Have you had a Mass Save assessment of your home? (loans, house)

[Nobodybody]

Few questions:

1) Did you get anything out of this - either free or discounted equipment, or an interest free loan, that helped wiht utilities?

2) I've had a few companies knock on my door, claiming to offer a free audit for a Mass Save program, but they were a 3rd party company. Does Mass Save only use various 3rd party companies, or do they also offer their own assessments directly? Who is the best to use?

3) In particular, I am interested in a solar water heater? Has anyone gone this route? I have baseboard water heat, and am curious if the solar water heater can be utilized for the hot water used for the heating system.

[wolfgang239]

1) $4000 to rewire my house. I'm in the process of putting 2 heating systems out to bid and will be applying for one of the interest free loans. I'm only paying 25% of the actual cost to insulate my house as well.

2) Just arrange it through them directly. The other companies are usually solar installers, insulation companies, hvac etc that perform the audit and try to sell their services.

[CaseyB]

We had one done about 6 months ago. We were planning to replace our oil burner so we did it for the rebate ($800). Mass Save will send someone out. It didn't take very long. He gave us free flood bulbs (12) for the lights in the kitchen ceiling and some other bulbs for one of the chandeliers which are really ugly.

They also make recommendations for better insulation and will give you a rebate for that if you choose to have that done.

Once we had the new burner installed in June, they were good about sending the rebate promptly - about 2 - 3 weeks.

[vtecluder617]

We did one of those last winter. You call their main number and they schedule you with a contractor that is located around your area. They come out, assess areas in your home that could use improvement in regards to energy efficiency, and they print you out a report with their findings and recommendations. The contractor was there for something like 45 minutes (I'm sure it varies depending on house size). She replaced ALL off our light bulbs in our home with energy efficient ones, free of charge. She went up into our attic and recommended we add more insulation, and to run our bathroom vent up and through the roof, instead of through the soffit vent. She wrote out an estimate for the insulation and rerouting of the bathroom vent, and it came to a little over $300 (parts and labor) which I thought was a bargain. From what I recalled, you get very good discounts on energy efficient equipment like hot water heaters, furnaces and Central AC units. And windows as well. We didn't feel the need for any of those so we declined.

[CaseyB]

Yeah, they'll give you all the free light bulbs you want but they are those curlicue ones. I don't want those.

As I recall, the rebate on the insulation was pretty good but we have a finished 3rd floor/attic with 2 more rooms so we're not interested in ripping into walls and ceilings to replace the existing insulation.

We had replaced all the windows in the house about 5 years earlier and I believe we got a rebate from the federal gov. Good to know Mass Save offers one now.

[wolfgang239]

I got candleabra style led's, regular style Led bulbs and CFL, as well as a free programmable thermostat during the assessment. I believe it depends on what they have in stock but I got about $150 worth of free lighting which was mostly led.

[mmyk72]

Sounds like some people get led bulbs and some still getting cfls. I got a bunch of cfls 3 yrs ago and thinking about having another audit done. I want to wait till I'll get leds for sure

My neighbor did a Next Step Energy audit asked got an attic hatch

[Cape Cod Todd]

We had them come through a few years back and they checked the house and furnace for efficiency which was surprisingly not bad. We knew we needed some new windows but that is not part of their program. They offered to reinsulate the attic but we would lose half the storage space.

About the only thing we did get from them was several light bulbs.

A friend of mine did have his attic insulated and other things done using their programs and he was happy.

[CaseyB]

Oh, I forgot we got a couple of power strips and also a couple of shower heads that I don't know if we'll install.

[GeoffD]

Mine was a total waste of time. I wanted to semi-condition my crawl space with closed cell foam in the floor joists and plastic on the floor and foundation walls. They told me they don't do closed cell foam, just fiberglass. I'll have to get a local insulation contractor in to do that for me.

I'd already gutted my entire house, replaced windows & doors, and installed a boiler and mini-split. I have no interest in CF bulbs. I've been replacing my halogen recessed lights and incandescent bulbs in my lamps with LED as they burn out.

I got a power strip I didn't need.