Quilt plots its future in the HVAC industry

Quilt, the two-year-old HVAC startup, recently announced that its flagship heat pump achieved a 25 SEER2 rating, as certified by AHRI, making it the “most efficient 2-zone heat pump on the market.”

• The intrigue: The company has gained lots of attention since launching, so we caught up with CEO Paul Lambert to better understand its strategy and how contractors fit in.

Catch up: Quilt manufactures a “smart, intuitive, design-forward” ductless system starting at $6,499 per zone, and raised $33 million in April. See more. 

Why it matters: The company’s goal, put simply, is to accelerate the transition to heat pumps, which have outsold gas furnaces for two years in a row, according to AHRI shipment data.

• However, Lambert notes, there’s “friction” around the transition today, which led his company to a “vertically integrated strategy of building, installing, and servicing the product,” he says.

• This allows it to control the customer experience from end to end. 

What’s happening: Quilt currently operates in the Bay Area, and while it is a manufacturer, it’s also a licensed California contractor. 

• Technicians are hired as on-staff employees and given equity in the company. 

• “It’s useful when the person doing the installation can go back to the office and sit beside the person designing the mounting bracket for that hardware,” Lambert says. 

• “That does not currently happen in the industry — there aren’t feedback loops that lead to [that kind of] product iteration.”

Yes, but: The company recognizes the limitations of hiring its own technicians across the country, so it plans to partner with contractors as it scales.

• Lambert didn’t provide an exact timeline, but he outlined two potential approaches.

• Quilt will either continue to perform installations itself and subcontract service and maintenance work to its contractor partners — or vice versa.

• In both cases, homeowners will pay Quilt, and Quilt will pay contractors. He didn’t disclose any financial terms.

What’s next: Quilt will soon expand to Los Angeles and focus, over the next twelve months, on building a repeatable growth playbook. 

• Lambert says this includes refining its pre-, day-of, and post-install checklists, and warehousing and training operations. 

• The company is sold out through February, with March as the first available install date. 

The bottom line: “We think the energy transition is one of the most important issues of our time, and contractors have a really important role to play in that. They’re the single most influential voice in the journey,” Lambert says.