How the rebate lookup works
On an HVAC quote the app checks your job against current rebate programs and shows what applies, what might, and what does not. Here is how it decides, and just as importantly, what it cannot decide for you.
What it covers today
Heat pump rebates in two states:
- Oregon: Energy Trust, including the manufactured home promotion, and Oregon HP3
- Washington: state HEAR and Clark PUD
It does not cover federal tax credits, and it does not look at any trade other than HVAC.
Three answers, not two
Every program lands in one of three places:
- Applied. Every rule we can check passed. The amount is in your numbers.
- Possible. A rule depends on something you have not told it yet. It is never applied automatically. Fill in the missing detail and it either qualifies or it does not.
- Does not apply. A rule failed, the program is not running, or a better one replaced it. Open Show why other rebates do not apply to see the reason for each one, in plain language.
That middle bucket matters. The alternative to "possible" is guessing, and a guess in either direction is wrong: too low and you lose a job you should have won, too high and you have put a number on a homeowner's quote that nobody is going to pay.
Two programs never stack by accident
Some rebates are alternatives to each other rather than additions. The Energy Trust tiers are a good example: a job qualifies for the standard amount, or the income-qualified one, or the manufactured home promotion, but never two at once.
When that happens the app takes the highest one and moves the others into the does-not-apply list marked as replaced. You can open it and see exactly what was set aside and why.
Who actually gets the money
This is the part that surprises people, and it changes what you bill.
- Some rebates come off your invoice. You bill less, and the program pays you the difference.
- Some go to the homeowner weeks later. You bill the full price and they claim it back.
So the panel shows three numbers rather than one:
- Your price, the full value of the work
- You invoice, what you actually bill
- Customer's final cost, what they are out of pocket once everything lands
A line only appears when it is a number you cannot read off the line above it.
Gray note or amber note
Under each rebate you will see one or two blocks. They mean different things.
- Gray is where the number came from: the rate sheet, its version, the form you file, the date it was checked. It is provenance, not a warning.
- Amber means something needs your attention. Either the amount itself is uncertain, or the program has conditions this tool genuinely cannot verify.
Amber is rare on purpose. Every rebate has a gray note, so if gray were a warning colour then everything would look like a warning and you would stop reading them.
When you see amber, read it. It is there because something could cost you money.
What it cannot check
The tool knows your job, not your paperwork. Typical things it cannot see, and that an amber note will tell you to confirm:
- Whether you are enrolled as a participating contractor
- The year the home was built
- Equipment specifics like single-head systems or capacity range
- Whether a required photo went in with the claim
- Household income verification
- Whether the program still has funding left this year
That last one deserves its own sentence. Programs run out of money mid-year, sometimes without much announcement. Confirm a rebate is still funded before you send a quote built on it.
Where the numbers come from
Every amount is read off the rate sheet published by whoever actually cuts the check, never from a roundup site or a blog, and never from memory. The gray note names the exact document and version so you can go look at it yourself.
Where a figure is uncertain it is flagged amber rather than quietly rounded. An honestly flagged estimate is useful. A confident wrong number is the worst thing we could hand you.
Rebates are not printed on the customer PDF
The proposal quotes your full price. Rebate amounts stay on your side of the job, because they are the homeowner's to claim and the figures need confirming with each program before they belong on a document somebody signs.
Found a number that looks wrong?
Tell us. You run these programs for a living and we read their paperwork. If your experience disagrees with what the app says, your experience is the more interesting data point.