Who writes this

Dave Whittemore

Founder & editor of The Home Engine.

I started this the way many people end up here: I was a first-time homeowner upgrading a home system for the first time. We had radiator heat with no central A/C, and decided to install a ducted heat pump. A contractor recommended a Mitsubishi system. This was a big purchase, and I thought to myself - how do I know this is the best piece of equipment that is going to give us the right amount of performance at the right price, and not break down in a few years? I started Googling, but I found it hard to get the answer without hours and hours of research.

My background is product management in the software world, not HVAC. Years of shipping software gave me the experience and skills to define what the right solution is and build a well-organized source of information. In the case of the Home Engine, we aggregate owner reviews and reports alongside manufacturer specs and live pricing data. We look through the owner reviews for "regrets" - what went wrong with the purchase - in order to define the attributes that really matter when comparing systems. The methodology page walks through that process in full, and the source registry lists exactly where every figure on this site comes from.

No manufacturer or contractor pays to rank higher on this site — see the editorial standards on the about page for the specifics. If you find a figure here that's wrong or out of date, I'd genuinely rather hear about it than have it sit here quietly wrong.