Invented in the Maritimes. Installed across Ottawa.
The Thermo-Trap wasn't picked out of a catalogue. It was invented by Normand Blanchard, an Acadian from Shippagan, New Brunswick, who got fed up with a leaky dryer vent and built something better. We're the team bringing his design to homes across the Ottawa area.
Patented • CSA Approved
The Thermo-Trap started with a problem nobody had bothered to fix properly. Normand Blanchard wasn't an engineer at some big manufacturer. He was an inventor from Shippagan, on New Brunswick's Acadian peninsula, who had settled in the Gatineau and Ottawa region. Like a lot of homeowners, he had a dryer vent that kept clogging and let cold winter air pour straight back inside. Le Droit later put numbers on it: at −17 °C outside, the air inside a leaky dryer vent sat at just 4 °C. That's heat you paid for, gone.
He went looking for a better vent and found none worth buying. The covers on the market needed cleaning every 6 to 18 months but were nearly impossible to take apart, they leaked air, and some were so awkward you'd practically tear out a section of wall to fit them. So he decided to build his own.
After a lot of trial and error, he designed a vent with two rows of aerodynamic flaps. The double-flap system fits standard pipe diameters and snaps apart for cleaning in seconds. The second row is the trick: it holds the seal when a single flap would blow open, locking out cold air, birds, and rodents. He named it the Thermo-Trap.
He didn't take his own word for it. He had it tested, including efficiency research by On Spex in Ohio, with engineering reports showing the trap held its seal even in 100 km/h winds. The press took notice. When Le Droit visited on a winter Saturday, it was −6 °C outside and a steady 20 °C at the vent. Both Le Droit (February 2010) and L'Acadie Nouvelle (August 2010) reached for the same word: « révolutionnaire ».
None of it came from a big budget. Normand funded the whole thing himself, more than $100,000 over a dozen years, much of it from royalties on an earlier invention. He answered the 1-888 line himself and mailed traps out one order at a time. More than 2,000 traps went into homes, and the name spread across Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick as distributors picked up territories one by one.
Today, every Thermo-Trap is still made in Rimouski, Quebec, and it remains the only vent of its kind approved by CSA Group. We're the team carrying it forward. We're new to Ottawa and Gatineau, but we're installing a product with more than fifteen years behind it. You'll find the full product line, specifications, and warranty details on the manufacturer's site at thermo-trap.net.
- The problem Standard vent flaps leak conditioned air, let pests in, and need cleaning every 6 to 18 months. Everyone accepted it.
- The design A double-flap vent: two rows of aerodynamic louvers that seal airtight, snap apart to clean, and keep out cold, birds, and rodents.
- Tested & patented Patented, with efficiency research by On Spex (Ohio) and reports showing a seal that holds in 100 km/h winds. Manufactured in Rimouski, Quebec; CSA approved.
- « Révolutionnaire » in the press In 2010, both Le Droit and L'Acadie Nouvelle ran features on the invention.
- Today: Ottawa & Gatineau 2,000+ traps later, and known across Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick, it's now installed across Ottawa and Gatineau by Purple Property Services, backed by the 15-year guarantee.
The papers called it « révolutionnaire ».
Two newspapers sent reporters to see the Thermo-Trap for themselves: one in Gatineau, one on the Acadian peninsula.
“I write this and reread it, and I can hardly believe it myself.”Normand Blanchard, looking back on the whole story
Want it on your home?
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