Laminar Fall 2024 Campaign

We are going to spend up to $10,000 on medium-income renter outreach. Everyone else is also invited to the party.

Update: for the latest iteration of our negotiations, go to the Spring 2025 Campaign.

Everyone, welcome to the Laminar Collective’s Fall 2024 campaign. This season, we have secured prices comparable to our February 2024 campaign, but with a capacity of 125 installations.

It’s likely the most affordable fully-permitted, rebate-fronted Mitsubishi HyperHeat installation on the market today.

Prior Spring Installations (Somerville, Roslindale, Malden)

It’s going to be our biggest bulk deal of all time. And this time, we’re going to spend up to $10,000 to reach as many renters & low/medium income households as we can.

How You Can Sign Up

First things first: sign up here on this form.

Fill out the form; it has information that we need from you. I will make introductions on a weekly basis by email. For our research, you can go here.

Negotiation Summary

The current Laminar Collective procedure allows previous bulk deal contractors to have first dibs at our proposed prices¹. Accordingly, we reached out to N.E.T.R. & Elephant Energy.

Elephant got the closest, and continued to offer to take all rebates off upfront. We were satisfied with their offer, and the installation quality from their primary installation partner, Forge, so we accepted it.

Price Menu

We tried as hard as possible to get the prices to stick to the February 2024 campaign, despite the annual Mitsubishi price hike before the summer. And we mostly got that.

The biggest difference this time around is that we are splitting out permitting costs, which vary by town. In this menu, we assume a 2% fee + $100 scheduling fee.

Note: correction was made on 8/21, adjusting for the fact that there isn’t a 4-ton air handler. The “4 TON SWAP, 2 condensers” option at $19,530 was a typo, and has been replaced by a 2x 2 ton option.

Timeline

Quoting window. We will be focusing primarily on towns in the MetroWest area from now till October 18th. If you schedule a virtual or in-person walkthrough & get a quote by October 18th, you’ll get the negotiated pricing.

Booking window. With the upcoming refrigerant change², you’ll have until Thanksgiving (or until 125 spots are booked) to accept the estimate. After that, all bets are off.

Note: Cambridge, Somerville & Boston³ installations will be subject to an additional $750 difficulty adder, due to more complex traffic, parking, & permitting coordination, but otherwise can participate.

I-90 corridor, we are coming for you.

We expect to pivot and focus more on Malden & Melrose in November and December.

Rebates

Rebates, like last time, will be deducted off the initial cost, and you won’t have to file the rebate paperwork. This includes the $16,000 rebate, which we anticipate will help with affordability barriers.

Community Dinners

We’re hosting a series of community dinners for Q&A, and also to learn more about MetroWest homeowners. Join us - RSVPing at the Google Form would help a lot!

Low/Medium Income & Renter Outreach

We received a $20,000 Mass Save Community Education grant last fall. Since then, we’ve spent a small portion of it to refine our organizing model, but now we’re ready to run a serious campaign.

My dream has always been to find every household that

1. Runs on oil/propane

2. Qualifies for a $16,000 enhanced Mass Save rebate

3. Can get a heat pump installed for a negotiated ~$21,500 or less

and get them a heat pump installation at a HUGE 75% discount.

Additionally, the Federal 25C tax credit rebate would be ~$2,000, which essentially means these households would be able to get heat pump installations done a cost in the low thousands.

We believe that low/medium-income households shouldn’t miss the boat on electrification, and we are prepared to spend up to $10,000 on it to find these households in the MetroWest. Expect creative outreach, and a generous amount of free food.

For more about what we hope to validate with this, check out this footnote⁴.

How You Can Sign Up

Sign up on the

Fill out the form; it has information that we need from you. I will make introductions on a weekly basis.

How You Can Help

We publish open research. We help people review quotes & negotiate deals that save people thousands, and in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars.

And we don’t ask for donations. The team is funded by a combination of a 1 to 3% organizing fee, grants, and volunteer energy.

In return, all we ask is that you share this (or the Laminar Collective site, really) with other landlords or households who you know. It’ll be a win-win for both of us.

1. Which, like the Costco $1.50 hot dog, is us trying to keep the prices as close to February 2024 as possible. This is our company North Star, really.

Everett Costco, you’ve been good to us

2. Elephant is planning on ordering a big batch of 410A equipment late November, and we’d like to avoid any supply house/manufacturer confusion in Demember/January. This is our way of de-risking things.

3. Previously, this line only mentioned Cambridge & Somerville. We’re notified that, in fact, the pricing agreement contract also includes this $750 complexity adder for Boston as well. I’m confirming this is true, because permitting (not to mention traffic & parking) in Boston is significantly more difficult than permitting elsewhere.

4. Bulk deals & market benchmarks have always only been the first step. By tackling these 3 problems, we allow community organizers to effectively communicate that heat pumps are affordable and EASY to get.

1. Affordability. Strike a bulk deal with a standard pricing menu, so we can actually guarantee households an affordable option.

2. Cost uncertainty. Now, we can directly show landlords & households examples of how much installation cost, post-rebate.

3. Paperwork. Landlords with multiple properties typically don’t want to deal with paperwork, particularly with renters. This deal alleviates at least the rebate step.