What Do HVAC Consumers Actually Search For in Metro Vancouver?

Q: What does this mean for a contractor trying to rank?

Reviews at 368 on average is the context, not the target. The range shows that appearing in the Map Pack does not require being the most-reviewed business in the region. But the floor is real: contractors with fewer than 20 reviews are entering the most competitive clusters at a structural disadvantage. Cost queries are open to organic content. Three of five cost-intent queries returned no Map Pack at all. A well-written page answering "how much does furnace replacement cost in BC" or "heat pump installation cost Vancouver" can rank organically without competing for a GBP position. That is a gap most contractors in this market have not filled. Emergency queries split between Map Pack and organic. "Furnace not working Vancouver" returned no Map Pack — the top organic result was whyteplumbing.ca. A contractor with a service-area page or blog post targeting that query is competing on a different field than the GBP-optimized businesses showing up for "emergency furnace repair Vancouver." The same handful of businesses appear across multiple query clusters. Repeat appearances by bcfurnace.com and reliancehomecomfort.com across repair, installation, and local discovery searches suggest those businesses are not optimizing for one keyword — they're building across the full surface area of homeowner intent. A contractor building visibility in one city needs to cover the same spread: repair terms, installation terms, emergency terms, and cost terms, not just "HVAC contractor [city]."

Rankwise Lab — Market Study · May 2026

This is a Rankwise Lab Market Study — public Google data, observed and analyzed by Rankwise, not client results.

What does the HVAC Map Pack in Metro Vancouver look like right now?

For most HVAC searches in Metro Vancouver, three businesses take up the only positions that generate calls. Rankwise studied 30 consumer HVAC queries across the region — repair, installation, cost, emergency, and local discovery — to see who holds those spots, what their profiles look like, and where the gaps are. The short answer: the Map Pack shows up on 83% of HVAC searches, the businesses holding it average 368 reviews, and the floor to compete is higher than most contractors expect.

How was this data collected?

Rankwise pulled Map Pack results and organic rankings for 30 homeowner HVAC queries across Metro Vancouver using SerpAPI against live Google results. Queries were organized into six intent clusters: emergency, repair, installation, cost, local discovery, and trust/reviews. Data reflects a single point in time — May 2026. This shows who appears and what their profiles look like, not why they rank or how long they've held those positions. No click data, no call volume, no before/after measurement.

How often does the Map Pack appear — and for which searches?

Map Pack presence is not uniform across HVAC searches. It showed up on 25 of the 30 queries tracked — 83% overall — but the pattern breaks down sharply by intent.

Repair, Installation, Local Discovery, Trust Reviews searches trigger the Map Pack 100% of the time. Every query in those clusters returned a three-pack. A homeowner searching "furnace repair Vancouver," "heat pump installation Surrey," or "best HVAC company Vancouver" will see Map Pack results before they see a single organic listing.

Other clusters are softer. emergency (60%); cost (40%). Queries like "furnace not working Vancouver" and "no heat in house Vancouver" returned no Map Pack at all — organic results dominated instead.

That split matters. A contractor who only optimizes for their GBP listing is visible for the searches that are already competitive — and invisible for the cost and emergency queries where organic content can step in without a Map Pack fight.

What does it take to hold a Map Pack position?

The review data from this study is the clearest signal available from public observation.

The average rated business appearing in the Map Pack carries 368 reviews. The range runs from 14 at the low end to 4,400 at the high end. The average rating across all 75 rated businesses tracked is 4.9 stars.

Two things stand out from those numbers.

First, the review count range is wide — 14 to 4,400 — which means review volume alone is not the only factor at play. A contractor with fewer reviews appeared in a Map Pack position in at least one query. But the average of 368 tells you what the typical competitive baseline looks like across the full set. A business sitting below 50 reviews is likely competing at a disadvantage in any contested city before any other factor is considered.

Second, ratings are effectively a floor, not a differentiator. Nearly every business tracked holds a 4.9 or higher. A contractor with a 4.2 is not losing on rating points alone — but a contractor with a 3.8 is disqualified before the question of rankings comes up at all.

Which cities and contractors show up most?

Richmond and Burnaby appear consistently across Map Pack results. Vancouver proper, Coquitlam, and Surrey also show representation. The dominant organic domains — bcfurnace.com, reliancehomecomfort.com, milani.ca, vanheatservices.com — appear across multiple query clusters, which suggests those businesses have built broad topical and geographic authority rather than optimizing for a single search term.

Reddit (www.reddit.com) and Homestars (www.homestars.com) appear repeatedly in organic results for trust and cost queries. "Best furnace repair Vancouver," "trusted HVAC company Vancouver," and "AC installation cost Vancouver" all return Reddit or Homestars as a top organic result. Homeowners searching those queries are landing on review aggregators and community discussions, not contractor websites — which means a contractor without a strong review presence on those platforms is missing a parallel acquisition channel.

What does this mean for a contractor trying to rank?

Reviews at 368 on average is the context, not the target. The range shows that appearing in the Map Pack does not require being the most-reviewed business in the region. But the floor is real: contractors with fewer than 20 reviews are entering the most competitive clusters at a structural disadvantage.

Cost queries are open to organic content. Three of five cost-intent queries returned no Map Pack at all. A well-written page answering "how much does furnace replacement cost in BC" or "heat pump installation cost Vancouver" can rank organically without competing for a GBP position. That is a gap most contractors in this market have not filled.

Emergency queries split between Map Pack and organic. "Furnace not working Vancouver" returned no Map Pack — the top organic result was whyteplumbing.ca. A contractor with a service-area page or blog post targeting that query is competing on a different field than the GBP-optimized businesses showing up for "emergency furnace repair Vancouver."

The same handful of businesses appear across multiple query clusters. Repeat appearances by bcfurnace.com and reliancehomecomfort.com across repair, installation, and local discovery searches suggest those businesses are not optimizing for one keyword — they're building across the full surface area of homeowner intent. A contractor building visibility in one city needs to cover the same spread: repair terms, installation terms, emergency terms, and cost terms, not just "HVAC contractor [city]."

What this study doesn't tell us

This is a single snapshot. Map Pack positions shift — sometimes weekly, sometimes faster after GBP changes or a competitor's review surge. The data reflects searches from one location point, so results will vary for a contractor in Coquitlam versus one in Richmond. There is no call data, no conversion data, and no way to measure how much of a contractor's booked revenue flows from any individual Map Pack position. What this study shows is who appears and what their profiles look like — not why they rank or what it would take to displace them.

What Rankwise tracks from here

This snapshot is the baseline. Rankwise revisits the same 30 queries quarterly to track whether the same businesses hold position, how review counts shift, and whether the cost and emergency query gaps get filled. The cost and emergency clusters are on closer watch — they're the most likely to move as contractors and content sites start targeting the organic openings.

If you want to see how your HVAC business shows up across these searches in your specific city, that's what the audit covers. Book a 15-minute call at rankwise.ca/audit. We only work with one HVAC contractor per city, so we look closely before taking anyone on. On the call: how your business shows up on Google today, which calls in your city might be going to competitors instead of you, and whether we're the right team to help grow your call volume from there. If we're not, we'll say so.

Data updates

This study is refreshed quarterly. Each update re-runs the same 30 queries and records what shifted.