the heat pump deal

Visiting my neighbor who suffered a coincidence, er, stroke. He sister got a “free” on demand water heater (electric).

I did some digging, and suddenly my social feeds had offers for “free” heat pumps, windows, doors, water heaters, draft control with a promise of several thousand dollars.

I thought WTF, filled out a form and within one day got a phone call. I dug out my utility bills (gas/electric) to be plugged into a “calculator”. While relating this I got the scripted schpiel on how heat pumps use less energy. I interrupted and asked if it would be air, ground or water sourced. Unprepared he had to do a little digging. I mentioned that air sourced aren’t going to be very effective in cold snaps, when you want heat. He then rebutted that they could pull heat up to -30 and started to give me more script, and a bit of attitude on my push back. I mentioned I have a decent grasp of thermodynamics, possibly more than him (I know more than you), having designed a few systems, not much energy to pull out of the air at low temps.

He then got into the “dangers” of natural gas suggesting I was at dire risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. I laughed and gave a little more push back, which cranked up his attitude. He then said “I’ve got other people who want this, do I need to hang up?”. I laughed a little more and replied “okay, stay on script, I’m afraid for my life and can barely sleep”, which elicited a few verbal jabs. I laughed some more and complimented his insults, offering advice on how to be more effective. He accused me of being childish and I should be grateful for his call.

The pitch is this “you’ll save X amount of gas and electricity by using a heat pump, the estimated savings will pay for the pump”. So you direct your $$ to the heat pump instead of your utilities. All of this is contingent on realizing the saving spit out from their wishful thinking calculator. After some pushing on the payback period, he told me 20 years. I said the pump will outlive me, how about some windows and a water heater? More grousing and threats of hanging up.

I then explained to him that his employer and up the food chain want him to qualify home owners to consume these items so everyone in the food chain can suckle from the taxpayer tit. It took a few for that one to sink in. He hadn’t considered who was paying his rent. He then he softened, telling me all the frills (windows etc) were contingent on the heat pump, and were “sweeteners”.

After that I said I was out and we actually shot the shit for another 30. Turns out he’s 22 years old with a few things going on that could use some perspective from a grizzled veteran.