Our business has always been a family affair, even at its inception. In 1983 Glenn Kaye and his mother Edna founded Maritime Geothermal Ltd. and began designing, building, and installing residential heat pumps. While Glenn handled the design and production of the heat pumps, Edna, a retired business education teacher, took care of accounting and sales. Together they created the Nordic® brand and set out to make a name for themselves in the residential geothermal heating and cooling industry.
The first heat pump the duo designed and manufactured was a three horsepower passive cooling heat pump designed that ran on an open loop. Sales were centered in Atlantic Canada initially, but by 1985, installers in Ontario, Quebec, and Maine were selling Nordic® heat pumps.
In 1988, Chris Geddes joined the Nordic® team as a summer student. Chris worked part-time with us throughout university and received his Bachelor of Engineering degree in 1995. He’s been working with Maritime Geothermal Ltd. for well over a decade and has become a valuable source of knowledge of the early days of the company.
Revolutionizing the Geothermal Heating and Cooling Market
In 1990 we introduced our first active cooling water-to-air heat pump, the R Series. This residential heat pump would later become one of our best selling geothermal heat pumps.
A year later, in response to increased standardization demanded in the industry, we added a testing lab to our facility. This fully computerized lab allows us to certify our own machines. We remain the only heat pump manufacturer in Canada to maintain a lab like this.
In 1992 we took the requests of our heat pump installers to heart and developed a direct expansion heat pump, dubbing it the DX Series. This heat pump was designed to decrease the cost and complication of ground loop installation.
1995 marked our first foray into the world of larger commercial heat pumps. First, we developed our indoor pool conditioner as a complimentary product for homes or businesses with large indoor swimming pools. This machine was so popular that a year later we added large-scale water-to-water heat pumps to our product line. These large units are ideal for large commercial buildings with in-floor heating or other large hot water requirements. Today these machines are one of our most popular products.
In 1998 we added another heavy hitter to our product line: the liquid-to-air-and-water heat pump also known as the TF Series. This heat pump provides full capacity hot water heating for in-floor radiant heat, and hot and cold air heating via ductwork. As an added bonus the TF Series also makes free domestic hot water while in cooling mode. These heat pumps are ideal for new construction and quickly became best sellers.
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Team and Facility Expansion
Our team expanded in 2004 when we added Dan Rheault to the product development department. Dan holds a B.Sc.E.Hon., Engineering Physics, Mechanical option from Queen’s University and took our product development to the next level. During this time we also moved our manufacturing processes to a new 10,000 square foot facility. Within four years, demand for Nordic® heat pumps had grown so quickly that we expanded again, adding an additional 15,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space.
Our team and product line has continued to expand as demand for heat pumps increases. We added Susan Kaye in 2009 and Jordann Brown in 2011 to handle our increasing office workload, and in 2014 we released our most exciting heat pump – air-to-water heat pumps.