In this podcast ,Mike Cappuccio from N.E.T.R., Inc talks with John Maher about financing for Mitsubishi ductless heating and cooling. He explains the main financing options for homeowners — a Mitsubishi-specific loan through Synchrony financing or a no-interest Mass Save loan.
John Maher: Hi, I’m John Maher. I’m here today with Mike Cappuccio, founder of N.E.T.R., Inc, a heating and cooling company in Massachusetts with a focus on Mitsubishi ductless heating and cooling products. Today, we’re talking about financing for ductless heating and cooling. Welcome Mike.
Mike Cappuccio: Good morning, John. How are you?
2022 Financing for Mitsubishi Ductless Systems
John: Good, thanks. Mike, is there financing available for Mitsubishi ductless systems in 2022 that homeowners can take advantage of?
Mike: Yes, there’s a couple of options. There’s two or three ways that they can get financing for these particular projects.
John: Does that financing come from Mitsubishi, or from N.E.T.R., or from a third party financing company, or some sort of combination of those?
Mike: Well, there’s two major ways that the financing can either get done for a project, John. The first one I’ll go with is if you are not using what’s called the Massachusetts heat loan, the Mass Save Heat Loan, I guess I’ll call that. I want to move over to one. If you’re not doing that, you would, you would fall into the Synchrony Financing program that N.E.T.R. offers in conjunction with Mitsubishi Electric.
Synchrony Financing Program for Mitsubishi Equipment
Mike: That has anywhere from 10 year terms to 12 months to 120 months, depending on how you would want to pay the actual loan. Then there are some 0% interest loans too, from 12 months, 18 months, and 24 months that we do offer as well. That is all done through us here. In the office here, everything is done online, so there’s an approval process that needs to be done. Basically everything would be done right here in-house. All your paperwork is signed off, we handle all of that right here.
John: That’s done through a program, you said it’s called Synchrony?
Mike: Synchrony Financing, yes. It’s the old GE Capital that actually has bought Synchrony, so Synchrony is who we’d be using for that. You actually get what’s called a little Mitsubishi, it’s almost looks like a credit card, but it’s a Mitsubishi card and it can only be used for Mitsubishi equipment. If you’re putting in a Mitsubishi system and a Trane air conditioner, central air conditioning, you can only use this for the Mitsubishi side. You can only use it for the air source heat pump.
Mass Save Heat Loan
John: Okay. You said that’s what you usually do if people are not using the Mass Save Heat Loan program. Tell me a little bit about the Mass Save Heat Loan program and what that is.
Mike: Well, the Mass Save Heat Loan program is available for customers that basically pay into the energy sponsored programs through National Grid, Eversource, Cape Cod Light, basically anything that is a non-municipal type electric or natural gas provider.
Again, you could be in a town that has a municipal electric, and it has a natural gas that’s being provided by one of the larger providers. You could fall into the Mass Save Heat Loan at that time to use the system. You do need a home energy audit, and you do need what’s called a Mass Save Heat Loan intake form. That would be provided by the energy auditor at that time. Basically what it is, is a 0% seven-year loan for either partial home systems with the integrated controls with heat pumps, and/or full home where you are replacing your existing system, natural gas, or oil, as long as you are paying into the energy companies to get this loan.
Basically, they’re provided by local banks. They’re all local banks. There’s probably about 50 or 60 of them on the list where you can go to get these 0% seven-year loans. You have to get the system approved by Mass Save. You take your heat loan intake form, which we’ll help you fill out, and you provide them a quote, you provide them the submittals of the job and what’s being installed in the home, how it’s being installed in the home, and Mass Save stamps it and says, okay, this job’s approved for a heat loan. Here’s your heat authorization number, heat loan authorization number. That number is what you take to the bank. It basically says, hey, Mass Save has approved this. This is a qualified system. It is lendable money. We will lend money on this up to $25,000 for that.
Also, the heat loan can be used for other things too. It can be used for, I believe portions of it can be used if you need windows or partial insulation, things like that need to get done, along with installing the heat pump. Let’s say the heat pump job was maybe $15,000, and you were borrowing $25,000. You could use that additional money to do additional things that are qualified for the heat loan, but you’d need to make sure that it’s been all qualified by Mass Save; the windows, the insulation, et cetera.
How to Apply for Financing for Ductless Heating and AC
John: Okay. How does a homeowner go about applying for financing for a ductless heating and AC system, either with the Mass Save Heat Loan or with Synchrony Financing?
Mike: Well, I mean the Synchrony Financing, you’d have to do online through N.E.T.R. with us. The Mass Save Heat Loan, again, you’re going to need the heat loan intake, get the heat loan authorization number, and then the homeowner actually needs to go to the bank to get that money. We can’t go to the bank for them. I mean, we have a couple of banks that we use exclusively that we know can get them pushed through relatively quickly. There are some that do have online forms too as well, where you can actually fill out everything online and get your actual funds that way too. I mean, some of them are doing it online. I want to say there’s only about two or three of them, though.
Contact NETR to Talk About Heat Pumps and Financing Today
John: All right. Well, that’s really great information, Mike. Thanks again for speaking with me today.
Mike: Thank you, John.
John: For more information, you can visit the N.E.T.R. website at netrinc.com, or call (781) 933-NETR, that’s (781) 933-6387.