This Efficient House

Mike & This Efficient House have done several jobs for us in the past. Most recently, they did radon mitigation & insulation work in our crawlspace plus in-wall cellulose fill insulation last December. Mike and his crew were punctual, got the job done very efficiently, and were very communicative through the entire process. We have much better peace-of-mind with the radon work done, and the house was much more comfortable through the rest of the winter with the new insulation. Previously they had performed an energy efficiency audit on the house, and managed the replacement of our old hot water heater and furnace with new high-efficiency units better sized for our small house. Good experiences in all cases, and we would definitely work with them again in the future. Highly recommended!

The audit was thorough and I especially appreciated the cost conscious approach. Mike advised against replacement of the original windows (something I anticipated) and instead suggested replacing the whole house fan, injecting cellulose insulation under the bedroom floor which is over the garage, sealing the wiring hole gaps in the attic with foam, replacing the broken thermostat in the attic fan, and installing insulating blinds on the north side of the house to conserve heat during winter. He also suggested replacing the 90 degree ductwork near the furnace to improve air flow ---necessary to get heat into the bedroom above the garage. We also installed a more efficient air filter adjacent to the furnace. The house is much, much more comfortable since the improvements were undertaken. And we are relieved that we didn't have to spend a small fortune on window replacements. I wholeheartedly and without reservation recommend Mike and his crew at This Efficient House. They consistently went above and beyond to make our home more comfortable and efficient.

I was extremely impressed with This Efficient House. Mike and his crew went over the top to help us. Our house was built in 97, but we just moved in a few years ago. The winters had been horrible as our 500 gallon propane tank was being filled monthly. Mike complete and in-depth energy audit and with the results worked with us to create a plan. The estimate to complete the work was much lower than I had expected. Our house threw many unexpected curveballs at the crew but they always had an answer and kept me in the loop with what needed to be done. As a true test, a few days after the projects were done we lost power due to a blizzard. Our power was out for 10 hours and only dropped 5 degrees. I highly recommend This Efficient House!

I started this project just wanting a fan for a breeze on a hot day what i got was an entire education about how to use a fan like this to keep my house cool even on hot days and not use my AC at all. Mike Truitt is so very knowledgeable about heating and cooling homes and he took the time to educate me on a lot of it. I would up getting a fan a little bigger than the one he recommended but now that it is installed i realize he was spot on for his recommendation, i am in love with my fan but realize it could be smaller and still i would be in the range of air movement i want to be. the day of the install Mike showed up just after breakfast with two helpers and they all went right to work. all three of them knew exactly what do to. they worked in a very orchestrated and uniform way and in a about 2.5 hours they were done. The work they did was excellent, clean and fast. i had zero clean up. wife and i are very pleased with the work and our fan and i would recommend Mike and his team @ThisEfficientHouse to anyone who needs HVAC, a house fan, windows, solar panels what ever. it was a treat to work with these guys, finding good help has not always been my experience. A1++++

It went really well. Mike was flexible on scheduling the testing and clear with his evaluation/recommendations. Knowledgeable, affordable, and trustworthy. Would hire again.

It went really well. We got an audit from the city and called the top three contractors on their recommendation list and got estimates from all three. This Efficient House was not the cheapest but they seemed the most honest and knowledgable. The crew was very professional and finished the work within the time they estimated. My home is now much more comfortable and ready for the summer heat. Not to mention the drop in my utilities bill.

unknown

The house was newly purchased by us.  They added insulation to the house. They replaced old furnace, hot water heater and added AC, with Hi Efficiency equipment. The work took a week, starting with insulation and ending with adding the new mechanical.  It went smoothly, they worked their timing with our schedules, went quickly (for the most part) and finished with a great clean up.  They came back quickly to hook up the AC when the electrical was ready for them, and have tuned the equipment to its highest efficiency.  They answered their phones, were helpful, courteous and friendly.  They also applied for all the rebates that we were able to get.

Reviewed the initial site survey with us and provided us with options on immediate energy savings benefits, medium benefits and some areas identified as no appreciable benefits when compared to the cost.  It was nice to have options.  We chose to defer one option due to the cost and the process of removing siding (hardy plank siding so not very easy) and later chose to add it back on since we had loss of energy behind the fireplace.  All our work started on time, cleanup was very efficient each day, and when everything was done we saw a significant drop in our electric bill for the first winter.  The house stays warmer in winter and cooler in summer; it is a rare day that we use the air conditioner.

They did a good job and did it on time. Everything was fine. They kept putting me off. If you can get them to come then they do good work for a reasonable price.

Mike and his crew did a great job of air sealing and adding insulation to our 20 year old home in SE Fort Collins.  While they were not the most punctual group, they did a very professional and thorough job.  Overall, we were able to lower the airflow through the house by 43% which I'm expecting will make a big difference in our heating and cooling bills this year and for years to come.

I've used this team three different times over the past five years. They are extremely honest, do what they say, do it right. This trip, they repaired an aging air conditioner, found an arcing solenoid, evaluated the charge, and overall efficiency. I learned a lot about my air conditioner, and in the end, while they could have sold me on a new one, they found that mine was running well and told me so. (Who does that these days?)

The thing I appreciate most? They come in, survey the situation, make their hypotheses about what could be happening, but then they take the measurements and let the data decide what to do. No oversizing, over-charging, over-selling.

I highly recommend.

unknown

I initially contacted the provider during the fall of 2012 for a quote on a number of potential projects including crawlspace sealing, wall insulation, and attic sealing and venting.  As this contact fell during their busy season, it was a little difficult to schedule the initial on-site quote.  However, once on-site they were thorough and very professional.

In the spring of 2013 we decided to pursue the wall insulation because we were going to have the house painted and it made sense to complete the wall insulation prior to painting.  The provider was very responsive and accommodated our painting schedule by fitting us in earlier in their scheduled projects.

The work was completed promptly over the course of about 3 days.  The provider was also honest about the portions of our house that already had wall insulation (some of the newer additions) and revised our quote down according to the areas that didn't need insulation.  A number of minor follow-up items, such as finishing up caulking in a few spots that were missed, were completed promptly within the week after the job was done.

Of two rebate forms that the provider completed for us, one was lost in the provider's process and was not submitted to the utility when the work was completed.  The provider promptly addressed this when we pointed it out.

Overall, we are very pleased with the result of the provider's work.  Our home is noticeably more comfortable and the furnace seems to run less.

This Efficient House crews were at my house three different times doing energy efficiency work.  The crews were very courteous and professional.  There were a few times I had trouble getting a hold of someone in the office, but once it was my turn on the schedule, they were prompt and stayed on the job until it was complete.  The most important thing they offered me was an honest assessment of what my house needed.  We had estimates from competitors, and both these competitors gave a laundry list of additional services that weren't necessary.  Our air leakage was very significant, and our utility bills were significantly lowered from the work we had done.  I would strongly recommend them to anyone--especially if you have a distrust of contractors.

The entire job was fraught with incompetence and unprofessional behavior.  To break it down, I?m going to use the categories above.
Price - C:
We received three bids for the work.  The most expensive bid was substantially higher than the other two.  This Efficient House and the third company's bids were within a couple hundred dollars of each other.  So, I think the price was fair.
 
Quality - C:
This was supposed to be a three-day job.  Seven months after the beginning of this job, I can finally say that the work is complete.  So, in the end, the work was finished and is acceptable.  However, only because of my vigilance and double-checking was their work done appropriately.  For example on day one they air sealed the attic.  This included running sealing foam along all wall plates, around all junctions and holes, and installing insulated caps on our recessed lighting fixtures.  After they left, I went up into the attic to investigate.  I discovered that they failed to air seal along an entire exterior wall; that is one-fourth of the house left exposed.  In addition, they did not fully seal around my furnace duct work. Also, the foam leaked into my bathroom exhaust fan vent; if you were in the bathroom and looked up at the fan, you would see that the entire unit was full of orange foam, rendering it useless.  Finally, they somehow knocked out the power to my bathroom while they were rooting around in the attic.  On day two, when they returned, I asked how it was going up there. They said everything was great, and that they were ready to blow in insulation.  I then pointed all of these issues out to them, and expressed my disappointment that they were ready to cover up all the problems with a bunch of insulation.  If they had pumped in the insulation, it would have been too late to fix the issues.  They did fix the issues before blowing in the insulation.
 
The crawl space was much more of a headache.  I have a four-foot crawl space, and it already had the vapor barrier for the radon mitigation system.  All they had to do was insulate the walls and seal the rim joist.  The work was real spotty and sub-par.  First, they missed a few rim joist bays with the sealing foam. Second, the insulated door they built to cover the crawl space hatch fell apart after only a week; the insulated foam section on the back of the door and the sealing surrounding the edge of the door fell off.  They eventually filled in the missing joists and they fixed the door after I pointed the issues out to them.  Once again, they were ready to call it the job done, even though it was not.
 
In addition, during the sealing process in the crawl one of their foam tanks ruptured in the crawl.  I know accidents happen, but what was disappointing was how they handled the cleanup. I went down to investigate and found a whole corner of my crawl covered in sticky, gooey gel.  The stuff was everywhere, including all over my radon barrier.  A big pool of ?un-foamed? goo had collected into a sludgy, gross pool in the corner of the crawl.  I complained about it, and it took them around two weeks to come back out and fix it.   We had agreed that they would replace that section of radon barrier since it was ruined?they simply put a new barrier over the old messy one.  They used a clear barrier, so I could easily see that they never even bothered to clean up the mess before laying down the new barrier.  Much like the insulation in the attic, they just wanted to cover their mess instead of cleaning it up responsibly.  This goes entirely against their promise of a ?green worksite."
 
After the work was done, they performed a series of tests on my furnace and water heater to ensure they had enough combustible air.  They claimed both passed the test.  Wrong!  A post-work inspection by the City of Fort Collins revealed that the water heater did not pass the test, and that exhaust air was being drawn back into the house.  Once again, I had to call the crew back to the house to fix this issue.  Ultimately they did.
 
Then came the rebates.  The work was eligible for rebates from the City of Fort Collins and Xcel Energy.  The way the rebates are designed, the contractor must fill out the paperwork.  So, there were two rebates forms to fill out.  They messed up both of them. 
 
On the Fort Collins side, they didn?t put the correct inputs in the rebate calculator.  For the crawl space wall, Fort Collins offers a 30 cents per square foot of insulation rebate.  They put 128 square feet on the form when it was actually 512 square feet.  They took the length, but never multiplied by the height!   That?s a $115 mistake that affects my wallet, not theirs.  In addition, they mis-measured the rim joist area, reducing our rebate by another $20.   They are supposed to be the experts, but they didn?t seem to know how to measure and how to fill out the form.  Luckily, I caught the $135 worth of errors, and the City was gracious
enough the rebate the correct amount.
 
Then there was the Xcel rebate.  On that form, Xcel asks that you prove rebate eligibility.  In a nutshell, they want to
ensure your house was drafty enough before the work began to warrant the rebate.  All This Efficient House had to do was check the correct box on the form?and they checked the wrong one.  The box they checked claimed that we were not eligible for the rebates.  That one little check was a $130 mistake.   Unfortunately, Xcel was not as understanding as the City and refused to pay the rebate despite showing them that the house was indeed eligible.  After months of back and forth, This
Efficient House finally paid the $130 to correct their mistake.
The only reason this is a C and not a D or F is that ultimately the work was completed, and ultimately I did receive the rebates.  But the path to get there was fraught with disrespect and bumbling errors, and it was unacceptable behavior by the company.
 
Responsiveness/Punctuality - F:
A grade of F might sound harsh, but consider the following.  Our job required 9 visits to the house: 1 for the  estimate, 3 for the initial work, and 5 for follow-up and clean-up work.  How many times did they show up on time?  Zero.  How many times were they close, maybe 15 minutes late?  Zero.  Every time, they were close to an hour late.  How many times did they call to say they were running late?   Zero.
 
Worse, once the job was over, Mike Truitt, the company?s Business Manager, said he wanted to come out and inspect the work.  He and I made four separate appointments for him to visit my house.  I took time off work to meet him there each time.  He
never showed up.  Never.  Four separate meetings arranged, and he never came once.  And even worse, he never
called to say he couldn?t make it.  I would always wait at the house for him, he wouldn?t show up, and then I?d have
to call him the next day to see what happened.  I made these appointments with him on the phone, and then I would email him the details so he would have the appointment in writing.
For the follow-up repair and cleaning work, it took me several calls and several emails just to get a response.
Professionalism - F:
This is my biggest warning to others.  If you have a modest home and a modest budget, do not hire this company.  Every excuse for them being late or not calling me back revolved around them being busier on bigger jobs.  I heard time and time a

Following an energy audit provided through the City of Fort Collins home efficiency program, I decided to undertake several energy efficiency improvements in my home, including air sealing and adding more insulation to the crawl space and attic, and installing a new furnace and central air conditioning unit.  I solicited bids from several contractors approved through the City's program and met with each of them to understand not only the components of their proposals, but also their orientation to the work. 
The bid I received from Mike Truitt of This Efficient House was fair and reasonable, but additionally, Mike's sheer enthusiasm and passion for the goals of reducing energy consumption fit what I was looking for -- a contractor who doesn't just run a business, but who also personally believes in conservation, understands the enormous benefits of improving the efficiency of existing homes, and who strives to make energy efficiency improvements in operations of his own company.  
I was very pleased with the team working with Mike and with the results of their work.  They arrived on time, worked non-stop, and cleaned up at the end of each day.  In the furnace installation, Travis Martin stuck with it to get the right furnace in place, despite several complications including the manufacturer discontinuing the model we expected to use. 
I now have a very well-insulated, air sealed home, and a new efficient furnace and A/C unit.  The new furnace is quiet and kept my gas bills very low this winter -- the house was cozy, and the bare floor in my living room was noticeably warmer.  With the insulation and air-sealing, I expect I'll need the A/C unit only occasionally this summer, if at all.  In our recent, warmer weather, I've kept a check on the temperature inside the house (after opening windows only at night) as the outside temperature climbs during the day.   With an outdoor temperature of 85, the inside temperature was 72.  An outside temperature of 87 produced an inside temperature of 74.  There's so much to be said for a well-insulated home!
I highly recommend This Efficient House, and would definitely work with them again.  I especially appreciate Mike Truitt's dedication to, and knowledge about energy conservation, Alex Murphy's efficiency and crew organization, and Travis Martin's tremendous work ethic.   A great bunch to work with.

The heat in hot mid-summer went down from 83-85F daily to 73-75 daily. This was by just cooling the house at night with open windows & window fans, and keeping the attic cooler (added soffitts), and insulating the attic heat away from the main house. No air conditioning was added. Great results!  Our winter bills for gas heating also went down from a high of $275 for 1 month to something more like $180.
Now we are buying a house and we are having them come out to estimate to see the hidden weaknesses in the new place.

Our home furnace died unexpectedly in December (on the coldest day of the year so far). Needless to say, we were in a rush to get it replaced, but it was an older, inefficient model. We got bids from four different contractors. Some wanted to replace the furnace with a similar, less efficient model, that would have costed us more in the long run. Others tried to talk us into getting a very expensive high end model. But Mike at This Efficient House came up with a plan that suited all our needs while being economical.
Our furnace was replaced with a 95% efficiency furnace. This Efficient House did a considerable amount of duct and venting work in order to support the more efficient furnace. They did the work efficiently, and very effectively.
Overall, it was extremely high-quality service and workmanship that was done at literally several thousand dollars less than what other contractors quoted us. Plus, the work This Efficient House did significantly improved the efficiency, the effectiveness, and the comfort of our home. And we received city and Xcel rebates for the work.
This Efficient House is a great company, with excellent service, quality workers, and good social and environmental purpose. With them, you can do the right thing, and save money.

We had one of those city-subsidized home energy efficiency audits, and they found several issues with our home.  We contacted This Efficient House to fix those issues.  Mike and his crew did an awesome job!  They seemed genuinely interested in doing quality work, which is really refreshing these days.  Their prices are amazing too, usually quality work costs a lot extra, but they are very competitive with much less reputable businesses.  It seemed like a lot of work, but they had it done in about 3 days.  They had one crew working on the sealing and insulating, and one person dedicated to the furnace and water heater work.  As a nice touch, I really like the termination kits they use for the direct-vent water heater & furnace, they look nice from the outside instead of just having a couple of big PVC pipes sticking out and curving all over.
When they were finished, we had a 50% reduction in air exchanges, which is really good.  Our home used to have warm spots in the summer and cold spots in the winter, but it is much more comfortable now.  And, our energy bills have gone down significantly too!  
When we need new windows or A/C, I'm definitely going to use This Efficient House, we had a very positive experience with them.  I highly recommend them!

Project went well overall. I felt there was a little bit of a disconnect between the person who inspected and provided the original quote and the individuals that did the work. But this was easily overcome.

New build.  Basement foundation insulation went ok and on time.  After that, I had difficulty reaching anyone at TEH by either email and phone calls.  I had to let them go and make other arrangements in a hurry.

We were impressed with what we learned and saw via the energy audit, and the fact that a rebate from Excel covered part of it.  So we decided to proceed with having the attic insulated.  They called the morning that they were scheduled to arrive to tell us that the materials that had been set aside for us was used on another job, so it was rescheduled and they did discount the invoice because of the mix up.  The job was rescheduled a couple of days later taking only several hours to complete.  It seemed like a really fast job for what they were set to accomplish.  When the guys left, things were neat and clean in the garage.  While I have not been into the attic to inspect, my assumption is that everything was sealed and insulated as promised. 
The resulting improvement in the consistency of our home's temparature has been mixed; the office and fireplace area seem better, but the master bedroom is still cool and drafty.  We signed a rebate form and was told it would be submitted to Excel for a $300 rebate on the insulation job.  This amount was stated on the invoice, so while we thought the price on the job was a bit high, the rebate and the expertise we thought we were paying for, would offset the premium.  Since we received an Excel rebate for the energy audit we thought it reasonable to assume they would come through with one for the insulation as well.  But, several months passed with no rebate, I contacted Reed.  He promptly returned my email with a phone call indicating that I would have to call Excel directly and provided the number.  We were disappointed to learn that Excel does not offer rebates to Greeley customers, since they do not provide gas service in our area.  I emailed Reed with the results and he said that he would check it out with his Excel contact and get back with us.  We have not heard back from him. 
Prior to considering the rebate as part of the overall price of the job, I should have investigated a little further on my own.  Perhaps my expectations of this company were set too high, they most likely did what they said they would do.  But I do feel a bit of disappointment in the results and the price we paid.  I noticed that a number of front range cities are listed on their invoice, but Greeley is not; so I should have assumed that our city is not one in which they have expertise on rebates. 
I also thought it would have been nice to have a follow up call after the job was completed, but again my expectations may not be realistic for today's contractors.

Unlike the other contractor I contacted, This Efficient House gave us the big picture on our home energy use. As a result, we spent about half the amount that the other contractor would have charged to seal and insulate our house and will use the savings to purchase a more efficient furnace. Their response to my calls and emails was slow especially when I was trying to set up the date to do the work but once the work started, their crew was friendly and efficient.

It is helpful to know where the heat is leaving the house.