Interview: Matt Scott of Dave's World, Leading Maine Heat Pump Installer

A story from the Great Electrification of America

Matt Scott and family

Matt Scott of Dover-Foxcroft, Maine started in the appliance repair business at age 14, started his own company at 18, and became part owner of Dave’s World at 26. He led the company’s pivot to become Maine’s leading heat pump installer, at the vanguard of American and global electrification.

In the interview below, this writer’s questions and comments are in bold, Mr. Scott’s words are in regular text, and extra clarification (links, etc) added after the interview are in bold italics or footnotes.

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So to start off, can you tell me what Dave's World is and how Dave's World ended up being the leading heat pump installer in the leading heat pump installing state?

A heat pump keeping a home warm in the Maine winter

So Dave's World was a company that was started in 1980. Dave, the actual Dave of Dave's World, purchased it in 1980. He turned it into a full appliance store, appliance repair, radio shack. He did U.S. Cellular Dish Network, DirecTV, did kitchen, bath, flooring. It was kind of like a little mini mall in Dover-Foxcroft, to keep people local instead of traveling to Bangor, which is an hour away.

And then you fast forward several years later, the company was taken over by his wife, Jane. Dave left the company. My business partner now, Bob, he became basically the manager of the place. He also became a really good friend of mine because I did a lot of Dave's World service work, I started there at 14. So at 14 years old, I learned how to work on things and understood refrigeration and all that stuff at a very young age. Then in 1998, at the age of 18, I started my own appliance repair company. And I had my own retail store selling appliances. Then after spending a lot of time with Bob, he ended up buying the company with Dan, which is Dave's son. I traded all of my company for a 33% share in Dave’s World.

I always had a technical background, lived and breathed mechanics and stuff like that growing up, worked on a farm at 10, you know, just, you know, just learned how to fix things. In my first year at Dave's World, I was 26 years old, now a third owner of the company, and I told my business partners, I've never been to school [university]. I want to go to school. Because I started the company actually when I was still a senior in high school. So I went to refrigeration school and got my license to handle refrigerants and learned how to work on bigger stuff. My dream was, I'm going to build in walk-in coolers for restaurants and build this empire with service, you know, in the area. So we allocated a budget for me to buy all the tools that I needed to expand Dave's World into this commercial refrigeration wing.

And when I was getting my tools, I stumbled across the first heat pump that I'd ever seen.

I was 28 years old.

I asked the owner of the supply house, what is that?

And he said, well, it's a heat pump, but they don't work in Maine. They’re used in the southern United States.

And I said, well, then why do you have one? How does it work?

He told me and I said, put one in the van. He said it’s expensive, and I said, no, I’ll take it.

I brought that home. I installed it in my house. It was summer and it blew my mind on how quiet it was, how it cooled the whole downstairs of my whole house. And it was just almost too good to be true. You know, the electric bill went up only a few dollars. I didn't even notice it.

And then you go into the heating portion of it. Back in the day, this was a five degree unit. They said it would work down to five degrees [Fahrenheit]. It did way beyond that! It literally cut my oil bill in half the first winter. I was super comfortable. We were 74 degrees [Fahrenheit] rather than biting the thermostat to 67, 68 to try to save money.

So I went to my business partners. and said, “Hey, I did a thing.” I put this in the house to check it out. Dave's World paid for it. It's the only time that I ever went stray on my partners. I said, “I've got this thing that I think is really good for Dave's World. Check it out.” They said, “Whatever,” you know, we've got so much going on. I said, “Well, I'd like to continue to try to explore it.” because at that point I had figured out that it wasn't a mechanical problem. It was an education problem. Nobody knew what it was and how it worked in New England.

So I thought, I want to pioneer this. I just had this burning desire to be the person that brought this unbelievable thing that I stumbled onto into the market. Dave's World was really good about marketing. I also was in so many homes, being the head technician, that I just started pitching it. And I had one client that said, “I'll check it out.”

So I put it in their house, they were just blown away by it. And then another one, and then another one, another one, and then it just started cross pollinating in our little town.

“I just had this burning desire to be the person that brought this unbelievable thing that I stumbled onto into the market.”

-Matt Scott

Then I went to my business partners, I said, “Look, this is growing legs, I need your support.” They said, “We're not in the heating and cooling business, you know, but you can continue to work on it, because we love you and you're my business partner.” And then I put one in my business partner’s house. And they said, “Whoa, you are on to something.”

I wanted to take HVAC and bring it to retail. Everybody should have a refrigerator, a stove, a dishwasher, washer, dryer, and a heat pump. To me it was an appliance and it wasn't like we had to do major surgery in order to get it in the home. I just couldn't stop talking about it, I told everyone about it and it started growing legs. Then Bangor Hydro [the local utility] actually caught wind of this and reached out to me and said “Would you like to be a part of a pilot program where we'll give $600 to our employees to get one of these put in?” I'm not quite sure how they found out about it, but it was probably our advertising.

“Everybody should have a refrigerator, a stove, a dishwasher, washer, dryer, and a heat pump.”

-Matt Scott

It's really strange when you fall in love with something, especially a product. I'd always been pitching appliances, because people need them, right? But this was something different. It was like a secret that no one knew, and I just needed to tell everyone about it. Because I have never seen a product that worked so good that it was unbelievable, which meant you had to have a really good salesperson to be able to connect those dots.

When you have something that you know works, and it's bulletproof, and they don't believe you, at that point, when it really is a product that really works, then you can put your whole reputation on this.

We said to people, “We will put it in your home. If you don't like it after a year, which ended up being two years, you can have it for two winters, two summers. If you don't like it, we’ll give you every penny back and we’ll come get it.”

That's really how it took off. And Bangor Hydro said, will you be part of this? They said, will you be part of this pilot program? We did, absolutely. And then as soon as we did that, I partnered with a couple of the companies that started selling them.

Now, keep in mind, this first part of the story is a decade. You know, it took a long time to get attention and move the needle on it.

It was literally unbelievable. You had to be a good salesperson to prove that it was as good as it was, in fact.

Yes, and it still is. It still is.

So we started installing these with Bangor Hydro. And at that point, Efficiency Maine was born, for trying to help electrify and save Mainers money. I was so busy trying to run an appliance service department that I said, guys, I need to hire my replacement as far as this goes, and I need to spend full time on this.

And at that point, my business partner said, we'll support you. Then I got so busy that my business partner said, “Matt, you can't do this on your own, you need to start hiring, you need to hire a salesperson, you need to hire an apprentice.” Which I did immediately.

Now, keep in mind, we figured all this out on my own because we were the only one really in Maine that started it. We had to mess up a million times, screw up, correct, learn, adapt, overcome, kind of on our own. When [the heat pumps] broke, there was nobody to call. I had to figure out how to work on these things, you know, because it's not like you could just go to school for it. You'd have to call somebody that lived in the southern United States and they’d try to help you walk through it. So there's a lot of milestones, a lot of bridges I had to cross in order to get to the point where we’re in front of Efficiency Maine. They developed the program working with us, which is the huge rebate portion of heat pumps. A rebate is what's supposed to stimulate a product. Well, it's very stimulated.

A chart of cumulative new heat pumps installed in Maine, from the Maine Won’t Wait climate action dashboard. Per the dashboard, “Maine Governor Janet Mills had announced in 2019 a goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps by 2025. The Governor's target was handily exceeded (two years early!) when the Pine Tree State  installed  104,000 heat pumps by July 2023. As of November 2023, we've installed 115,000 heat pumps.”

Once the pilot Efficiency Maine was born, we started tripling down on advertising, really trying to get the word out there. I remember I took a class, and the sales coach said, “You need to shock and awe the client when you have something that really works.” So to the clients, we’d say, “You have two years. You're going to spend $3,500 [for a heat pump & installation], you're going to cut your oil bill in half, you’ll have air conditioning, and if it doesn't do any of these things, we will come back in two years and give you every penny back and take your product back.”

Who wouldn't do that, right?

The Dave’s World location in Ellsworth, Maine

It really took off. And then it just kept growing 30, 40, 50% year over year. Now it's 15 years later, we’ve got 100 people working for us. We’ve got 85 to 90 vehicles on the road. We've got five locations now, and we’re working on three others, so we’ll have eight total in Maine when it's all said and done. And now we're really, really tripling down on the service side of it. We’ve [installed] probably 40,000 heat pumps now, plus there’s all the other ones in Maine. So, it's been quite a ride.

There's been a lot of changes. What I really love about the heat technology is that it came out of the crate in the beginning 15 years ago, being a great machine, you know, pulling heat out of five degrees outside. At zero degrees [Fahrenheit] there's a lot of heat! If not it would be absolute zero which would be minus 460 degrees [Fahrenheit], right? So there's all kinds of heat out there, we just need to capture it, trap it, and move it. The electricity is kind of like the toll you’re paying to move this heat.

“There's all kinds of heat out there, we just need to capture it, trap it, and move it. The electricity is kind of like the toll you’re paying to move this heat.”

-Matt Scott

And then the technology just kept getting better. We went from single zones to multi zones. Now we can have one outdoor unit to eight indoor units, then you're not putting units all around the outside. I worked with Mitsubishi to put in a unit that can go in the ceiling in between floor choices and roof trusses, that fits up in there.

That was 40 years ago or so when heat pumps really took off in Japan. They guinea-pigged it for 30 years before it even came to the United States. And then once it did get popular, the people that sell oil didn't like it, right? We have a thing that's four times more efficient and it doesn't run on oil! So it's been a battle with the lobbyists in the energy sector, because energy is power, right? There's a lot of political crap in the background that has, I think, paralyzed this technology that could have been around a lot longer. But now it's grown legs and has so much momentum that it's unstoppable now, I believe. These things have to take time and they have to develop processes.

“We have a thing that's four times more efficient and it doesn't run on oil! So it's been a battle with the lobbyists in the energy sector, because energy is power, right?”
-Matt Scott

It's quite amazing. It's amazing to see this thing, because we've been heating with oil and wood in Maine from the beginning, and propane, and nothing's really changed until now.

Now, the best part is we have a two-trick pony, a three-trick pony. It cleans your air, it cools and it heats. It's pretty cool and I'm really glad to be a part of it and I feel like it's my life's work. And now that all the scary part is over, meaning, we're making money and we're hiring and treating our employees the best we possibly can because of the revenue that it creates.

I don't think I could be any happier.

“Now, the best part is we have…a three-trick pony. It cleans your air, it cools and it heats. It's pretty cool and I'm really glad to be a part of it and I feel like it's my life's work.”

-Matt Scott

Wow, that is an incredibly powerful testimonial. Thank you so much. This is amazing, this is a really powerful story. You kind of answered most of my questions just in that one response, because it was so powerful and far-reaching.

One of the questions I had left was, do you guys think a lot about the global context of your work? The people at Dave's World are called #TeamAwesome, like if that's what I saw on your website. And do you guys think every day, hey, we're going to work to help fight climate change with this historic moment of electrifying America? Does #TeamAwesome think or talk about that a lot? Because if I was working with you, I would talk about it all the time. Or is the focus on the immediate impact of, we're helping heat this person's home?

This graph shows that due to heat pumps’ greater efficiency, they substantially reduce fossil fuel use relative to gas boilers even if the electricity for the heat pumps comes from burning fossil fuels. In grids with renewables (most of them these days!), heat pumps reduce gas demand, and the accompanying emissions, correspondingly further. Hat tip to the International Energy Agency’s “Future of Heat Pumps” report and Dr. Hannah Ritchie’s excellent Substack for this chart.

Everybody has their purpose and everybody has a part into what we are trying to do, right? So there are people out there that want to help protect the climate and global warming and all that. That is not my sector. I think that is a byproduct of the product that I am retailing.

We’ve always known that we're doing the right thing by selling this product, but in order to get it in everyone's home we had to focus on the business side of it and not the actual environmental impact. People are out there focusing on that [the environmental impact]. That's what they went to school for. That's what they're good at. That's what I let them do.

Me, it’s 100%, how many boxes can we move? How many of these can we get in people's homes? How many high paying jobs can we create? How can we keep our expenses down, our margins up, the profit up, in order to hire more people in order to get this product into homes?

That will help the environment. We’ve always had a good feeling that we're doing the right thing but I don't focus on it because we can't focus on that and grow this company. And that's probably why we have 100 people working for us.

If we had worried, if I had looked at the whole scope of things, meaning what can we do to educate people on the environmental side of it, we wouldn't be able to install a third or more of the heat pumps that Efficiency Maine has put in.

So we’re open to it, I listen to it, and I am part of the conversations when asked, but we are laser focused on making this heat pump operation the most efficient that it can be and trying to hire literally another hundred people in order to continue doing a good job. We have to go in and execute the best job that we possibly can do. We're really trying to get everybody following the vision, mission and values of this company.

I can't focus on the mission, vision and values, and run this operation, while being a lobbyist, or trying to fight the good fight.

As far as what this product is doing, why it's good, there's people out there like yourself reporting this. That's your lane, right? I want to focus on what we’re doing. I think a lot of heat pump companies, their leaders are sometimes get lost in the weeds on how can we save the world, right? Well, you can by putting more of these in! I get teased a little bit here and there that I'm not more involved with that side of it. But I know exactly what we’re doing in my mind.

That is a fascinating, fascinating homily on the power of this. And I also really agree with your conclusion. I'm trying to write more about is people like you, people who have really identified a specific, actionable, scalable thing that will help with the big problem, then laser-focusing on that and really going forward on it.

I've interviewed a lot of companies. I just interviewed Phil Coupe at ReVision Energy recently. I interviewed Atlantic Sea Farms, the folks trying to grow seaweed in the Gulf of Maine. And I really think that the best climate change solutions are the ones that are profitable and have a strong business case independent of environmental issues, like yours. Because those will self-perpetuate and keep going.

You know, first of all, I'm going to say that I am not part of a party, right? I'm not left. I'm not right. I'm an American. I think that if we just get out of each other's way….So the people that want to save the planet, I agree. Let's save the planet, right? But it takes money and it takes a business, because nothing happens until something is sold. It's unfortunate, but that's how the principle is in our world. There has to be these people working very hard on this side. A lot of people are creating the commerce side and they both can get along and when they do we're going to be able to do a lot more together.

This is my own opinion, by the way. The energy sector is so powerful, who controls the power is powerful, right? When that changes and there's something better, it's too bad that the people that are invested in oil couldn't say, “You know what, that's working over there and it's more efficient and it's cleaner and it's better. Let's take all this oil money and spend it on doing this and pivot to doing the right thing.” It's too bad that the people that hold the power in the energy sector can't just be nice and invest more into what is better for the planet and for humans, right, and everything on this planet. I think that's a whole other conversation.

We feel like we’re doing the best that we can as far as our little piece of the pie. That is kind of where Team Awesome comes in, right? We expect every single person that works here to be part of a loving, caring, supportive culture. We want to pay our guys more than at this company than they would make anywhere else.

So that is how we’re going to put more heat pumps in, by creating our own little culture in our own little world, Dave's World. We focus on that and how can we make these jobs better, more attractive, where more people want to put heat pumps in. And then get people like yourself working on the part of how can we do more of this and how can we make this bullhorn louder, you know. I congratulate you for doing your part of this.

For instance I argue, or debate, or appropriately disagree, with people that call me up from the oil people, the oil organizations. They say, “Do you know how much electricity this uses?” I say, “Look, if you weren't part of oil and you had one [heat pump] you would agree with me, but you don't because you're not selling as much oil, right?”

I just think that's the biggest problem is how we all can get along and do the right thing because it's the right thing. Not because you are a liberal or you're a Democrat or you're a Republican or you're all about business and you don't understand the impact on the planet. If we all used our skills and we all did what we are good at we can save the planet.

Absolutely. This is exactly what I try to write about. I just wrote a review of a book called Climate Capitalism, which basically makes the case you're just making, that there's a lot of real amazing business potential in saving the planet.

Saving the planet is profitable.

From the downloadable PDF of the full IEA report “Net Zero Roadmap: A Global Pathway to Keep the 1.5 °C Goal in Reach”

Exactly. And that is what really is driving huge change. Just last year, there was more investment in new clean energy technology than new fossil fuel technology. More new investment in new solar, wind, batteries, and heat pumps than in new coal mines or oil refineries or natural gas terminals. So I'm really excited about some of the big sea changes we're seeing towards really starting to make progress on the clean energy transition.

And it's guys like you who are on the front line of that. You're leading that. You've made that happen. So thank you. Thank you very much for the work you do.

I think what happened is that I went straight out of high school into a technical field. My father told me, learn how to work on things and the Chinese cannot come over and take your job. You learn how to solve a problem. And you solve that problem. And then you turn that into a business, you can make money while doing a good thing.

I think what happens is that we are taught to divide. For me, the only person that brainwashed me was my father, that cared deeply for me. I didn't pay somebody to tell me how to think, I guess.

I think that it would be good if we just all focused on what small part can we each individually do in order to solve the problem that we're destroying the planet. Well, we've got a lot of people out there that just talk about it, right? I never had an opportunity to talk about it. I had to just go do it.

I'm getting in the weeds a little bit here with this. It's the first time I've actually even talked about anything like this with anybody interviewing me. It's usually about heat pumps, and it's about how they technically work. I had to figure out how to boil that down for somebody that has no idea about refrigeration, how they work. I remember when I was trying to be a salesperson for this and I thought to myself, how do I tell my six year old daughter how this thing works?

Tell me!

How a heat pump works

So heat naturally travels to where it's colder. It's just how it works.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics¹, right.

So heat naturally travels towards cold. When you open your door right now, the heat rushes out because it's attracted to the cold. A lot of people think it's the cold that comes in. It's not. So now that we know that heat travels to naturally where it's colder, we just have to make something that's colder in order to attract the heat. Right?

Absolute zero is minus 460 degrees [Fahrenheit]. Anything above minus 460 degrees, heat exists.

Because heat is just the kinetic energy, the movement of atoms and molecules, anything above absolute zero, there’s some movement, heat exists.

A nice graphic to clarify the Kelvin/Celsius/Fahrenheit situation

Correct. Just for easy math, we'll say it's zero degrees [Fahrenheit] outside. So that means there is literally 460 BTUs below zero that we can absorb, right? So it's not minus 460. It's zero. So there's all kinds of heat out there.

[A BTU, or British Thermal Unit, is roughly speaking the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit].

So how do we get that heat? Well, with the process of refrigeration, we make that outdoor unit become minus 60 degrees. We turn it into a freezer, like your freezer in your house. So when we make something that's minus 60 degrees and it's zero degrees outside, the heat that does exist there is attracted, it's like a magnet to that outdoor coil. That outdoor coil absorbs those BTUs and then the compressor pushes them towards the indoor unit and then we blow a fan over that coil and transfer the heat. It's literally moving heat for you from one side of the wall to the other. And that's all we're doing, is slowly pumping and absorbing heat.

And then in the summertime, it reverses. It makes the indoor unit cold, which the heat in your house is attracted to. And then we just pump that out. It's a sealed system. It just continues to go around and around and around and around. And the refrigerant goes from a liquid to a gas and that's how it absorbs and that's how it moves.

“That's all we're doing, is slowly pumping and absorbing heat. And then in the summertime, it reverses. It makes the indoor unit cold, which the heat in your house is attracted to. And then we just pump that out.”

-Matt Scott

We have to get back in the educational part of this. How do they work? Why do they work? And how can you get above 100% efficiency? Because a lot of people would think you can't get above 100%. What does that mean? Well, it means you put a dollar's worth of electricity in and you get $4 worth of heat out of it.

When we start talking to bankers and stuff, it's really good. If you put a dollar in this savings account, and next month you get $2.60 out, wouldn't that be great? It would be.

Well, you're putting in $50 worth of electricity, You're getting $150 worth of heating out of it. You are investing electricity, you're paying for electricity, you're getting three times more [heat] out than what you would have got with something that lights on fire where 30% of that heat goes out the chimney. You know, there is no combustion, there is no heat loss. What you absorb is what you move, and that's what you get. And nobody can argue with that.

People say “my electric bill went up.” It did, but you didn't buy oil! “My electric bill is $500. I can't believe it.” What do you mean you can't believe it? Your electric bill went up $500, but you would have spent $1,000 on oil. What is there not to understand here?

It's a constant education. It's a constant battle with the naysayers, and it's a constant battle with people that buy one, it works, but they still want to be part of the noise and not in a good way.

I see, I see. Well, that is fascinating. One more question. Last question. The Inflation Reduction Act has a tax credit, the 25C tax credit for heat pumps. What are your thoughts on that?

And this happened before the Inflation Reduction Act incentives kicked in!

I try to tell people, look, I don't care if there's a rebate. I don't care if the Feds are going to give you money. I don't care if Efficiency Maine is going to give you a rebate. It's a no-brainer. You should buy one [heat pump] without any incentive. Because the incentive is it's an investment and you get your money back. It's the only product that I can think of that it's a great investment all on its own.

That's great. Well, that's a really strong case. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. I gotta get going, but it was a great interview.

Thank you so much! Have a lovely day.

You too.

1. If in need of a handy way to remember the Second Law of Thermodynamics, these classic Flanders & Swann lyrics summarize it nicely:

And all because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics which lays down/
That you can’t pass heat from a cooler to a hotter/
Try it if you'd like but you'd far better not-er/
'Cause the cold in the cooler will get hotter as a rule-er/
’Cause the hotter body's heat will pass to the cooler/
Oh, you can't pass heat from a cooler to a hotter (Heat won't pass from a cooler to a hotter)/
You can try it if you'd like, but you'd only look a fool-er (Try it if you want but you'd only look a fool-er)/
'Cause the cold in the cooler will get hotter as a rule-er/
And that's a physical law!