Archive: Around Town

About a dozen people came to the Lansing Town Hall Tuesday to learn about heating and cooling their homes with heat pumps. The gathering was one of a series of meetings being held around Tompkins County to interest homeowners in participating in the HeatSmart home energy program. HeatSmart Tompkins Director Jonathan Comstock gave a presentation, followed by presentations by three of the program's partner contractors, and attendees had opportunities to meet with the contractors and have their questions answered.

"These are discounted prices," Comstock says. "The purpose of them is to get people to feel this is the time to do it. Not everybody has to have signed a contract by the end of enrollment. You just have to have said 'I want to be in the game' by then. 'I have some interest.' There is no cost and no obligation to doing that. You have all the way to the end of July to have your home assessed and get a proposal from the installers, and maybe have some conversations back and forth and really come to a decision."

HeatSmart is a project conducted by Solar Tompkins, a largely volunteer, not-for-profit organization that conducted a few similar projects to encourage residential solar power installations in the past few years. Following a similar model, Solar Tompkins vetted installers, then got them to offer reduced prices to program recipients. In return the organization does the marketing, producing valuable leads on homeowners serious about converting to the new technology.


Representatives from Halco, NP Environmental, and Snug Planet spoke to homeowners before the event, and gave brief presentations on what they can offer.

While there was much interest in the Solar Tompkins solar programs, the low turnout in Lansing was indicative of either less knowledge about or less interest in heat pumps. Comstock presented financial scenarios showing that the payback period is longer than he'd have hoped for heat pump installations that are financed with loans.

"In some respects the program is doing very well and picking up some speed," he says. "We're not satisfied with the turnout we're getting at these meetings. But I was just talking with one of our installers yesterday, and they were very happy with the leads they are getting in that they are high quality leads. people were really interested in doing something instead of just kicking the tires and walking away."

But Comstock pointed out several grants that are available to qualifying homeowners, as well as long term financial benefits to using the technology. He also stressed the benefit of getting air conditioning as well as heating, saying that you get both systems for the price of one. He also stressed that with home heating and hot water accounting for about 75% of home energy use in Tompkins County, home air source or ground source heat pump HVAC systems go a long way toward reducing a home's carbon footprint, noting also that the systems last 25 to 30 years. He explained the differences between air-source and ground-source heat pump systems, and the pros and cons of choosing one or the other.


He also spoke about air-source hot water heaters, though he noted that they may not be as efficient for some homes than they are in others. But he said in any event they are more energy-efficient than electric or gas powered hot water heaters.

Comstock also stressed the importance of improving insulation, especially in attics to further enhance heating system efficiency. He said insulation is key in reducing upward air drafts in your home, as well as reducing noise and pollen and controlling humidity.

Volunteers asked attendees to sign up for the program, which simply commits a homeowner to be interested enough to receive a home evaluation, choose a contractor to talk to, and to having conversations with that contractor and receiving a proposal for installing a heat pump system. Comstock says there is no obligation to sign a contract, and there is no cost unless a contract is signed. Anyone in the area may sign up to participate through the month of April.  Comstock says homeowners who want a second opinion can request to consult with one of the other HeatSmart installer partner companies.

"We're going in to the home stretch," Comstock explains. "April will be our last month of enrollments, so we're hoping to see the ranks swell. We're trying to make those times short enough that people need to move, but long enough that we're not trying to drive people into hasty, reckless decisions."

HeatSmart Tompkins will collect some rough statistics on home heating costs before and after the new systems are installed. But Comstock says it will be a simple matter of looking at participants' power bills.

"We want to get all of the installations for this program done by the end of the calendar year," he says. "We do ask that we can come back and get utility bills a year after the jobs have been done so we can evaluate just how effective they've been. It's not anything elaborate or intrusive."

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