Efficiency Maine

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!

"Terrible customer service - absolutely terrible. " Reviewed Jan 13, 2018 So, Efficiency Maine posts on its website there is a two business day wait for loan approval status. We applied for a new furnace loan as our furnace suddenly needed to be replaced. It's now day six (6) waiting for a response and day 12 with no heat in our home. Four phone calls requesting to speak with someone on the loan application department have gone un-returned. The same holds true with an email. Spoke with Brenda , a very nice person who seemingly takes initial calls and sends along messages to the powers that be. The powers that be at Efficiency Maine have yet to respond to us. Brenda twice assured me that "someone will call you back" - sorry Brenda, it hasn't happened. Friday, Brenda gave me a phone number of what I think may be the loan agency. I called and spoke to a nice person named Amy. Amy told me at 4:15 p.m. that the loan center was closed but she would pass along the message with an "emergency" request on it and the good news that the loan servicing department works on Saturday from 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Amy assured me somone would call me today (Saturday)! "Great, I thought, there seems to be someone at this new number that actually knows what he/she is actually doing! " Silly me.... Surprise! No one called me back from the new number location. In the meantime it's now day 14 with no heat. Not a great thing in January in Maine.... Inept and indifference would be much too kindly words to describe Efficiency Maine and its loan application process and total unresponsiveness. It's sad and disappointing that our taxpayer subsidizes this "service." I wold be fired if I treated customers at my place of work for such shoddy treatment. You will rue the day if you attempt to do business with Inefficiency Maine....