Resource Type: Videos

Kash Daley from N.E.T.R., Inc. talks about the setting up integrated controls with a smart thermostat and Flair Pucks, and what Mass Save requires in order to get your whole home, integrated controls rebate.

Hi, my name is Kash from N.E.T.R. We’re going to go over a couple of features for our integration, and what requirements are needed from the customer to qualify for Mass Save.

The first thing is you need a smart thermostat, whether it’s an ecobee, a Nest; it just has to be a smart thermostat that can connect to the internet and can be connected to an app, meaning an iPhone, an Android, or any mobile device.

And then secondly, you’re going to need a Flair Puck device. Basically, it’s a little round circle puck that connects to your mini-split head. It also has an app on it, and what you do is you connect this to your mini-split, and it’s used as a thermostat for your mini-split head.

This comes with an app, and with the app, you can integrate the two systems together to allow your house to become more energy-efficient based on outdoor temperatures. So the way that it makes your home more energy efficient is that it will operate the most efficient system based on outdoor temperatures. If it’s in the lower temperatures, you want to run your fossil fuel because it’s not going to consume so much energy. Vice versa, if the temperatures are warmer, you want to run your mini-split because it’s more efficient and it’s not going to use as much energy. And as they work together, they have the potential to save you quite a bit of money per year on your electric bill.

In order to qualify for Mass Save, you need a smart thermostat for your fossil fuel system, and you need a Flair Puck that’s for your mini-split. And you also need the two systems to communicate with each other through the app. So that way you qualify for Mass Save.

Kash Daley from N.E.T.R., Inc. talks about the ecobee smart thermostat and its energy saving features, and demonstrates how to use and program the thermostat, including highlighting common settings that the user may adjust, and how to set the weekly schedule.

Hi, my name is Kash from N.E.T.R. I’ll be introducing the “ecobee lite” thermostat and the features that it offers. The first feature, which is really nice, is energy saving mode, which is known as “eco+”. And what that does is, when you’re not home, it saves you energy by not turning on your heating or AC system. And when you are home, there are options like room sensors, smart sensors, that you can put in each room so that it can sense when someone is in that room.

So with ecobee, it offers what is known as an energy audit. Each month it gives you a breakdown of how much kilowatts you’re using, meaning electricity; and how many hours your thermostat, or in this case your heating system, is operating, meaning 10 hours, 14 hours, whatever it may be. And then it gives you a breakdown of how you can improve that for the next months, or moving forward. All right, now let’s take a look at the ecobee itself so I can give a breakdown of how to use it.

Ecobee Features & Settings

So this is the ecobee lite. What you currently see on the screen right now is the temperature in your house. It also provides temperature outside currently, and it also offers a full weekly breakdown of the temperatures outside. It also offers humidity outside and inside. That’s what this little number is. Now, first thing, to turn on your system, you go up top where it says off, you press on it, you choose your type of system, whether it’s heat, cool or auto; in our case put it to cool. You’ll see a little number down here pop up blue. Now that’s the temperature that you’re going to be setting it to. To change the temperature, you press on the middle box, you scroll up and down. In this case it’s AC, you want to be lower than the set temperature, which is 73. You’ll see a little box right here, click on it, and it will tell you how long your system’s going to operate until, meaning your schedule.

Now, if you would like to change that, you can always go into settings, which is this little gear down here. Press on that. You go into your preferences and you can change that by “hold activity”. Meaning you could switch it to two hours, four hours, or until you physically change it. That’s something I personally recommend, but it’s always up to you guys as the customer.

Now, if you would like to turn off the system, you press the little snowflake, which would be your AC, and then you press off; it’s all touchscreen, and then you’ll see the snowflake go away. Now if you want heat, same thing, you press off, you press heat, and then you’ll see an orange box to show you that heat is engaging. Same thing as AC, if you want to change the temperature, you change it higher than what your house temperature is, and then you’ll see the little flame kick on and then your heat is operating.

So the ecobee settings, you go into the little lines over here to the right, you press on it, there’s going to be a gear down here on the right hand side, you’re going to press on that. That’s going to bring up all your settings for your ecobee. The first one I want to go over is the eco+. That is what saves you energy throughout times of the day, when your energy costs more than usual. You can always enable it or disable it, your preference. There are offers for room sensors. In this case there’s an office connected. So if you press on it’ll show you a breakdown of what it’s doing. Other features, you can always set your comfort. You could set your ideal temperatures, whether it’s 85 degrees or all the way down to 69 degrees. You could set your desired temperatures for when you’re not home or when you are home. So when the system does kick on, or doesn’t kick on, it’ll maintain that ideal temperature.

Other features are “preferences”, that’s going to be used quite a bit by the customer. This just gives you a breakdown of your heating range, cooling range. If your thermostat’s in your bedroom, hallway, you can always modify it to whatever room it’s in. You can also change your “hold activity”; instead of running your schedule you can change it between two hours, four hours, until your next scheduled activity, or until you change it, which that’s something I recommend. 

Programming Your Ecobee

So for people that are wondering how to set their schedules on their ecobees; first thing, you go into your settings, you go into the gears, which is deep dive settings. You go into schedule, and now you go to Monday, and then it’ll give you a breakdown of when you go to bed at night. Say we go to bed at, let’s just say 6:00 PM we go to bed, 6:30, we’ll save it. We go to sleep.

And then say you go to work or you leave the house, say you leave at 6:00 AM, we’ll leave it at 6:00 AM. That would be your leaving time. And then when you get home, you would say you get home, say every day at 4:00 PM, that would set your schedule for home. If you would like to do that same setup for the whole week, you always press “copy”. You have to press on the actual days, meaning Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then you save it. And then if you go through, it’ll have a breakdown of home, away and sleep throughout the week. So Monday through Friday, say you work, that’s the time that you’re away. You get home from work at 4:00 PM that’s the time you get home. And then when you go to bed.

Now on the weekends it’s a little bit different because most people don’t work or they don’t really go out that often. So if you want to delete the away, all you have to do is press on it and then there is a little trash can up top. To delete it, press delete, and now all you have is sleep and home. And now when you’re home, you’re home. Say every day at 10 o’clock in the morning, that’s when you’re home. You go to sleep at, say, 10:00 PM. You set it and now it’s going to run your schedule from 10:00 AM when you’re home, and then it won’t run it again until you go to sleep, which is at 10:00 PM.

I hope everything that was shown today was helpful and educational. When it comes to the ecobee, I have one in my house that I’ve had a little over three years, and I honestly love it. I’ve bought quite a bit of external sensors and things that ecobee offers the customer to make their home more energy efficient. I would also recommend it for any new customer that wants to switch out their older, less efficient thermostat to a new, smarter, more energy efficient thermostat that would save them a ton of money in the future.

In this video, Brett Rogenski from N.E.T.R., Inc explains the importance of whole home surge protection. This comes standard when you choose N.E.T.R. to install your ductless HVAC system.

Hi, I’m Brett Rogenski, General Manager with N.E.T.R., Inc. I’m here today to talk to you about whole home surge protection and why you should want that on your home.

What Are Power Surges?

So what are power surges? Power surges are spikes in the voltage that are either within your home or coming into your home. So a whole home surge protector is added to your electrical panel, and it helps absorb and eliminate those spikes either internally in your home or if they’re coming from the street through a power spike, a voltage spike from your provider. What they do is they actually absorb that extra energy and then regulate the energy out to your other circuits.

Benefits of Surge Protectors

Now, why would you want one of these? Well, as we all know, our ductless heating system, our central AC system, all of our appliances really right down to our fridge and our dryer, they all have circuit boards in them.

Those are very susceptible to failure when they face surges in power, so they like nice even power. And unfortunately, surges in power tend to do damage to those items. So the surge protector protects that from happening to your expensive appliances, refrigerators, washers, dryers, central air conditioning, furnaces, ductless systems, so all those sensitive electronics as well as your TV, your computer, and all the other things in your home.

Contact N.E.T.R. to Talk About Surge Protectors

N.E.T.R. provides a whole home surge protector with every new installation that we perform. That’s how important we feel that it is. The other benefit to you is the whole home surge protector provided by N.E.T.R. comes with a $100,000 insurance policy to the homeowner, and it’s a lifetime policy. So if there is ever a power surge into your home that the surge protector does not protect you against, there is a $100,000 reimbursement policy in place from the manufacturer for you to replace or fix those electronics. So it’s very vital that if you’re getting a new ductless mini-split furnace, air conditioner, you need to also get a whole home surge protector. And if the other guy isn’t providing one when they give you a quote, you should probably ask why.

In this video, the General Manager of N.E.T.R., Inc, talks about the different mounting options for ductless HVAC systems. He talks about floor, wall, and ceiling mounted designs.

Hi, I’m Brett Rogenski, General Manager with N.E.T.R., and I’m here today to speak with you about the different options in indoor units for ductless mini splits.

Wall-Mounted Ductless AC Units

So the first one is by far the most popular. Those are wall units. Wall units come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They’re mounted six to seven feet up your wall and they’re most popular because, number one, they’re highly functional, number two, they can be mounted in many spaces in a room and number three, they also come in the most form factors, most colors. So they come in black, white, silver, different shapes.

Floor Mini Split Ductless ACs

The second type that is extremely popular are what are called floor units. And they often remind us of where we used to have radiant heating in a home, so where we used to have a big cast iron radiator. So these instead are close to the wall, smaller, but they’re mounted low on the wall and tight to the wall.

So again, they come in different colors, they come in different capabilities and sizes, and those are probably the second most popular option in mini-split indoor units.

Recessed Ceiling Units

The third option that’s rising in popularity are recessed ceiling cassettes. Recessed ceiling cassettes are mounted in the ceiling. All you see is a grill, and the rest of the infrastructure is up above the ceiling.

Now, the biggest limitation with ceiling cassettes is that you have to be able to access that space above the ceiling. So they’re frequently used in second floors, sometimes used in first floors, and the advantage is they look great. They blend away, and they’re just a grill that people see on the ceiling that allow for both heating and cooling. So wall mounted, floor mounted, and ceiling cassettes are the three most common styles that we have in homes, and they all come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors.

This video explains why you should get a summer tune-up — efficiency and reduced risk of unexpected repairs. Then, it outlines the benefits of HydroKleen for your ductless AC.

Hi. I’m Brett Rogenski, General Manager at N.E.T.R., Incorporated. And I’m here to speak to you about the importance of summer cooling system tuneups, as well as our special hydro clean system for ductless systems.

Why Should You Schedule a Summer Tune-Up?

So why would you want to make sure to have your cooling system tuned up for summer? Well, the first reason is efficiency. Dirt, debris clog your outdoor unit and make it hard for it to essentially breathe and release all that warm air that has been collected from inside out to the outer environment.

So the first key step is cleaning that outdoor unit for efficiency. The second most important thing is that we need to check the pressures in your system and the functionality of your system to ensure there aren’t any small items that are going to become big items for you. So our coming in and testing your system early while it’s still functioning can tell us if we are going to have failures later, and we can prevent costly failures when you need them the least.

The last thing that we want to talk about is the replacement of filters. Every system has filters to keep impurities out of it. We want to replace or clean those removable filters, get fresh ones in there to increase airflow, which will help add to your comfort and the efficiency of your system.

What Is HydroKleen?

HydroKleen is a special process that N.E.T.R. uses on ductless systems. So your indoor ductless units have small fins in them to collect the heat, and move it to the outdoors. Those can become clogged over time due to the airflow with dirt, dust, pet hair, other debris in your home.

Our HydroKleen system is like a miniature pressure washer that goes in and it is used to clean those fins, remove any of those contaminants, and help it work at optimum efficiency. So you’ll get the most comfort, you’ll use the least energy doing it, and you won’t have things that you’ve heard of from other people who don’t do that, such as some bad smells in your home or that drop in comfort level. So again, it is very important that every system have a tuneup before the summer cooling season.

Selecting a contractor that provides 24/7 emergency services can help protect you if your HVAC equipment breaks down on the weekend, in the middle of the night, or on a holiday. Some companies offer membership plans that help you save money on emergency services.

Hi, I’m Brett Rogenski, General Manager with N.E.T.R. Incorporated. I’m here today to speak to you about the benefits of working with a contractor who offers 24/7 emergency services. Not all contractors offer their customers 24 hours, seven day a week emergency service.

The Importance of 24/7 Emergency Services

Unfortunately, failures can occur and failures can occur outside of normal business hours. So it’s important to look for a contractor who has 24 hour staff to dispatch to be able to help serve you during those late night hours, early morning hours and weekends. The second thing that they want to do is they want to have a dedicated emergency service tech on call at all times.

So every contractor who truly can serve 24/7 has someone who is scheduled to be on at those times that they’re needed. And then the last thing is that those technicians need to have access to fully stocked vehicles so they have easy access to equipment to fix that during those off hours.

Service Membership Plans

Many contractors who do offer 24/7 emergency service also offer membership programs where you pay a small fee to become a member and gain other benefits. One of the benefits is a reduced cost for emergency service, often paying for the entire yearly membership in one service call. And then the second benefit is they usually offer front of the line service, where when members come in, they actually go ahead of non-members to be serviced more immediately. So call your contractor to find out more.

With the Art Cool model from LG, you can add art to your wall-mounted ductless unit. This allows the unit to blend in and complement your home’s decor.

Hi, I’m Brett Rogenski, General Manager with N.E.T.R. I’m here today to talk about one of the newest innovations in wall-mounted ductless heating and air conditioning. It’s called the LG Art Cool Gallery.

You can see it behind me. It is designed to look like a piece of art hanging on your wall. Please ignore these tubes. This is in our demonstration center. Those would normally be outside your home, but it is a fully functional heating and cooling system on your wall.

One of the great features of this is the ability you can change it to put in your own art that matches the decor in your home by simply removing a couple of tabs, opening up the glass, and removing the artwork and placing your own choice underneath. So designed to blend away into almost any home and designed to give a different aesthetic for people who are looking for maybe a little higher class look in their home. Also, when this is running, this system can tilt away from the wall to enhance better airflow for your system. So another great alternative for ductless heating and air conditioning in your home.

In this video, we talk about the Mass Save Rebates for 2023. This program updates its refunds every year, and when you work with N.E.T.R., Inc, we help you apply for all relevant refunds.

Hi, I’m Brett Rogenski, General Manager with N.E.T.R. Incorporated. I’m here today to talk to you about 2023 Mass Save rebates.

Whole Home Rebate

The first level of rebate is the whole home rebate. That is a $10,000 rebate for eliminating all the fossil fuel heat source from your home and moving to clean green electric heating for your home. So that’s a $10,000 rebate from Mass Save to the homeowner.

Partial Home Rebate

The second level of rebates is a partial home rebate. Partial home rebates involve removing most of the fossil fuel heating from your home, but still having that there as a backup or as supplemental heat. Those are rebated at $1,250 per ton, plus $500 per heating unit. So a three ton system with three heating heads on it would rebate $5,250 to the homeowner.

Heat Loan Program

The last exciting part about Mass Save is the heat loan program. In the past, the heat loan program had a $25,000 maximum loan at 84 months for 0% interest. In 2023, that has been raised to a $50,000 loan at zero interest for 84 months. So lots of great reasons to explore more and learn about Mass Save rebates and heat loans.

In this video, we explain the five main factors that affect the cost of your ductless system in 2023. They include the type of equipment and the company you select for the installation.

Hi, I’m Brett Rogenski, General Manager with N.E.T.R., Inc. I’m here today to speak to you about the different factors that can influence the cost of a ductless installation.

Type of Unit

So, the first one is the type of unit. Is it a cold climate heat pump, hyper heat? Is it a standard climate heat pump, meaning it only works to a warmer temperature? Or is it a cooling only heat pump? All three of those come with different features that have different investment types.

Size of Condenser

The second item is the size of the actual condenser, the size of the outdoor unit, how many BTUs it’s capable of handling. Larger units require more equipment, and they are more expensive.

Number of Indoor Units

The third thing is how many indoor units are being served by the condenser? More indoor units require more infrastructure. Again, those affect the cost of the investment.

The Installer

The next thing is the type of company you choose to work with. Are you working with a low cost, low overhead provider, or are you working with someone that has a full installation team, service team, and will be there for you in the future?

Complexity of the Installation

The last item that affects the cost of installation is the complexity of the installation. Some homes require very simple installations with minimal wiring and piping. Others require much more complex installations with much more labor, wire and piping involved. So, the less complex the installation, the less cost that’s associated with that.

Jimmy Smithell of N.E.T.R. talks about LG ductless systems, and discusses options for wall mounted ductless systems, and how they work to zone your home.

LG wall-mounted ductless systems are a great way to zone your home.

Hi, I’m Jimmy with N.E.T.R. Today, I want to talk to you a little bit more about zoning your home with heat pumps. What I mean by zoning is we could come into a home, install multiple port heat pumps in your house, meaning one unit per room, wherever you live, and be able to heat or cool that room.

For instance, we could shut a unit or a room off when you’re not in it. This would be along the lines of you coming into your house and turning on a faucet, and every shower head turns on in the home. You don’t really do that. We turn on one faucet as needed. With heat pumps, we could do the same thing. We target each room to give you ultimate comfort and climate control.

The other things that we’ll talk about is the BTUs of this system. LG makes systems starting from 9,000 BTUs on a one-on-one single zone, all the way up to a 24,000 BTU single zone. This is made in their RED series, which is a great option for a garage space or any large room that needs that 24,000 BTU single unit.

They also offer a wide variety of multiple port systems. This is where we can get into your house and really zone it. All of their units come out of the box with Wi-Fi. This gives you the capability to operate the system, basically anywhere that you’re hooked to Wi-Fi; you could adjust your heat, turn it on, turn it off, see the temperature or your cooling.

They also have a range of mirror image units. They basically look black and they have a mirror image finish on them. They’re kind of shiny. They’re a great feature for any room that has that wall that you’re looking to blend in with.