Laminar Spring 2026 Campaign

We've learned a lot. Come grow with us over 45 installations.

4/11 update: we’re almost fully booked out! But we will be doing summer installs this year. More details to come soon.

Before I dive in, I just want to thank every single LC member who installed a heat pump with us in 2025. It’s how we’re funded; without you, we would be able to publish rigorous research on equipment, cold weather performance, or economics.

So from our team to you: thank you.

Snapshots, from our fall

For everyone else, I’d like to share with you our plans for 2026. Intake & design starts now, in Feb. Installations kick off in March.

And this will be the last season that our prices remain at this level.

How Do I Sign Up?

This round, we’re going to deploy a new intake form that we’ve designed in-house.

We call it Manatee, since cofounder Hannan is from Florida¹. Fill it out; you’ll get an approximate first pass, around the pricing menu price. (Psst: use FRIENDOFLC to bypass the down payment.) And if you like what you see, feel free to upload all your info & schedule a walkthrough with us!

What We’re Installing

We will be installing Daikin’s ductless R-32 units for at least the first half of this year. And LG’s unitary ducted unit, too. We may experiment with Midea.

Somehow, Daikin returned

Why Daikin for ductless?

Well, partly because 95%+ of our Daikin R-410A fleet from 2025 made it through the 18+ inch January winter storm with no icing issues. This is incredibly robust.

Heat Pumps in a Top 10 All-time Snowstorm

They also just happen to be mechanically simpler. One of our 2026 lessons is that life is just easier when you’re not dealing with branch boxes, or annoying auto-addressing issues. This is Daikin’s edge over LG’s ductless systems.

I write about this more extensively here:

Honest Review of LG, Mitsu, Daikin, Midea+

Why LG for ducted?

We installed around 18 LG unitary air handlers (fully ducted systems). Every single one of them made it through the winter storm, with only a single unit experiencing limited icing on the side.

This is an LG ducted unit, and it made it through!

Given this performance, & the heating efficiency, we’ll stick with LG ducted for now.

What about Midea?

So Midea manufactures ductless models for Bryant, Carrier, Bosch, Granite Group, Durastar, as well as those U-shaped air conditioners you’ll find at Costco, Walmart, etc. (This is why all the mini-splits look the same.) But recently, they released a new ducted model that genuinely seems to be a real step up.

We know this, because we installed 2 of these ducted units in Cambridge last summer.

Small sample size, but these units made it through the winter storm just fine. Also useful is the fact that the air handler is slim, and can split into 2 if needed, which makes it useful for tight spaces.

However, since they’re just starting to roll these units out, distribution is limited. So we want to install a few test units, but not until maybe April/May.

The Prices

Folks, inflation finally got to us. After 2 years of not raising ductless prices, we’re going to probably raise prices generally by 10% this summer.

We also made a few other changes:

• Extra supplies & returns are now extra. (They have been, now it’s just a line item.)

• Removal prices have gone up. It’s really annoying to be 95% done with only removal left, so you can save a few hundred just calling removal people yourself.

• Floor unit complexity adder is lower. They’re harder, but not ceiling cassette hard.

• Dampers & multiple zones now cost extra. They’re extra work, and the zoning panel alone cost around $1,000.

• General contracting fee. I managed a few installs with like, 10 different steps. It’s really hard to coordinate all that!

I think these changes, in reality, brings the price up to a level that matches the amount of work to be done. As we build out the team here in Boston with a head of ops hire + service tech, I need to make sure we’re pricing things such that it’s sustainable for the team, even if I (as an LC founder) am willing to work for grad student wages, along with all my PhD student friends in Cambridge.

That, and the fact that we do need to catch up with inflation. We’re doing our best.

Geography

No changes here. We’re based in Cambridge, so we’ll always prioritize our local neighborhoods first. But anywhere within this map is fair game for at least a quote:

If you’re in this map we can probably at least give you a quote.

Timeline

Rolling timeline. We’ll roughly follow this schedule:

1. Design. February, March, a bit in April as well.

2. Installation. Kickoff in March. Will stretch into mid-June (first heatwave).

3. Service. We know there will be some call backs. We’re a lot more experienced than before so there will be fewer surprises, but it’ll still happen. Expect responses in the days/weeks timeframe, adjusting for urgency (e.g. no heat calls will be prioritized ASAP).

In the fall, we were running up against the end of the federal tax credit, but that’s no longer the case. So I think we’ll take it easy on the pacing until we get our full-time service tech hire filled, which will help a lot on #3.

Rebates

Like before, we’ll front the rebate. This year, Mass Save’s rebate is lower - about $2,650 per ton. But you’re still eligible for up to about $8,500 in rebates, collectively (that’s the ceiling). Previously, the ceiling was $10,000.

0% HEAT Loan financing remain unchanged, and you can finance up to $25,000 of your post-rebate cost.

If you’re in MLP territory, you may have access to different rebates. We will not be deducting those off the quote upfront.

Will I Save Money With a Heat Pump?

The age old question. Here’s our answer:

Will a Heat Pump Save Me Money?

A New Platform

So you saw above that we’ve launched Manatee. We’d love to hear what you think of it; it’ll help us streamline document collection, and eventually we think it can help us monitor fleet performance, too.

A little snapshot!

Fill it out, and give us all your hot takes! See you soon.

A dream of spring, from right around fresh pond last year

1. Other reasons include:

• Manatees like to be warm, and so do we

• Any domain name with “otter” was already taken (my Californian animal of choice)

• Hannan was inspired originally by Octopus Energy in the UK, which is very tech forward, since his commercial solar days years ago

• We sat next to Whalespotter in Greentown Labs & want to keep the aquatic tradition going, but were unfortunately pushed out by the brilliant success of Vertical Semi and now we sit a few tables away from them

• A small nod to Elephant, who we still have great appreciation for as a partner in the early days, & for the decarb work they are doing in Denver, here, & beyond