Efficiency Maine

Well this was a complete waste of my time. The site should have stated clearly upfront that the only projects available for funding were insulation or heat pumps. This information was not provided to me until I spent weeks jumping through hoops to prove my income, even when I clearly said my intent was to add more radiators. I have a brand new high efficiency oil burner and  perfectly functional century-old cast iron hot water radiators. I am not about to replace those with an electric heat pump at 25 cents per KW. And it will take me years to remove the poorly applied foam insulation ( randomly sprayed over partially closed door to bulkhead, covered up electric lines and water and heating pipes) that  the previous short term owners applied simply because the Maine program paid for it. That insulation will rot out the sills unless I can dig it out in time and it ruins the beautiful granite foundation. Previous owners were apparently not advised that insulating the basement ceiling would have been a much better choice. I am VERY unhappy. I wish the state would get some competenet advice for these programs.

I get the letter in the mail. I look online to see if I am eligible for the rebate. I don't get any of the Maine gov assistance so I am to pay 60%. My neighbor who doesn't have any Maine Gov assistance also gets a 80% rebate. How?... So it seems that this program goes off of our 2022 W2 form to be eligible. "Mark" was on unemployment for six or so months and used his savings last year. So that's how he was approved the savings. By the way, he's back to work making $47K. I on the other hand am a 100% disabled veteran from the Iraq war receiving $3,100 a month cannot get the same rebate. Should I not have filed anything? Looks like "Mark" found a loophole and will only be paying $2000 for his heat pump and insulation. By the way, the contractor is charging $15k. So who is picking up the rest, the tax payers!?

What a joke. We had interior lighting installed at our bike shop. The lights failed after a year, and Efficiency Maine could not even find a record of us.... We have been at the same location for 47 years.

Each year we have stepped through the hoops, sat through the meetings required to renew, sent in all the paperwork for both residential and commercial, now need to be "trained" on simple heat pumps we have installed every day for 20 years, and to date, after 8?+ years and multiple applications have yet to achieve 1 rebate for any number of incomprehensible reasons. We get rebates with a simple 2 page fillable PDF all year in NH every time we install a heat pump. Same with Unitil gas rebates. There are so many steps in the Efficiency Maine process that for us, it renders a rebate virtually impossible. Their effrt online application portal is so far from intuitive and simple I can't imagine HVAC companies actually being able to do one. This whole process is a road block to the objective of helping comapanies /customers get a simple rebate. When I have called for help I am always left in the same confused state. They reference "other companies" that have no problem - alway seems to be the same 2 or 3 large heat pump companies - maybe preferred vendors? Somehow they found the way. We simply do not have the staff required to keep up with all the admin required to be a "qualified partner" to get a simple rebate on a heat pump (and we are a long standing high quality company).

How does a company scam so many people and get away with it? By existing in a state that is stuck in the 90s when it comes to checks and balances. The amount of man power it takes to hold a stop sign at a construction site in Maine is another example of this. The people that work at Efficiency Maine are funded by Gov grants and don’t give a FCK about actually doing their jobs - or paying people what they promised to.

A couple of weeks ago I had an insulation company finish spray insulating the entire house to be more energy efficient. This was a six year process due to financial constraints. I sent in the work sheets and payment receipts of the work done to receive a rebate from Efficiency Maine. A few days later, I got an email from Efficiency Maine to call them regarding my rebate. I called the office and spoke to Julie. She went on to say my first job done by Home Snuggers was past the time allotted for the rebate. It was never made clear to me that there was a time limit as long as there was documentation of the work done. I asked about the last spray foaming rebate which was done a few weeks ago. She told me I was all set on that one. All I needed was to have the insulating company that did the job sign off and that could be done over the phone. She told me to have the insulating company call her which I did. While talking to the person in the office of the spray foam insulation company she stated to me, ''Good luck with Efficiency Maine. We dealt with them in the past and did not have good luck with them." Julie from Efficiency Maine called me today. She said the insulation company called and signed off on the job. Now she wants a BPI test to be done in order to get the rebate! She could have told me this last week when I spoke to her? This added cost will be out of my pocket! The spray foam company was right. Efficiency Maine will keep you jumping through their bureaucratic hoops until you finally give up on getting any rebate. They sound great but don't trust them!