Burnaby, B.C. — The British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) is launching a new Residential Air Source Heat Pump Installation Skills course.
Eight students recently completed a pilot of the course, which provided a one-week hands-on program experience.
The course introduces practical skills and provides hands-on experience for single-family residential air source heat pump installation. Students will develop an understanding of how the quality of a heat pump installation affects its performance.
Through the course, the instructor will demonstrate techniques for quality installation, and students will learn by working with live and simulated equipment. The course builds on the experience and theoretical knowledge of residential HVAC contractors, who are predominantly plumbers, gas fitters, and sheet metal workers.
The program will be offered in BCIT’s High-Performance Building Lab, which hosts two different central heat pumps, a dual fuel system, and a multizone heat pump with a wall-mounted mini split, a slim duct indoor unit, a ceiling cassette, and a vertical central air handling unit.
BCIT’s Residential Air Source Heat Pump Installation Skills course is part of the institute’s Zero Energy/Emissions Buildings Learning Centre (ZEBLC). This centre supports the local construction industry as it transitions to the BC Zero Carbon Step Code and the city of Vancouver’s Zero Emissions Building bylaws.
The ZEBLC offers three programs, Building Controls and Energy Management Advanced Certificate, Community Energy Management, and Sustainable Energy Management Advanced Certificate.
In addition to the heat pump installation course, students have access to individual classes, including Intro to Residential Mechanical Systems for Zero Energy/Emissions and Passive House Buildings, Fundamentals of Zero Energy/Emissions and Passive House Buildings, Intro to Deep Energy/Emissions Retrofits for Single-Family and Multi-Family Homes, and Intro to Embodied Carbon and Whole Building Life Cycle Assessments.