The High Performance Edge Podcast

Homeowners have no reliable way to tell a great installation from a mediocre one, and ACCA’s Quality Installation program is one of the few tools built to prove the difference. In this episode, PT talks with Wes Davis, ACCA’s Director of Technical Services and the main person driving QI. They cover where the program came from, how simple it’s become to use on the measureQuick platform, and why many contractors have adopted it to cut callbacks.

But the bigger opportunity is market advantage. Homeowners are now researching contractors with AI and feeding quotes into ChatGPT, which tells them to ask whether a contractor commissions and verifies the system. That’s exactly what a QI certificate proves. PT makes the case that in most markets, the field is wide open for contractors who want to stand out on quality and prove it. Wes also covers the coaching and marketing support ACCA offers contractors who want to use QI that way. Learn more at acca.org/proveit.

Episode Links:

• Listen on Apple Podcasts
• Listen on Spotify
• Energy Circle website
• Energy Circle LinkedIn
• Peter Troast, Energy Circle CEO and Founder LinkedIn
• Wes Davis LinkedIn
• ACCA QI Program
• ACCA Callback Calculator

Tim De Stasio spends a full nine-hour day in a single house before he writes a recommendation. His comfort consultation covers envelope testing, HVAC system performance, airflow, a measured load calculation, moisture diagnostics, and two weeks of indoor air quality data — and it starts at two thousand dollars. He works in coastal North Carolina, a climate zone with brutal humidity and real building problems, but not necessarily a wealthy place. People are buying anyway.

In this episode, Tim walks host Peter Troast through how the process works, what he’ll cut when a homeowner isn’t ready for the whole thing, and exactly what he says when someone hears the price and pushes back. They get into why the traditional energy audit model was never enough on its own, how AI search has become his most reliable source of new clients, and why a premium diagnostic can be a viable standalone business — or one piece of a contracting business that’s already doing this work.

Episode Links:

• Listen on Apple Podcasts
• Listen on Spotify
• Watch on YouTube
• Energy Circle website
• Energy Circle LinkedIn
• Peter Troast, Energy Circle CEO and Founder LinkedIn
• Tim De Stasio LinkedIn
• Comfort Science Solutions

For years, the indoor air quality (IAQ) and healthy home opportunity has felt like the tidal wave that never quite breaks. Homeowners are increasingly worried about the air inside their houses, but there’s a chasm between that worry and the performance of the building itself. Most still expect the fix to be a shiny air purification device. Darren Eckes, co-founder of Safe Air Pros, has built a business on the other side of that gap. His company runs on two tracks: a deeply comprehensive diagnostic practice (assessments almost entirely referred by physicians, for patients so sensitive to mold and biotoxins that they can’t get well until their homes are corrected) and a whole-house contracting arm that actually fixes the building.

It’s a serious process for serious customers prepared to invest in what it takes. But what makes this conversation worth your time is the opportunity he openly shares. Darren is adamant this work isn’t rare air: he calls it a gigantic pie, wide open to any contractor curious enough to go deeper and build real diagnostic and building-science chops. For high performance contractors hunting a substantial new market that rewards doing it right, Darren’s the proof it’s there.

Episode Links:

• Listen on Apple Podcasts
• Listen on Spotify
• Watch on YouTube
• Energy Circle website
• Energy Circle LinkedIn
• Peter Troast, Energy Circle CEO and Founder LinkedIn
• Safe Air Pros

The entire industry is organized around one idea: scale. There are millions of homes to fix and we're moving too slowly. Dan Perunko built Balance Point Home Performance on the opposite bet—and made it work.

In this episode of The High Performance Edge, Peter Troast talks with Dan, who runs an intentionally small shop in the California foothills doing comprehensive retrofits that almost always run north of $50,000 and can reach into the hundreds of thousands. He does very little marketing, yet can't keep up with the leads—in part because his website is blunt that he only does deep, comprehensive work and isn't a fit for everyone. And people still line up.

Dan chose a different path but still shapes the industry, teaching openly at conferences and trainings nationwide as a founder of the Forum on Measured Performance. Listen or watch to hear Peter and Dan get into how the small model actually works—the economics, the website filter, and what a bigger contractor can take from it.

Episode Links:

- Listen on Apple Podcasts

- Listen on Spotify

-Watch on YouTube

- Energy Circle website

- Energy Circle LinkedIn

- Peter Troast, Energy Circle CEO and Founder LinkedIn

-Balance Point Home Performance

-Forum on Measured Home Performance

Everywhere you turn in HVAC and home performance, some loud voice insists that posting prices online is the holy grail. Many contractors have concluded it's a mandate. But high performance contractors understandably bristle at pricing a job before they've even seen the house.

In this solocast, Peter Troast works through the real picture: the four forces pushing price transparency, why instant quote tools fail in high performance work, and what Energy Circle's search and call-tracking data reveals about what homeowners genuinely want. He also shares why AI is becoming the high performance contractor's new best friend, and lands on a practical reframe: price orientation, not price transparency.

Plus: a look at the prototype pricing page at demo.energycircle.com.

Episode Notes:

• Listen on Apple Podcasts
• Listen on Spotify
• Watch on YouTube
• Energy Circle Website
• Energy Circle LinkedIn
• Peter Troast, Energy Circle CEO and Founder LinkedIn
• Heat Pump Summit FREE Tickets
• Pricing Page Example

Brent Davidson runs the U.S. Heat Pump Summit, and organizing it puts him in constant conversation with the manufacturers, distributors, and contractors shaping where this market goes next.

In this episode, Peter Troast and Brent talk about the state of the heat pump market and what sets the Summit apart from every other event on the calendar: it's built squarely around the contractor. The people on stage are contractors having real success with this equipment, and they're remarkably candid about how they do it, right down to their numbers. A business track and a technical track run side by side, small hosted conversation tables let attendees dig into the topics they actually came for, and the density of people who want to do this work right is unlike anything you'll find at a distributor training.

The fourth annual U.S. Heat Pump Summit runs September 15-16 in Worcester, Massachusetts, just outside Boston. The conference has extended a limited number of free tickets to High Performance Edge listeners: grab one at usheatpumpsummit.com/exclusive while they last.

Episode Links:

• Listen on Apple Podcasts
• Listen on Spotify
• Watch on YouTube
• Energy Circle Website
• Energy Circle LinkedIn
• Peter Troast, Energy Circle CEO and Founder LinkedIn
• Brent Davidson LinkedIn
• Heat Pump Summit FREE Tickets

Some of the best work a high performance contractor can win is the job nobody else could solve—the system that was never right, the home that's been uncomfortable for years, the owner who's already fired two other companies. Energy Circle's data has long shown that problem-driven search is some of the most valuable demand out there: those homeowners want solutions and more comprehensive jobs are the norm.

In this episode of The High Performance Edge, Peter Troast talks with Jennifer Manzo, co-owner of Valeriani Air Conditioning, a two-person shop in Naples, Maine, and founder of the HVAChicks Coalition, who says she gets basically all of that work. The surprising part? Her entire program is word of mouth—local reputation, showing up in the community groups her neighbors already use, being genuinely helpful before anyone's a customer. Listen to hear how being the company other contractors' failures get sent to becomes a real, repeatable business.

Episode Links:

• Listen on Apple Podcasts:
• Listen on Spotify
• Watch on YouTube
• Energy Circle Website
• Energy Circle LinkedIn
• Peter Troast, Energy Circle CEO and Founder LinkedIn
• Jennifer Manzo LinkedIn
• Heat Pump Summit FREE Tickets

Silicon Valley startups are betting they can out-compete traditional HVAC contractors on speed, technology, and customer experience. In this episode of The High Performance Edge, Peter Troast talks with Larry Waters, a 40-year industry veteran and founder of Electrify My Home in Northern California, who was running that playbook years before the startups made it a pitch.

But the real story is differentiation: how a quality-first, whole-house company stands apart, not just from venture-backed newcomers, but from the entire HVAC sector still doing things the old way. Larry breaks down his all-electric model, why he tackles the envelope and mechanicals together, and how a rigorous intake and virtual assessment process lets him invest only in serious buyers: 10 of his last 11 closed. Most importantly, the process and technology serve the work; they don’t replace it.

Listen to hear how one contractor thrives in a crowded market while never compromising a high-quality, house-as-a-system approach.

Permanent load reduction, the practice of fixing a home's envelope first to reduce the load before sizing equipment, is gaining traction in high performance contracting. The building science behind it is well understood. The business case gets far less attention.

In this episode, Peter Troast talks with Ken Allison, who leads training and business development at insulation distributor IDI, with decades of experience in the business and building science of insulation.

Ken lays out the economics: The contractor who tests the house with a blower door and infrared camera, then shows the homeowner what's actually wrong, doesn't just close more jobs. They close bigger ones at far better margins. Ken also walks through how to ramp into this work without making a big upfront bet on equipment, crews, and trucks.

For contractors who already believe in the envelope but haven't fully committed to it as a business model, this episode makes the path concrete.

Episode Links:

- Listen on Apple Podcasts

- Listen on Spotify

- Energy Circle Website

- Energy Circle LinkedIn

- Peter Troast, Energy Circle CEO and Founder LinkedIn

-Ken Allison LinkedIn

-IDI

-Watch on YouTube

Scott Libby spent his first 25 years in HVAC insisting heat pumps didn't belong in his home state of Maine. Today he runs Royal River Heat Pumps, a 40-person company that installs nothing else. Maine has since become the country's heat pump proving ground: installations have crossed 200,000, oil's share of home heating has fallen from roughly 70 percent to half, and hundreds of contractors now compete for the work.

In this episode of The High Performance Edge, Peter Troast talks with Scott about how to stand out in a crowded market, not by being the biggest or chasing every rebate, but by being the best. Scott's instinct has always been to design for the home and its occupants first, and to refuse to compromise the work just to qualify for an incentive. It's a front-row account of how the Maine miracle happened, and a blueprint for high performance contractors anywhere watching their own market begin to turn.

Episode Links:

-Listen on Apple Podcasts

-Listen on Spotify

-Energy Circle website

-Energy Circle LinkedIn

-Peter Troast, Energy Circle CEO and Founder LinkedIn

-Royal River Heat Pumps

-Watch on YouTube