Elephant Energy

Elephant Energy sells heat pumps; partner crews bolt them to your house. That split — a design-and-rebate operation out front, subcontracted installers doing the physical work — is the first thing to understand about the Westborough company, and it surfaces both in its own customers' accounts of service subcontractors and in Massachusetts Reddit threads where homeowners have described the same arrangement. The company says it started in 2021, after a founder's own DIY heat pump project turned into months of dead ends, and that it has since grown to roughly 70 people and certified as a B Corp. It works several states — its site lists Boston, Denver, Los Angeles and Steamboat Springs — selling heat pumps, heat pump water heaters and solar, and handling permits, inspections and rebate paperwork. On Google the number is 4.5 across 41 ratings, and the recent run leans on two things: the quote and the install day. Customers in July named the rep who walked them through the rebate math without pressure and priced the job competitively. A July heat pump install went without a hitch, that customer said, with the crew cleaning up inside and out and a project manager checking in as the work ran. Several homeowners who hit trouble early — cooling that didn't cool, heat that didn't come — say a technician was sent quickly and the fix cost them nothing. Then there is the other thread, and it is the one worth pressing on. A one-star review from June describes a mini-split that shuts itself down on hot days, a service department that went slow-to-silent across calls, texts and emails, and a technician appointment nobody showed up for — more than a month in, still unresolved. It is not an isolated grievance: the complaints in this history cluster in the same place, not on the installation but on what happens when you need them afterward. The same June account is mirrored on Angi and HomeAdvisor, where six reviews, mostly re-posted from Google, average 4.3. One more thing worth knowing: among those five-star Angi reviews, one opens by disclosing that the writer is a former Elephant Energy employee. They are a reasonable call if you want the rebate paperwork and the multi-trade coordination taken off your hands and you are buying a system rather than a long relationship with a service department. Before signing, ask who actually performs your installation, and pin down who you call — and how fast they answer — when the system quits in August.