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Home Energy Medics

817 22nd St S
Arlington, VA 22202 703-447-5379

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Consumer Ratings for Home Energy Medics — 22 Ratings

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Percent of customers who rated service "superior" for:
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Consumer Comments for Home Energy Medics

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Consumer from ARLINGTON, VA
Mar 19, 2024
Recommended
The auditors were very professional, showing up on-time, explaining what they did and walked us through the results a week later. The main activities after the interview were a blower door test and pictures from a thermal imaging camera. Other activities that duplicated the home inspection were also performed, like checking for a gas leak. They did not use a smoke machine to find air penetrations as described in "How to Conduct a Home Energy Assessment | Ask This Old House" on YouTube. Both heat loss and air leakage were explained with the thermal imaging camera pictures. Using the thermal imaging camera pictures to explain air leakage did not make sense to us. Inspection cost ~$600, which would be waived if additional work is purchased. Like with other reviewers, the estimates for work were cost prohibitive - 2.5 to 4 times the cost of other companies in the area.
Consumer from Arlington, VA
Oct 08, 2023
Recommended
Home Energy Medics provided a detailed and thorough audit, answered all my questions, and made a range of recommendations, including things I could complete myself. They were both friendly and professional.
Consumer from Springfield, VA
Jun 06, 2023
Not Recommended
We hired Home Energy Medics for an energy audit. The audit itself was fine – the auditor was professional, friendly, and on time, and he talked us through everything he was doing. (We were disappointed not to get a Manual J load calculation, which I thought would come with the blower door test, but to be fair we had not confirmed in advance that that was included.) Where we take issue is with the solutions that were proposed and the pushy salesmanship. I had not realized the extent to which the HEM business model relies on serving as the general contractor to coordinate all of the work they recommend after the audit. Their recommendations consistently took the most expensive approach. For example, they wanted to remove all of the fiberglass insulation in our attic and replace it with cellulose. Other contractors were willing to move the insulation to air seal, then put it back and add more fiberglass on top, with the same ultimate insulation value but at significant cost savings for us. (It turned out HEM’s statement at the time of scheduling the audit that we would come out of the process with “good-better-best” options did NOT mean that they would give us a range of options to deal with each problem, but that we would have the options of doing some, most, or all of the work they recommended.) Two other big complaints: 1) HEM told us our roof was too low-pitched for it to be possible to air seal the top plates on the exterior walls while the roof was in place, pitching their ability to coordinate between the air sealer and roofer so that air sealing could happen during the roofing process as a major reason we needed to hire them. I wasted time calling other roofers to see if they would be willing to work with us to coordinate with an air sealer before one of the roofers told me they had never heard of not being able to air seal with the roof in place and referred us to the insulator we ultimately hired, who was able to do the work just fine with the roof in place. (They have extenders on their spray foam guns to reach tricky places). 2) HEM told us our HVAC duct work needed to be completely stripped of its insulation, sealed with mastic, and re-insulated. All five of the HVAC contractors who came out told us our duct work was actually in pretty good shape and recommended instead that we just patch the insulation in a some small sections where it had fallen away. (They said things like “Who told you THAT?” and “They told you WHAT?”) We ended up spending only about half of what HEM would have charged us to have functionally the same work done after shopping around and getting additional opinions/quotes. Doing our homework saved us tens of thousands of dollars compared to what they were asking for.

...and 19 more consumer comments for Home Energy Medics

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