HVAC in Sylvan Lake

Sylvan Lake at a glance

Sylvan Lake is a town about 25 km west of Red Deer along Highway 11 and 11A, on the southeast shore of a 15-kilometre lake that straddles Red Deer County and Lacombe County. The lake draws around a million visitors a year, and the summer villages of Norglenwold and Jarvis Bay border the town.

What that means for your heating

A lake town has two kinds of homes: year-round houses and seasonal places that sit empty through the cold months. A cottage left with the heat turned down needs a furnace that will restart reliably, a low-temperature alarm and someone checking in after a deep cold spell. See maintenance and tune-ups before you close up for winter.

Wind off the water

Homes facing the open lake take the full force of the wind in winter, which pulls heat through every gap in doors, windows and ductwork. Sealing drafts and insulating duct runs in crawl spaces can steady the temperature as much as a bigger furnace.

From Snake Lake to Sylvan Lake

The land was ceded under Treaty 6 in 1877, and French-speaking settlers arrived in the late 1890s; the Loiselle family homesteaded the quarter section that became the west side of today's Main Street in 1898. The lake was first called Snake Lake, after the Cree name for its many garter snakes, until it was renamed Sylvan Lake in 1903. Old cottages from the town's early resort days were often built for summer only, and adding heat to them later is where a heat pump or ductless unit can make sense.