HomeWorks Energy in Springfield, Massachusetts

Top Reviews

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  heidi pulkkinen

  5 months ago
  I had insulation added at my home, and the team was great. They did a great job and made sure I was informed every step of the way. Would definitely recommend them.
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  Tim Monaco

  5 months ago
  Such a terrible set of experiences with HWE. I went through MassSave to get their services: insulation & other heat-saving measures, including door jambs, + expanding foam in foundation. In total they required THREE separate trips, which I'll expand on: 1) Initial visit - 2-br, 1-bath job. I was onsite for the first half of the full day's work. They were great in the kitchen and living room: they put up plastic sheeting & handled dust/debris carefully. I left them to finish assuming all was fine. Unfortunately, both bedrooms and the garage were NOT plastic-wrapped as they had been when I was present; they were an absolute mess when I returned (images). I had moved everything to the center of each room to make it easier to cordon off, but everything - most frustratingly my bedding - was covered with dust, drywall particles, & insulation. I don't understand why they don't use a shop-vac while drilling to cut back on the mess. I would have assumed HEPA everything but instead it's just drill & blow insulation. They used 24-hour joint compound on the cutouts; that compound would be fine alone but they applied two coats only a few hours apart which creates too much moisture and causes cracking, something anyone who has used joint compound before would know. That requires much more post-processing sanding & reapplication to get a smooth wall (another image). Many of their styrofoam 3" inserts used to plug holes protruded well beyond flush with the wall and required complete removal and reapplication; this made repairs take about three times longer than necessary. I spent many weekday evenings & weekends cleaning & repairing and to this day find a layer of drywall dust + insulation. -Adobe Energy, an independent verification company, came onsite about two months later. Rep was great, found several cold spots in the walls and advised another visit to remediate them, plus noted poor door-jamb installation & a missed foundational joist spot. 2) Re-scheduling was reasonably. Second HWE crew remediated some of the shoddy work from the first trip (door jambs & joist patches). For some reason they didn't reference the Adobe Energy photos & drilled more holes in the patched walls than were documented. They attempted to use their blow-in insulation machine but said it was non-functional, they would need to return a THIRD time. I was upset but I tried not to take it out on the reps. They promised an escalated call from a manager that day to reschedule; I did not receive it. I waited until mid-afternoon the next day then called. The scheduler was empathetic; said the next available slot was three weeks out which I told her was unacceptable given the circumstances and state of the walls. Said she'd follow up after working on scheduling and, after about an hour, called back to say she could send reps the next day. 3) The third visit finished the blow-in insulation and patchwork. Unfortunately they were NOT given the pictures from Adobe's assessment, I made it clear we wouldn't progress until we could reference the pictures. The rep made some emails/calls and got the pictures, we reviewed and executed. I lost another weekend to joint compound, sanding, priming, and painting. HomeWorks Energy demonstrated widespread incompetence: broken equipment, poor onsite training, and low-quality materials, they even had a duct-taped blade they were using (image). Whatever they're billing MassSave clearly isn't going back into operations or equipment. I lost multiple weekends cleaning up their mess, and it's a shame to see a good MA program affected like this. I would warn people to stay away from HomeWorks Energy at all costs and look to other contractors. Update: The owner responded with a generic message directing me to customer care - the same offer made previously, which went nowhere. At this stage, the work is done and can't be undone; the only meaningful resolution left would be some acknowledgment of the time I lost to cleanup and repairs that shouldn't have fallen on me in the first place. Being redirected again doesn't give that back.
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  Jason Minsk

  5 months ago
  I had HomeWorks come to my home and perform a handful of energy saving measures. Truck 40 was the crew that arrived. They were very professional and courteous. Every action that was performed was explained. They worked diligently to get everything done in a reasonable time frame. I would recommend HomeWorks and this crew was great!
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  heidi pulkkinen

  5 months ago
  I had insulation added at my home, and the team was great. They did a great job and made sure I was informed every step of the way. Would definitely recommend them.
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  Marcia Ciro

  5 months ago
  I had Homeworks Energy (through Mass Save) insulate my condo recently. They had to go into the interior walls since we had a stucco exterior, so the job included blown insulation and plaster repair, which was naturally disruptive. The crew who did the insulation, led by Cesar Martinez, was great: hardworking, organized, competent and did a good job cleaning up. Lemoy Cunningham did an outstanding job on the plaster repair. I would give the crews who actually did the work 5 stars easily. I have given 4 stars because our experience with the people in the offices of Homeworks Energy were less than competent. They really didn't seem to know anything about the logistics of the work that needed to be done. There seems to be multiple departments and subcontractors involved and no one seems to be aware of what the other is doing. This was very frustrating. We first had a problem getting the paperwork separated for the condo upstairs (my neighbor) and downstairs (mine) which they originally put all under my name even though we were clear that it was two separate condos in one house. That took 2 months. The worst part was the assessor came back twice to talk with us, but failed to notice that we had a slate roof. So Cesar came in and had drilled 3" holes all over my interior LR and DR walls, then had to inform me that he had checked the attic and realized that we had a slate roof. Part of the job entailed adding attic fans to the roof and he didn't have the expertise to work on slate. After I spent two weeks moving everything out of the way, into the basement, covering what was left, I was pretty anxious to get it done. Cesar tried to help by calling an inspector for us, who came by to tell us what we needed. I called our project manager at HWE and left a message and sent an email. When I didn't hear back from him (he never answered his phone, ever), I tried calling an emergency number they have and spoke with a woman who of course had to speak with someone else. Meanwhile, I was able to contact Farina Roofing who we've worked with before and contract with them to put the fans in, which they did the next day (they were great!). Cesar had hung around to let me organize this and once he understood it would get done, continued with the job (phew!). But it was an extra $3200 we hadn't planned for. Later in the afternoon, I got a message from the woman in the office informing me that they couldn't help and indeed the crew wouldn't get paid unless the job was finished with the fans, so yes they had to leave. A bit later, I got another email from the clueless project mgr telling me not to worry about it; they can finish the job. He didn't seem to know anything about how the crew works. When Lemoy came to do the plastering, he was scheduled for just one day, in which he was able to finish only my downstairs unit. The upstairs unit (two floors) is still waiting for them to schedule it, despite multiple emails and phone calls from both me and my neighbor. Whoever does the scheduling doesn't seem to understand how much there is to do. I got another phone call from another part of the company yesterday who assumed the job was finished and wanted to send an inspector over. Do any of these people talk to each other? Very dysfunctional administration. I would give them 2 or 3 stars if I could separate out the administration from the actual work, so I settled for 4 stars. Again, the crews who actually did the work were great--5 stars for them! GOOD NEWS: I am glad we did this. My condo is noticeably warmer and quieter to outside noise. I've heard there will be less dust, but that remains to be seen. Wish we had done it years ago! Mass Save is a great program and made this work affordable for me and my neighbor. Not sure I would recommend Homeworks Energy though.