Image source: Merlina McGovern
Have you done something green today? We have taken advantage of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, with its many incentives to help families and businesses go green. Right now, I’m sitting in the basement of my mother-in-law’s home. This week is the week that construction begins on updating our gas heating systems to an electric heat-pump system. It’ll be a long week of working outside of my home office, but in the end, the payoff will be worth it.
Our house, built in the 1920s, had an aging and inefficient gas steam heating system, a strange Frankensystem that the previous owners had duct-taped together. In the winter, the gas would boil water and the steam produced would pop and hiss its way through the various pipes, radiators, and baseboards in our house. The constant clanging throughout the winter let us know that the system was working, but it was also a continual source of irritation.
New England weather meant freezing cold winters and then boiling hot summers with high humidity. In the summer, we would haul out our window AC units, lug them up two flights of stairs, and then drill them into our aging windows. There was always that scary moment as we helped each other secure the ACs into the windows when it felt like they could tip and fall crashing to the ground. This fear has only increased as we've gotten older.
The first step in our go-green house plan was to update our gas heating to electric heat pumps that would both cool and heat our house. I had zero idea what heat pumps were (though, if you’re in the right temperature zone, they are the most efficient heating/cooling source — we may be pushing our luck living in New England winter wise).
Luckily for us, our town had an amazing website, called Electrify Arlington, which walked us through the complicated steps of electrifying our house. The first thing that we did was to set up a series of meetings with a volunteer coach. Our coach was amazing. She talked us through the options. While she couldn’t give us specific recommendations on HVAC companies or products, she could give us, in layman's terms, guidance on how to navigate the process.
Our first big decision was on which company to use to install the heat pumps. We spoke with three different companies that provided us with a range of prices (all close to the government incentive loan limit, funnily enough) and guidance on whether to go ducted or ductless. Each company poked around in our attic and basement and looked over the rooms to tell us layout options for full ducted, ducted/ductless hybrid, and full ductless setups. They also promised to help us with all of the government loan paperwork.
What was interesting to me was that only one of the three companies we interviewed was not owned by a venture capital (VC) firm. Apparently, services companies like HVAC firms are seeing a huge surge of interest by VCs. In this Indianapolis Business Journal article, the reporter, Anthony Schoettle, notes: “Private equity firms are simply head over heels for service firms such as plumbing and heating and air-conditioning companies.”
The folks jumping headfirst into home improvement projects when we all thought we’d never leave our houses again caused a massive spike in services business during the pandemic — a surge that was just too sweet for VCs to pass up. I can only imagine that this interest will increase as more homeowners do what we’re doing by taking advantage of the IRA. We ended up going with the family-owned business: their salesperson was the most personable, and they ended up being the cheaper of the three options.
So, here I am, typing away in a basement, while work is being done on our house. The next steps in this electrify project will be to repair our old, drafty windows (some so old that they use the old rope and pulley system) and then to actually install solar panels. I’m hoping that those processes go as smoothly as this one, and I’m excited that we’re doing our part to help the planet go greener.
Make sure to take a look at your own town’s website to see how they can help you navigate this process. Those IRA funds also went to towns for this very thing, and we found that the information that our town provided was invaluable.
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