Heritage Gas sent three people to the show: an engineer, a crew lead, and an account manager. Between them they covered pricing, civil coordination, regulatory scope, safety, and the hydrogen future. If you build in HRM or are thinking about gas heat on a job site, this is the briefing you didn't get at permit.
Most builders treat the utility as a problem that arrives at the tail end of a project — someone to call when the mechanical contractor needs a meter, and not before. Allison Coffin, Ryan Boudreau, and Jevin MacLellan from Heritage Gas spent nearly 48 minutes on the Atlantic Construction Podcast pushing back on that habit. The argument they made, calmly and with specifics, is that a natural gas connection started at mechanical design produces a different — and simpler — project than one bolted on at shovel-drop.
This was Episode 19, recorded while Heritage Gas was still operating under that name. The company has since rebranded as Eastward Energy, Nova Scotia's sole natural gas distribution utility, a rate-regulated subsidiary of TriSummit Utilities serving HRM, Pictou County, and Cumberland County. The franchise has existed since 2003. The pipeline insights haven't changed.
Call early — not when the mechanical drawings are already stamped
The most actionable thing in the episode isn't technical. It's timing. Jevin MacLellan's description of how Heritage Gas used to get involved — after the shovel was already in the ground — frames everything else. The utility has been pushing to sit in the room earlier, at mechanical specification, because once a building has been designed around another energy source the conversation is essentially over.
“the sooner that we can get involved in the conversations the better”, MacLellan says. That's not a sales pitch dressed as advice. It reflects a real technical reality: specifying gas piping, sizing the meter set, and planning the service run from the street all go smoother when there's still time to adjust the design. A developer who calls after the mechanical drawings are stamped is asking Heritage Gas to retrofit, and retrofitting through Halifax bedrock costs more.
For builders, the implication is direct: if gas is a live option for a project, it belongs in the design-stage RFI, not the commissioning punch list.
The meter is where Heritage Gas's jurisdiction ends
One of the cleaner pieces of practical knowledge in the episode is the CSA regulatory boundary. It matters at tender because scope gaps here cost money.
Heritage Gas works under CSA Z662 — the standard that governs pipeline systems up to the customer meter set assembly. Everything past the meter, inside the building, falls under a different standard and requires a different qualified contractor. As Allison Coffin explains, “heritage gas falls under csa standard z662... once you get past our meter set into the house you fall under csa” — specifically CSA B149, the natural gas and propane installation code that governs in-building piping and appliances.
This matters at tender time. The utility runs the service to the meter and installs the meter set. A licensed gas contractor — someone qualified under B149 — handles everything downstream. If your bid package doesn't separate those scopes, you'll get a gap or an overlap, and either one is a change order.
Gas is last in the ground — sequence your civil work accordingly
In new residential subdivisions like Bedford West, Ryan Boudreau describes Heritage Gas's position in the utility queue: they arrive after foundations are poured, and they run service stubs of roughly 10–15 metres from the street to the HRM property line. “we're usually the last utility in because we're typically the shallowest”, he says.
That sequencing is a coordination opportunity. Because gas is shallow and arrives last, it has the smallest civil footprint of any utility in a new subdivision. The rough-in window is short; it doesn't require Heritage Gas to be on site through the whole infrastructure phase. For a site superintendent managing multiple utility companies across a fast-growing subdivision, knowing that Heritage Gas needs only a brief window — post-foundation, pre-backfill — simplifies the schedule.
The flip side: if the lot is already backfilled and graded before Heritage Gas gets its coordination call, the job gets harder. This is another version of the same early-engagement argument.
Construction heating with gas: standard practice out west, underused here
One of the more surprising segments in the episode is MacLellan's observation about construction heating. Using natural gas to cure concrete slabs, run drywall heat, and fight frost is considered standard practice in western Canada. In Nova Scotia it isn't — not because the gas isn't available, but because the habit hasn't crossed the country.
“project guys that do projects out west wonder how they can get the natural gas for the construction heat”, MacLellan says, describing the reverse phenomenon: builders who've worked in Alberta or BC arriving in Nova Scotia and asking where the gas heating is.
Where street gas already exists near the site, this is a viable option today. Propane-fired construction heaters are the default in Nova Scotia, but they carry fuel delivery costs and an open-flame logistics overhead that piped gas avoids. For a large pour or an enclosed building through a Nova Scotia winter, it's worth a call to Heritage Gas before defaulting to propane.
Pricing stability: what fixed pipeline contracts actually do
Natural gas prices are a commodity, and commodity prices move. Heritage Gas manages customer exposure to that volatility by entering into fixed-price pipeline supply contracts — locking in a portion of the supply cost for a set period. “entering into these contracts allows us to be more confident in the security of the price”, MacLellan explains.
For a developer or property manager choosing between energy sources, this matters. Electricity pricing in Nova Scotia is regulated but subject to rate case changes; oil is fully commodity-exposed. A fixed pipeline supply contract is a real hedge, not a marketing claim. The right question to ask any energy supplier is how they manage commodity exposure, and what portion of the supply is under contract at any given time.
Halifax bedrock and buried tram lines: budget for discovery
Downtown Halifax is harder to dig than any other part of the Heritage Gas service territory. The bedrock comes up fast: “we have a high amount of bedrock so all of our work here is trenched”, Allison Coffin says. There's no directional drilling option on the Halifax Peninsula the way there is in Cumberland County, where softer ground allows horizontal boring. Trenching through bedrock is slower and more expensive, and it belongs in the civil schedule estimate for any downtown gas connection.
Then there's what the trenches find. During downtown Halifax work, the crew “we encountered some abandoned tram lines under the asphalt... we work with a local archaeologist”, says Coffin. Halifax's street grid predates the asphalt by a century, and the Peninsula has layers — nineteenth-century infrastructure, buried retaining walls, and archaeologically significant deposits. Anyone doing civil work on the downtown Peninsula should have a protocol for unexpected finds, including a line to an archaeologist, before breaking ground.
The hydrogen pipe is already in the ground
One argument for specifying natural gas in new construction that the Heritage Gas team makes explicitly: the pipe is future-ready. Nova Scotia's gas distribution system is built on polyethylene, and all of it is under 20 years old. “those materials are more conducive to the idea of blending hydrogen with your natural gas”, Coffin says, describing how the modern polyethylene system is technically compatible with hydrogen blending in a way that older steel infrastructure wouldn't be.
The province also has abundant wind for green hydrogen production, and Heritage Gas was actively discussing renewable natural gas at the time of this recording. A builder who specs gas today isn't locking a client into a stranded asset. The distribution system is positioned to carry a lower-carbon fuel mix when that supply comes online.
The companies doing this work
Heritage Gas has since rebranded as Eastward Energy, still Nova Scotia's sole natural gas distribution utility. They cover HRM, Pictou County, and Cumberland County, and they are a subsidiary of TriSummit Utilities. The episode's commercial project examples include Queen's Marque — the Armour Group waterfront development that uses a seawater heat pump drawing from Halifax Harbour, supplemented by natural gas — and Richmond Yards, a five-tower mixed-use development at Robie and Almon in the North End. If you're in New Brunswick, the analogous utility is Liberty Utilities (Gas New Brunswick), which holds the gas distribution franchise for that province.
For any connection inquiry — residential, subdivision, or commercial — Eastward Energy is the starting point. The account manager relationship that MacLellan described is real: the utility has people whose job is to work through the design-stage coordination with developers and their mechanical consultants.
The part nobody puts in the spec package
The Heritage Gas team spent a segment on barcode-tracked buried infrastructure. Every fitting and pipe section Heritage Gas puts in the ground is tracked by barcode — “all of our pipe and fittings that are getting put in the ground are tracked” — an asset-lifecycle programme that Coffin suggested may have been the first of its kind in Canada at 100% coverage. That level of documentation on buried infrastructure is exactly what makes third-party strikes and emergency response faster to resolve. If you're coordinating civil work near an existing Heritage Gas main, that asset registry is your friend.
And commercial customers shape the map. “a lot of times commercial customers dictate the direction that we're going and how far we can go”, MacLellan says. Anchor commercial projects pull the distribution network into new areas; residential developers near large commercial builds have a better chance of gas access than those in purely residential greenfield areas with no anchor nearby. If you're evaluating a site for gas viability, the location of the nearest major commercial customer matters as much as the straight-line distance to the nearest main.
Guests: Allison Coffin MBA P.Eng. (Manager, Engineering & Construction), Ryan Boudreau (construction crew lead), and Jevin MacLellan (new construction account manager) — all Heritage Gas / Eastward Energy. Episode 19 of the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Watch the full episode. Also featured: The Armour Group Limited (Queen's Marque) and Liberty Utilities Gas New Brunswick. Receipt sources: CSA Z662/B149 boundary confirmed via ANSI/CSA; Heritage Gas franchise history via Eastward Energy; Queen's Marque seawater heat pump via CBC News.