showed up. She told me to update her with the work’s progress after she came to check on it. She whipped those men into getting it done. What’s that saying about behind every man… If you want contractors to show up every day until the work is done, put a woman in charge. Heh.
Forty-eight hours later I came off the high of having warm rads. I felt such intense relief Thursday evening that my mood was elevated into the clouds, and I felt as light as mist.
City Needs to Inform Homeowners
This entire nightmare was caused by Toronto Water having what I regard as a lackadaisical attitude to keeping sediment out of the water supply. I understood from 311 that they have many complaints about low water pressure. This past fall, I’d called to complain about low pressure that had followed high pressure. Although 311 tells you someone will be out to check within 24 hours (or 8 if it’s a sudden spike), that’s not true. It’s either weeks or days. For my low-pressure call, Toronto Water checked the pressure at a nearby hydrant weeks later and declared it fine.
After my heat pump failure, I called 311 again. Toronto Water said they can’t do anything about high pressure and sediment was…shrug.
Apparently, Toronto Water requires contractors working on the watermains to sanitize the lines and flush them through a hydrant when they’ve completed the work. But they “can’t monitor them all.” And they “work in dirt,” so, you know, shrug, sediment gets in. As for Metrolinx, I got a “no comment” from every one I asked, which makes me very suspicious as to what Metrolinx is doing. The most I learnt is that Metrolinx shuts off the watermains and turns them on whenever, and that you can’t predict which house will be affected by which waterworks somewhere in the city. Fluid dynamics as I learnt from a chemical engineer friend is kind of mysterious.
Toronto’s water pressure ranges from 30 to 110 psi (American Imperial units). From low to high, basically, I guess.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the Federal government enforced the Weights and Measures Act and require the entire HVAC, construction, grocery stores, farming, police bulletins, and gardening industries to go metric or else! Over five decades since Canada went metric. So why are they allowed to operate in American Imperial units? Which by the way not a single person I’ve spoken to likes. Whether immigrants — all of whom will have come from metric-using countries because the entire world but USA and some third-world state is metric — or Canadian born, they all hate working in American Imperial. So why does it continue?! My local grocery store uses the same. It’s so annoying. How do I know how many oranges I want in pounds FFS?! Ask me in grams or kilograms!! Or number of oranges.
Because these moribund systems perpetuate the idea Canada uses American Imperial, doctors have to convert weight and height units that their patients give them to metric. Do your doctor a favour and give them your measurements in metric.
And now that the USA has all but declared war on us and our Prime Minister is turning our eyes and trade to metric-using EU and Asia, isn’t it time to dump American Imperial units and go all in with metric? That’s the patriotic thing to do!
Anywho…
City water pressure is lower at night and rises during the day. Firefighting and watermain work lowers it. That’s what Toronto Water explained. But others I’ve spoken to have also experienced inexplicable fluctuating pressures in recent years. Are we going to have to get pressure-balancing valves put in, too? These are expensive! The city should restore water quality/pressure services to what they were, especially as climate action necessitates replacing boilers with air-to-water heat pumps. High water pressure can also damage hot water tanks even if you have an air-to-air heat pump. Hot water tanks are not cheap to replace, either.
It would be nice if Toronto City Councillors advised us that because of aging water and sewer infrastructure, new building construction, and Metrolinx, every homeowner needs to install a whole-house water filter to keep sediment from damaging their washing machines, hot water tanks, boilers, and air-to-water heat pumps. And not only that, City Council should be subsidizing the cost!
My new heat pump so much more sophisticated than my old one. Only about 3 yrs apart in development age. Makes you realize how quickly cold climate heat pumps are evolving. Now we just need Canadian HVAC to design and manufacture weather compensation controllers IN METRIC!! 🇨🇦 #ClimateAction #cdnpoli— Shireen Anne Jeejeebhoy (@shireenj.bsky.social) January 24, 2026 at 10:15 AM
