We installed whole home heat pumps after purchasing our home in 2022, and we absolutely love them! They heat and cool the house so well, and are very energy efficient.

We purchased an electric vehicle in December 2024. This car is fun to drive with lots of power and comfort. I'm unsure why more people don't choose an EV for their locale travel. No gas stations; less car maintenance; and plenty of zip -- seems like a no brainer to me!

we switched to LEDs made sense.

Our family bought a home built in 1778 several years ago. When we moved in, it had no plumbing, an oil boiler that was installed in the 1950s, and it had antique single-paned (often broken) windows. Our energy bill during our first winter was over $7000- and this was with us setting our thermostats to 55 degrees!

We contacted Mass Energy Save, and got a free audit. They identitied a number of programs that we qualified for- they provided us with free LED lights, weatherized our doors and windows, and helped us receive significant tax credits and low-interest loan programs to purchase an efficient heating system, replace our windows, and insulate our house. We now pay much less each month for heat (and our thermostats are higher!), and it's made a big impact on our climate footprint.

There is much we can individually do but it will take more than individual actions to head off the impacts of climate change.  I consistently follow the state House and Senate bills on climate and reach out to my representatives when I feel they need to hear our support or non-support for a particular bill. This can make big difference when they can report out what messages they are receiving from their recipients.  It is important that we do this if we want to have greater success. 

We do not hire contractors for house projects easily. So we know that we would not have installed a ducted heat pump without the help from our Harvard Energy Coach. He was very responsive and gave us the confidence to move ahead. Our oil furnace and  air conditioner were close to 40 years old and we knew we needed to do something soon. After attending the meeting at the General Store in early 2023, we moved forward, starting with the free energy audit and more insulation (most of which was paid for by MassSave).

Our coach provided us with a list of heat pump contractors who had done work in this area and recommended that we get proposals from 5 contractors. He said we would learn something different from each contractor, and he was right. Most of the proposals came in with similar equipment and pricing, so we narrrowed the list down to two to focus on. We ended up choosing Advanced Mechanical Devices because we liked the people that came to the house and that we talked to in the office. We highly recommend AMD.

We are very happy with our new equipment and how it has heated the house this winter (2024). We expect to be happy with the air conditioning, this summer, as well. We got about $5k in rebates from MassSave and it looks like we'll get at least $2600 in tax credits. We also worked with Workers Credit Union to get a no-interest loan that covered the work we had done. They were very easy to work with - and quick!