Michigan Central Station, win-win electrification, and a $15K giveaway
Pearl Edison is grateful to be from Detroit, MI. We're giving away a whole-home heat pump retrofit, which is our way of showing it.
Two weeks ago, Detroit’s Michigan Central Station reopened - live in Detroit and streamed into living rooms all over America, with a little help from Eminem.
I’ve spent my entire life in Michigan and my entire career in Detroit. For most of those 30 years, Michigan Central Station was a vacant, decaying symbol of Detroit’s decline. Since Ford Motor Company purchased the Station in June 2018 with a promise to restore it, it’s been source of curiosity. Now, it’s a source of pride, and a symbol of the city’s rise. Detroit’s not “back” - never left - but we do have renewed energy. We’re growing again. We’re building again. And we’re winning again. (Not the Pistons.)
Pearl Edison was fortunate participate at Michigan Central OPEN, a celebration of the Station’s reopening. We were featured alongside Debra Anderson, a Detroit homeowner we served earlier this year, and Brynn Cooksey, Owner / GM of Air Doctors HVAC, who partnered with us on the work. It was a privilege. Pearl Edison exists to serve homeowners like Debra, and to support contractors like Air Doctors.
Debra’s story is worth telling. When we met her, she was cold (couldn’t get her home above 60 degrees), energy-burdened (~$700 winter utility bill), and a little skeptical that we could do anything to help (understandable). Pearl Edison was founded to make win-win-win projects like this one happen - a good outcome for the homeowner, a good outcome for the contractor, and a good outcome for the planet.
We’re grateful for the support that Detroit and Michigan have shown us - and we want to do more of this work. So, we’re spreading the word - and giving away a whole-home heat pump retrofit, at a value of $15K.
More details below - on Debra’s story, and on our giveaway.
Debra’s story
Debra lives on the first floor of a split-level duplex in Detroit near Highland Park. When we met Debra, she’d been dealing with poor comfort and high energy burden for about five years. Debra could barely keep her home above 60 degrees on cold winter days - her living room and dining room were always chilly. Debra is a grandmother and a licensed childcare professional, and loved hosting in her home, so this was a constant source of frustration. And despite poor comfort, her utility bills were sky-high - $550 to $700 per month in the winter.
Debra heard about Pearl Edison [through a friend], and was interested in whether a new HVAC system could address the problem.
Debra received an instant estimate via the Pearl Edison platform. Her price of $10,250 seemed reasonable - particularly since most of it could be covered by a rebate and wouldn’t come out of her pocket.
Debra requested a live home assessment. The Pearl Edison team arrived during a January cold snap, and Debra welcomed the assessor to a chilly living room.
The team got to work confirming our recommended system design. The furnace was functioning, which didn’t explain why the house was so cold. The ductwork was the issue. The ductwork was undersized (so the furnace had to run harder), poorly designed (which meant the air wasn’t routed where it needed to go), and leaky (so it escaped before it arrived). The inefficient system ran constantly to keep up, which increased Debra’s utility bill.
During the home assessment, the Pearl Edison assessor confirmed the load calculation and equipment recommendation, but added a ductwork modification and refined the commissioning instructions for Debra’s dual-fuel configuration, given her desire to reduce her utility bills as much as possible.
Debra was excited to move forward.
As the video explains, Debra’s project was completed by Air Doctors Heating and Cooling, and overseen by the “Air Doctor” himself, Brynn Cooksey. They are Pearl Edison’s highest-volume partner - and as Brynn shared, they’re passionate about saving homeowners money by focusing on building science and doing their work by the book. Working with Pearl Edison, they can do more jobs with less upfront marketing / sales and administrative work, tasks that take up time, cost them money, and raise prices for their ultimate customers.
We chose to work with Air Doctors on Debra’s project because they have the expertise to knock it out of the park for her. Two complexities of Debra’s installation were the dual-fuel configuration (meaning the system uses both electricity and natural gas to optimize savings) and an extensive duct modification (a total design of the duct system in Debra’s basement to ensure comfort in every room of the home). No one does this work better than Air Doctors.
At the end of the day, the dual-fuel heat pump system and ductwork modification have reduced Debra’s winter utility bills by ~75%. (She told us she’d use some of those savings to dote on her grandchildren a little bit more.) And most importantly, she - and her many guests - will be comfortable in her home.
Win-win-win electrification - at scale - means helping millions of people like Debra.
Pearl Edison giveaway
In honor of the reopening of Detroit's Michigan Central Station, and as a thank-you to the community our company was founded in, we're giving away a whole-home air-source heat pump retrofit, with a maximum value of $15,000 per home.
Eligible expenses include HVAC equipment and installation, related electrical and mechanical work, ductwork repair and modification, and weatherization (insulation, air sealing, and more) - anything required to do the job right.
The eligibility criteria are pretty simple:
You must live in Southeast Michigan.
You must receive an instant estimate via the Pearl Edison website.
We must be confident that your scope of work will result in annual utility bill savings of greater than $500 per year.
Our goal is to spread the word about beneficial electrification and energy efficiency - so more sharing, means more chances to win.
You can learn more and enter to win here:
Thanks for your support!