We had given up on having a warm, comfortable house after getting quotes from at least four different well known and recommended companies who came up with options that were either wacky, unnecessarily complicated and/or extremely expensive, as well as one company that said we were just out of luck because our house was too small to fit a heating system (it’s 550sq ft). Fortunately, a couple years later, we thought we’d give it another shot and my husband found Eco Performance Builders’ website.
We started with a home audit by co-owner Keith, who brought in a variety of gadgets (one of which he used after squeezing himself into a crevice in our laundry shed and closing the door–talk about dedication). He let us try out some of his gadgets and answered all of our questions as he worked. He is “totally geeked out” on this stuff (in his own words) and it shows in his extensive knowledge and enthusiasm for all things energy saving.
Keith wrote up a quote with several options for heating and some other home improvements. He had a lengthy phone meeting with us where he explained things and answered all of our many questions without ever pushing us to purchase anything from the quote. In the end, we chose the most expensive heating option and some, but not all of the other home improvements described in the audit report due to our budget. Despite choosing the most expensive heating option, EPB was still cheaper than any other quote we’d gotten while also doing more work to our house to hold in our new heat.
Keith and his crew were all very punctual, friendly and considerate while working on our home. I was home with our 6 month old during the entire process and couldn’t have asked for any better service.
We have now had our heating system for a year and continue to appreciate that it is the best home upgrade we could have possibly made. Our entire house is now heated to the temperature of our choosing (no hot and cold spots or heating only one room at a time), the system is silent (I used to hold my hand over the grate to make sure air was coming out, now I don’t think about it anymore because I’m warm and that’s all that matters), and our energy bills have gone down. We’re also happy with the vapor barrier they installed, their sealing of our crawlspace and our new bathroom fan. We got rid of our dehumidifier because we no longer have the moisture issues we used to have to deal with regularly.
Unlike every other company we contacted, EPB did not try to squeeze us into the same cookie cutter box along with every other customer. They also looked at our house as a whole, rather than just throwing a 35,000btu furnace at the problem, and found solutions that no one else had invested the time to consider.
