Our first meeting with our navigator, Jean was fantastic. She asked us great questions about what we like about our house, what our goals were for this project, and we had fun using the cool infrared camera that showed us where our house leaks heat. Plus she had some very good practical and do-able suggestions for what we could do right away. I’m looking forward to our next conversation!

Had a great experience with Energy Navigators. The contractors they recommended - Jackman's did the install and Smith and McClean doing the electrical work. Professional, neat, and our two units were installed in a day.  Just had the work done in mid-August, so have only periodically used them in "dry" mode for dehumidifying so far.  Excited to have these versatile devices for dehumidification, cooling, and heating. Compliment our heat pump hot water heater which we have had for years and are very happy with!

If it hadn't been for Jean Terwilliger and the Energy Navigator team, I would not have undertaken sealing up my house, which I had been considering but did not know how to start.  Jean was very helpful in terms of advising me on what could be done and then setting up the meeting with the HeatSquad, who handled all the rest of the business to be done. My house is now much warmer, less leaky, and safer. I highly recommend the Energy Navigators as a place to make that first step in buttoning up your house and saving money in the long run. 

We have one heat pump hot water heater... GMP usually had a nice rebate for it.  We bought a GE brand one about 6 years ago.  It is very good for our electric bill!  It needs a place to drain the water since it also helps remove from the air in a basement— mine drains into my sump pump hole so no issue. We have really like it!

We added two minisplit heat pumps to our house in 2020.   They keep the house warm down to outside temps of -18 degrees Fahrenheit.

Previously, the house had an existing forced-air natural gas furnace with ductwork, and we left that in place.   The furnace has only had to come on as backup twice in the four years we have had the heat pumps, and that only for brief windows of time.

With our house set up - we put one heat pump at either end of the house -- one in the combined living room-dining room- kitchen space, and one in the biggest of the three bedrooms.  We also have an energy-recovery ventilation unit, that pulls in outside air for 6 to 10 minutes of every hour, warms it up using a heat exchanger with the house's warm air, and then uses the existing fan and ductwork to distribute that air around the house.   This helps to mix the air in the house, to get warm air to the other two bedrooms.  As long as we keep the bedroom doors open, all three bedrooms stay comfortable enough even though the heat pump is only in one of them.

The house is well-insulated and quite tight.  This helps with the ability of the heat pumps to keep the house warm even in rooms that don't have a heat pump in them.

We signed up for GMP's time of use rate 22.  In winter, this means that on weekdays from 7:30 am to 11:30 am and again from 4:30 to 8:30 pm, we pay more for our electricity; the rest of the time we pay much less.  We use the timer function on the heat pumps to turn the heat pump settings down by 2 or 3 degrees during those 4 hour stretches.  Sometimes I will turn the heat pumps up a degree or two for the hour before the late-afternoon high-rate period.  In any case the heat pumps rarely come on before the four-hour period is up.  We use much less than 1/3 of our daily energy during the high-rate periods.

My home was designed to be heated by one 18,000 btu heat pump. The single head in our open living space has kept the whole house comfortable for all but a few hours of the last 6 years. It even kept operating at 20 deg. below zero. Upstairs bedrooms are about 5 degrees cooler in the winter, and because heat rises, the cooling does not really reach them in the summer. A small second unit upstairs would fix this. As long as a system is designed properly, heat pumps work well in this climate and can really cut carbon pollution!