Meet the people behind the porcupine

We refuse to be boring about something as personal as comfort.

Porcupine Mechanical is a Squamish heating & cooling company. We design, install, and look after heat pumps from Whistler to North Vancouver. Run by Simon & Jessica, we have a team behind us we'd trust in our own home. This page shares who we are, what we do, and why there's a porcupine on the van.

Two Founders, two very different toolkits

Simon Miller, President

Simon designs the systems we install, from the straightforward swap to the house everyone else said couldn't be done. He works it out alongside you, so the design fits how you actually live in the place. When a home has a problem nobody has an answer for, his technical genius is usually the reason it gets one.

Very few people in this trade carry that breadth of knowledge, and it's why he sees the whole house as a system rather than one piece of equipment.

Jessica Miller

Director of Marketing & Business Developement

Jessica leads marketing and business development, and the branding is consistently the most fun part of her job. The porcupines, the colours, the tone of every email you get from us, all of it runs through her. Running a company turns out to be a long series of puzzles, and getting curious about the next one is her favourite part of the week. She also sits on the board of the Squamish Chamber of Commerce.

The People Who Make Cozy Happen

A heat pump is only as good as the people who install it and take care of it afterwards.
Meet the Porcupine Team

Ellen Kelsey

Samantha LaPierre

David Lemay

Hossein Bolghani

Quinn Kryzanowski

Tiago Knorst

Vitalii Savich

Kyle Nadon

I'll never forget the night

we moved into our new Squamish home.

SIMON MILLER

FOUNDER, PORCUPINE MECHANICAL

I'll never forget the night

we moved into our new Squamish home.

Even though we were filled with excitement and pride I realized we had a clunky old electric furnace that sounded like a jet taking off.

When I received my first electric bill, I nearly choked.

Trying to fall asleep with the deafening noise of that furnace cycling on and off all night was a struggle.

One day I stopped hearing our furnace and realized how much I had been taking it for granted. Unfortunately, our furnace failed completely, leaving us without heat during a cold spell. That's when I made the decision to upgrade to a high-efficiency heat pump.

Let me tell you, it was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Finally we had peace of mind that our heating would be reliable. After installing air conditioning for others for so many years - i finally had it myself! And of course the bonus was the extra storage space we gained by taking the furnace out!

Now, after 10 years of worry-free operation (thanks in part to regular maintenance), our heat pump still runs as smoothly as the day I installed it.

Why there's a porcupine on the van

There's no legend behind the name. Simon grew up around porcupines, and when we were naming the company the animal made us smile. That was the whole reason. It's only since then that we noticed how right it was.

A porcupine spends the cold months in a hollow log and doesn't hibernate, doesn't migrate, and doesn't complain. It makes its own warmth from very little and stays put, which is a fair description of a well-designed heat pump. As for the sunglasses and the dancing, that's what a household looks like six months after the install, when nobody is thinking about the temperature anymore. Every porcupine on our vans is somebody being warm in their home in February and cool on the hottest night in July.

How We Work

A porcupine has thirty thousand quills on top and soft underneath, and that's how we work. Prickly about getting every detail right on the installation, the service call, and the maintenance visit. Soft about everything else, which mostly means taking care of the people whose home it is.

WE HELP YOU UNDERSTAND YOUR OPTIONS

After the site visit you'll get what we found, what it means for your home, and the tradeoffs between the choices in front of you, in plain language. We'll recommend when you ask us to. The decision is yours, and we'll respect whichever way it goes.

WE KEEP YOU INFORMED

You'll know what happens next and roughly when, from the first visit to the day the crew packs up. If a house has a surprise in it, and older houses often do, you'll hear about it from us before it becomes a cost, along with what we suggest doing about it.

WE LOOK AFTER YOUR HOME

Floors and furniture protected, work areas cleaned up at the end of each day, temporary heat if your system has to be down when it's cold out, and a straight answer about how disruptive the week will be before it

WE STAND BEHIND OUR WORK

Every install includes a one-year labour warranty and a maintenance visit at six months. After that, the Comfort Club keeps the same eyes on your system, so you never have to remember when it's due.