Recurve

We had Recurve do a full home energy audit. I hadn’t expected to replace the furnace, though I knew that was only a matter of time. When the audit was done and we discussed the federal and PG&E rebates, I decided to go ahead with a full furnace and duct replacement, as well as the sealing and insulation work. The tax break and the PG&E rebates are great incentives to get this work done, not to mention the efficiency savings of energy and money.
I won’t say they did everything 100% smoothly, they didn’t. But what contractor ever does? The Recurve folks were quickly responsive to problems or concerns, and they pretty much did the work in exactly the time frame they estimated. They came back a couple of times after the work was done to help balance the room flows. When minor things went
wrong during installation, they quickly made them right.
My one main complaint was about the noise of the new system. I replaced an old gravity furnace, which for all its faults, was pretty quiet. I was told that if the old furnace didn’t bother me noisewise, the new one wouldn’t either. But the new system IS noisier, because there is a fan that circulates the heat – a good thing, but it is more noticeable. And my neighbor complained about the noise. There were some fits and starts to finally resolve this, but it WAS resolved by adding a muffler to the system and redirecting the exhaust pipe. Recurve was anxious to make this right, and they did.
The air quality, comfort, and efficiency savings from this work are wonderful, I am VERY pleased with the work, and with Recurve overall.

We had an absolutely awful experience. This involved a problem at a number of levels, which could have been helped or solved with decent communication. I’ve pasted a portion of the letter we sent to the CEO and General Operations Manager below (certain info redacted):
Dear Mr. Leventhal:
This letter is in response to the overall poor service/​product that we received from Recurve from Oct. 2009 — Jan. 2010. This work was deficient, prolonged, and extremely frustrating, not to mention difficult as it left us without heat for a 5-​week period from December to January. To summarize, we received a number of services and repairs over most of the winter (from what was planned to be a 4 – 6 day job). These have been discussed in multiple emails to the people involved, but I will summarize the events below.
— Overall communication was terrible, both between Recurve team members (who did not seem to know the plan when they arrived to our home) and between Recurve and us. We made our schedule and contact info exceedingly clear, yet there continued to be problems which were not dealt with efficiently or appropriately. For example:
— We had a number of issues with the insulation crew (11÷17÷09). Nobody from the Recurve team was there when they arrived, and I was on my way out the door when they arrived. I had to explain to them what they were there for, and if they hadn’t caught me who knows when they would have started. This was typical of most interactions with both Recurve and non-​Recurve people. Although I had a walk-​through with Charley before starting work, and gave him a set of keys for the house, I frequently was responsible for letting people in to start their work because they did not have access. Additionally, I often had to explain what the plan was for their work. I ended up just waiting at home most days until someone arrived because I didn’t trust that they would have adequate access to the house, which obviously affects our ability to get to work on time.
— When we were finally able to use our heating system (after eight days without heat, well beyond the quoted 2 days), we received the unpleasant surprise of having insulation debris spew from the vents. This continued for about 2+ weeks — a fine layer of gray «dust» below our heating vents that we would have to clean up every time the furnace turned on. Apparently, after the ductwork was completed, the work crew did not know how to turn on our heating system to test the system and clean out the debris. We were never contacted about this; no phone call to ask us or even a quick note to say that they couldn’t find the heating control and to watch out for the debris.
— The delivery/​installation of the grills. We were told it would take one week. We emailed on ¹²⁄₈ after not hearing anything for 2 weeks, and were told they were on their way, but not given a reason for the delay at that time. On 12/​15, when we still hadn’t heard, we emailed again and were told that the order was «misplaced». After inquiring, we were told on ¹²⁄₁₆ that they never saw the posted order, and that it wasn’t followed up on until the ¹²⁄₁₅ email. This left gaping holes in our bathrooms and other rooms for about 6 weeks.
— Our original furnace worked well until the balancing of the system after the installation of the new ducts, when it suddenly stopped working. After multiple attempts to fix it both before and after the holidays, it would only work intermittently, and we were forced to purchase a new furnace. This was not in our original plan or budget. After speaking to other furnace specialists and describing the problem, they feel it was most likely a problem with the motherboard since it would work with jiggling of the wires, which would have been an easier fix and provided heat over the holiday period.
— After installation of the new furnace, it took a long time (about a week) to adjust it appropriately. The balance and efficacy of the new furnace and settings were off. It took a lot of prodding from us to figure out how to get it to heat up the house appropriately, as the crew seemed satisfied with the results at the end of each day. Needless to say, we were not. Until the end, it actually seemed WORSE than the original system pre-​Recurve intervention.
— Garbage cleanup: A large box full of garbage was left by the crew after the first day of work (asbestos removal crew). We didn’t know what is in it and therefore didn’t want to be responsible for disposing of it. I mentioned it to Charley when asked about the cleanliness of the insulation crew on 11/​17, and it remained until just before Christmas.
This isn’t even the complete letter, but Unilocal limits the number of characters per post. After sending the letter, the CEO called me and said he’d been there for 3 months so wasn’t around when this happened, but said this was obviously a cluster f*ck and that they’ve made efforts to improve their system. Feel free to email me if you have questions.

Now that most of the work is done a few thoughts:
— Not convinced the new registers are worth the cost, if doing it over I’d probably skip that work, and focus on the leaks and sealing
— The register rebalancing didn’t make a big difference
— There were a few times they weren’t very responsive to email
Overall still very positive and would recommend them.

I have worked with many contractors renovating houses and I have to say from the moment I called sustainable spaces to discuss a home audit it was a Nordstrom’s like experience.
The home audit pointed out several things we had suspected about our 80 year old house. It had air leaks, asbestos and we were wasting energy. Being business savvy we of course were hoping to get a short ROI on the improvements we wanted to make but we came to the conclusion that you can’t really put a price on health.
We engaged Sustainable Spaces to replace all our air ducts and seal all the air leaks. The goal was to improve the air quality in our home (we have two small children and a cat) and balance out the heat flow in the winter.
The work took one week to complete. The team was prompt, neat, friendly and completed the project slightly early. We would work with Sustainable Spaces again in the future.

I have to admit I was skeptical. I have had mediocre experience with most contractors and home service providers. So I tried Sustainable Spaces in increments — and have to say, it was the best money we have ever spent on a home project.
We got the energy audit first and they gave us a full program of how to improve our home energy use and meet our goals of getting our old victorian SF home to have more even temperature through out.
It was a big list and rather than do the whole thing at once, we thought we would «test them out». So we had them to the energy sealing project.
First — their dedication to actually sealing the house was amazing. They did their work over two days. Tested and were not satisfied that the impact was high enough, so they went on for two more days. The level of professionalism and pride in their work totally blew me away.
As to the results — unbelievable. We live in a home that is part old victorian and part modern. It feels like your typical drafty SF home where you are always cold, where there are always drafts and where it often feels colder inside, then outside.
Post energy sealing, the house has no drafts — completely retains heat, and feels comfortable. The impact was huge — not subtle.
So we were convinced to move on to the next phase which was a new more efficient heater and duct sealing.
Mind you this is all during our current economic recession, so spending money on projects that are of only modest value, is not something we were up for. But based on phase 1, we went for phase 2.
Again, these guy went well beyond what I think any HVAC guy would do. They tested, retested, tweaked, insulated etc.
Cut to the chase: Our once drafty house, now heats up in about 5 minutes. All rooms in the house are within 1 to 2 degrees of the others. We didn’t think this was even possible.
I can’t recommend this company highly enough.
Given the economic turmoil and unsure jobs, do as we did — implement it in increments.
Get the home energy audit first. See what they say is the places where you can reduce energy leaks or be more efficient.
Then do the energy sealing as the first phase (assuming that is an issue for you). Feel the results and see their level of professional work.
Then move on to the next levels as appropriate for you.
My summary: this is some of the best money we have ever spent. Our house is now temperature balanced and comfortable, as well as more energy efficient.