Thousands of Islanders waiting to have free heat pumps installed

A Tryon man says he's been waiting for a free heat pump to be installed since last summer, and he's wondering how much longer he has to wait.

Gary Foy is not alone.

The P.E.I. government estimates 3,500 households are waiting to have theirs installed.

Foy uses electricity and oil to heat his home and saidhis bills are adding up.

"There's people out there waiting and a lot of senior citizens that are probably waiting and struggling with the heating bills," he said.

'Higher uptakethan anticipated'

Officials with the province say 3,000 free heat pumps have been installed since the program was announced in 2021.

Two weeks ago, the maximum household income threshold was increased from $55,000 to $75,000.And since then, nearly 1,000 additional applications have been received.

Derek Ellis is thedirector of the sustainability division with the Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action.

"We had higher uptake than anticipated and we initially onboarded three installers. So after we increased the threshold, we had to do some pretty quick onboarding of additional installers to meet that demand," he said.

"So we're a little bit more nimble than we were at the beginning and this will be a temporary backlog," Ellis said.

He said they have 12 installers certified to do the work at a pace of about 650 heat pump installations per month.

Ellis said the goal is to resolve the backlog in five months.

He's asking Islanders to be patient, and contact his office if they'd like an update on their installation.

"We're optimistic that we can onboard more contractors and that the contractors we do have can increase their capacity. So some combination of those two things will, with any luck here, reduce that wait time," Ellis said.

"Certainly hang in there and don't hesitate to contact our office for an update. I'm happy to give those updates and I know people are worried when they're waiting with no exact timelines."

Meanwhile, Foy said he's saving money by cutting back on extra groceries and travelling less by car.He'll be happy once the heat pump is installed.

"I heard tell people saying it's quite a savings like ... I know people have them, and I guess they found them pretty good."