Martin (Tri-Energie ABC Hybride Inc.) is extremely knowledgeable, professional and very friendly. He answered all our questions, guided us through the process of choosing the best system for our situation, did excellent work and post-project customer service. With this technology, by using both gas & electric for our central forced air heating system, we are able to enjoy the comfort of our home and minimize the expenses. This technology brings a lot of value and flexibility and should certainly be more popular. read more

Like others posting reviews here, we have a dual energy system ( oil and thermopump ) and the thermopump seemed to always be in defrost mode with the oil furnace coming on, using tremendous amounts of oil. I was looking for solutions online and came across ABC hybrid energy and called Martin for some info. He was very knowledgable and I was convinced of the efficacy of the system, we had it installed in the fall of 2022 and it has surpassed our expectations. The optimizing and advantage of Hydros dual energy rate saved us a lot of money. I believe we saved @ $1000 the first year, taking into account a mild winter. The house temperature was much more stable and comfortable. Highly recommend the tri-energy controller system for homes with thermopump and oil. thank you , Martin read more

I purchased the system last year because of Jan Eake's recommendation (http://joneakes.com/jons-fixit-database/2220-tri-energy-a-step-further-twoards-energy-efficiency) as well as after meeting with Martin who impressed me with his expertise. My heat pump was spending lots of time in the defrost cycle which triggered the oil furnace to take over heating of the house. This was wasting money as well as emitting extra GHG into the environment. Martin's 3-Flex was the ideal product to maximize the efficiency of my heating system. The installation was done smoothly although a non standard installation done when the heat pump was originally installed 10 years earlier required some minor tweaks to overcome. Martin has been great in supporting the product and ensuring that it operated as expected. He is patient and always available to answer questions. If you have a dual energy (oil / heat pump ) heating system I highly recommend that you have the 3-Flex installed as it will save you money! read more

Takes too long to identify/solve a minor issue. On top of that, charges 3-4 times the normal price for the components. Not recommended at all ! read more

I'm extremely pleased with the tri-energy solution installed by ABC Hybrid. With my previous dual energy solution (Heat Pump + Oil), I couldn't understand why I was using so much oil when the temperatures were relatively mild. I thought that the heap pump was supposed to do all the heating until -12, but that wasn't the case: I was still using oil when electricity was cheap. With the addition of the plenum heater, I now have enough electric heating capacity to heat while electricity is cheap. The controller also ensures continued running of my electric components (until the set point is reached) and doesn't use oil until the hydro quebec signal comes in from the meter. I can also increase the temperature in the house on milder nights without worrying about burning oil. With tri-energy, I like to think of the heat pump as my weak (but cheap) source of heat, the plenum/duct heater as the medium strength heater and the oil as the strong source of heat. I also recommend careful selection of thermostat. I found it was more comfortable when the thermostat supports reverse staging (e.g. falling back from Stage 2 [AUX+HP] to Stage 1 [HP only]). This keeps the heat pump running for incremental heat when below the HP balance point. I donated my Nest thermostat (which doesn't support this) to a friend in favor of a Honeywell Lyric which works well (if you have a compatible wifi router). I would also like to know if the Ecobee3 supports this (the manual seems to indicate it might - but not sure if it is for conventional only). Finally, Martin is very technically savvy, patient and professional. He plans ahead and takes care in his work. He came to visit me multiple times for issues that were unrelated to equipment installed by ABC and helped me to understand the problems and how to go about fixing them. I am especially grateful when he diagnosed a burnt relay for my furnace fan. I am reassured to have Martin as part of a support team for my home heating equipment. read more

I highly recommend this system for anyone with a heat pump and oil/gas furnace as well as those with only an oil furnace. Those with an oil furnace only could install such a system and immediately benefit from the reduced DT rate from Hydro Quebec as I will explain below. I have an older home with an oil furnace and a heat pump using the Hydro Quebec bi-energy or "DT" rate. This gives a discounted rate at temperatures above -12C, and increases at temperatures below -12C. The idea is to encourage those with non-electric alternative heating to get off the grid during peak demand. My sister has exactly the same system and one year ran out of oil in December! The temperatures well above -12 and the tank filled in November. In researching the reasons, I discovered that in heat pump systems which are retrofitted to oil or gas furnaces, the heat exchange coils are normally placed in the plenum (the area where the air is normally warmed by the oil furnace). This is the cause of several issues. First of all, if your house is older and there are air leaks (there normally are in older houses), there will be times when your heat pump is unable to generate enough heat to maintain the desired temperature. When the thermostat recognises this, it will call for back up - in my case oil. I was shocked to learn that I was still burning oil even though the temperature has not dropped below -12C. I calculated the cost of energy. Electricity at the DT rate was about $0,04 per kWh, oil was about $0,18 - $0,20 per kWh, and the DT rate at peak(below -12C) was about $0,24 per kWh. Therefore every kWh of oil that I was using was costing me about $0,14 more per kWh, which is just huge. I thought I could save money turning turn the thermostat down at night. Wrong. What I found was that when the thermostat calls for a warm up in the morning the heat pump cannot generate heat quickly enough and the system immediately calls for backup heat, again oil. This effect makes dropping the temperature at night actually more expensive than keeping a constant temperature and running the heat pump all night. The second issue is that when the heat pump cannot maintain the temperature and the thermostat calls for backup heat (oil or gas), it must shut down the heat pump completely. This is because the furnace would heat the coils and damage the compressor. This is a pity, as heat pumps provide very efficient heating. My oil furnace might be lucky to get 60% efficiency, meaning that 40% of the heat produced goes up the chimney. Electricity, such as baseboards are arguably 100% efficient. Heat pumps are more than 100%, meaning that for every joule of energy used by the heat pump, more than one joule is extracted. That number decreases with ambient temperature - the colder it is, the less heat you can extract from the air, but it is still greater than one for most heat pumps. Therefore anyone with a heat pump should want to have it running basically 100% of the time. The last issue is, depending on your setup and the capability of your thermostat, sometimes that furnace will not even run when the Heat Pump is in defrost mode. Defrost mode turns the Heat Pump back into an air conditioner. If you ever notices a blast of cold air coming from the vents, welcome to defrost mode. In my research I happily stumbled on Martin and ABC Energy. Martin's system is really ingenious, as it solves all issues above. Instead of expensive oil it uses heat strips mounted in the plenum or the ducts to boost the heat pump when it cannot keep up. The savings here is phenomenal. Depending on the efficiency of your furnace, it is about ¼ of the cost as compared using oil as backup. Secondly, the heat strips are installed after (i.e. downwind from) the heat pump coils. This means that they can operate concurrently. Again, this is big savings and just makes sense to keep the heat pump going all the time. If you are getting cold blasts during defrost cycles, those will also be a thing of the past. In fact we find the temperature is maintained much better than with a heat-pump / furnace alone. We no longer get the fluctuations in temperature we did before. Martin did the work quickly and efficiently. I have had the system installed for two years now, and it works fine. Any questions I have had have been answered quickly by Martin - he is not one of those guys which sells you a system and is later nowhere to be found. He stands behind his product and his work. He will tell you that the system will pay for itself in a few years. I believe that is a conservative estimate. In our case I believe that the system paid for itself within a year, or a winter and a half. I actually feel bad for the oil company now. They still come every month in the winter. This December my oil bill was under $7.00. I am just not using any oil until the temperature drops below -12C and the entire system switches to oil. read more

Called them to service AC unit and were told to contact someone else because they would not come from the West Island to downtown Montreal although their banner states they service Montreal and surrounding areas. Bad starting point. Will not be using them. read more

The heating season has come and gone, and Martin, your product was no less than amazing! we used to burn upwards of 2.5 tanks of oil per heating season, this year we used less than half a tank. We also enjoyed an increase in comfort level, no large swings in temperatures all the while remaining nice and warm. We are extremely satisfied your solution and have no reservations whatsoever to recommend Thanks for everything Joe from Pincourt read more