Canada’s housing situation has long been defined by an affordability crisis, characterized by high rent costs and a persistent supply shortage. Many people have turned to unique methods of building as an approach to get around these issues. One of the most common would be a houseboat.
Yet, in 2026, the rising star of unique home builds should go to the barndominium, a play on words between a barn and a condominium, these structures present a unique opportunity. “When I decided to build a barndominium on our rural Ontario property, it wasn’t to follow a trend,” shares Nick Gonzalez, general manager of Postma Heating, Cooling, Electrical & Plumbing. “As a mechanical contractor and operator of Postma Heating & Cooling, I wanted to experience this type of construction firsthand, not from drawings, but from real coordination, sequencing, and concrete. What became clear quickly: a barndominium is not simply a house with metal siding. It changes the mechanical conversation entirely, and it demands early leadership from the trades.”
This project began as a desire to build a large, efficient home with enough space for a family to comfortably live, with the added benefit of shop space. Gonzalez wanted to go beyond the builds he had seen on social media and instead, focus on building a state-of-the-art home that flows with his experience working in the skilled trades.
This build features a variable-speed, two-stage Lennox gas furnace, a variable-capacity Lennox heat pump, and a dual-fired combi IBC boiler. The fact that this project has all three types of heating systems makes it quite unique in and of itself. The furnace is used as a backup on the coldest of days when the heat pump isn’t able to provide enough heat. “We knew that in spring and fall, it’d be very efficient to run the in-floor and heat pump, and in some parts of those seasons, it would be just the in-floor. On the coldest days of winter, we knew that a gas furnace with the in-floor would be more efficient,” shares Gonzalez.
The boiler also provides the domestic hot water for the home. To prevent any standing water on the property, 600 ft. of French drain was installed. This meant that a two-ft. wide trench was created around the whole property with catch basins.
When it comes to this project, there wasn’t any basement or crawlspace to help correct any mistakes. If plumbing sleeves, hydronics, insulation strategy, exterior hose bibs, and floor drains aren’t planned before the pour, they’re permanent. “That permanence forces mechanical contractors to think three steps ahead,” shares Gonzalez.
During this project, the slab was insulated, thermal breaks for the large open areas were incorporated, and the in-floor heating was roughed in prior to fully committing to radiant. “Even if a homeowner hesitates on hydronics, they deserve the option before concrete erases flexibility. Slab-on-grade construction changes your responsibility. It requires you to lead earlier than you might be used to,” explains Gonzalez.
Unintended consequences
Some consequences just won’t be clear until the equipment is up and running. For instance, during this project, one lesson learned was that it isn’t best practice to put an in-floor manifold in someone’s bedroom. Can you guess why?
“I would definitely put some more thought and consideration into loops and where they run,” explains Gonzalez. “We like sleeping cold, and if you want to use the in-floor in another part of the house, one of the zones, or say, two or three zones, come into that one manifold in the master bedroom. If we set the living room at 68 F and the kitchen at 69 F, the bedroom doesn’t have to be put up that much because it will get some heat from that and we can keep it at 65 F.”
Unfortunately, this isn’t something that can be easily adjusted once the system is installed. The good news is that these lessons learned won’t occur again. “The reason I am so hard on myself for this is because I wanted to learn as much as I could and be perfect with this, so that I would trust the lessons I learned, and when we do it for another customer, we’re not like, “Oh shoot, sorry. We put the thermostat in a bad spot, and we’re going to have to move it.” And they are like, “What do you mean? You’re going to have to cut up drywall?” A slab sensor isn’t going to be able to be moved again,” says Gonzalez.
Another challenge that they went up against during this project came from within the house. And not the physical structure itself, but rather the trades working on the project. “A challenge I had was forcing every trade to do things that they weren’t used to and things that I knew the industry should be doing,” explains Gonzalez. “For instance, the plumbers should want to put in smart water flow sensors, and the electricians should want to put in home energy monitoring and surge protection on the panel and on my furnace. We should make the thermostat communicate with the HRV. We had to get a module that has a separate board close to the furnace that would get it all to talk. That forced them to do it. But, at a customer’s house, they would have talked the customer out of it. They would have told them it was fine with the 97 per cent efficient furnace. Every time, I had to keep pushing every trade.”
These were aspects of the industry that Gonzalez already knew existed, but it made for a good experience for him to push his own trades in the company. “You really see how they don’t want to push anything that’s above and beyond efficiency, and every time I talk to new builders, it’s all about cutting costs. I knew I had one shot to do this.”
Lead by example
Sometimes, there are end results that just can’t be adjusted after they’ve been made. One such example is room and slab sensors. “The room sensor for the bathroom was placed close to a wall that is shared with the laundry room. When that door gets left open, that room doesn’t have forced air heat in it, and the washer and dryer connections go straight outside the house. There is some cold air coming in from the dryer vent, which makes that room become a little bit cooler than the rest of the area,” shares Gonzalez. “That room sensor would pick up on that room being cold, and because the master bathroom is close to that laundry room, I can’t use the room sensor. Since the master bedroom and master bathroom are on the same zone, I can’t use the room sensor and the slab sensor, which is all the way over by the bedroom, where all the loops come to meet at the manifold. That was unfortunate because that’s probably the spot that you’d want to be the most comfortable.”
To any contractor that may be interested in attempting a barndominium project on their own, Gonzalez gives one simple piece of advice: lead early. “These builds demand early mechanical input. They demand sequencing. They demand pre-planning before the slab, not problem-solving after. Treat it like a standard residential job, and you’ll likely create service calls. Treat it like a custom mechanical system inside a non-traditional structure, and you can deliver something exceptional. Building this project as both general contractor and mechanical contractor reinforced a simple truth: comfort, durability, and efficiency don’t happen by accident — especially in unconventional builds.”