EP280 What 130 Million Homes Can Teach HVAC with Scott Rosenberg (June 2026)

Quotes from the episode:

“You sell an amazing product that represents the future of home heating and cooling. But selling it, promoting it, and capturing consumers’ attention is hard. At 257, we use data to help you do that more efficiently.”

“The best way to judge the effectiveness of machine learning and AI is by the outcome: Did I sell more at a lower cost?”

“It wasn’t simply having a heat pump or solar system. Talking about it during the sales process had a positive effect on the home’s sale price.”

How can HVAC contractors identify the homeowners most likely to invest in better systems—and reach them before an emergency replacement? Bill welcomes Scott Rosenberg, co-founder of 257, a home-energy intelligence company using data and machine learning to profile nearly every home in the United States. Scott shares how his earlier work building Roku’s advertising business led him from valuable “home screen real estate” to using data to understand actual homes and the people living in them.

Scott explains how 257 combines roughly 200 attributes across 130 million households, including building characteristics, estimated HVAC type and age, household demographics, energy assets, and purchase-propensity scores. Its free conversational interface, Pink, lets users ask plain-language questions such as how many owner-occupied homes in a contractor’s service area have aging HVAC equipment that appears ready for an upgrade. Rather than relying on a few simple assumptions, the platform uses hundreds of signals to help contractors, manufacturers, utilities, and energy companies improve customer acquisition.

The conversation also explores a major study that examines more than 140 million real estate transactions. The research found that homeowners who highlighted solar systems or heat pumps in their real estate listings received a measurable benefit to their home’s sale price. Scott discusses the disconnect between consumers, who increasingly value energy efficiency, and real-estate professionals, who may not yet feel prepared to explain these systems.

For HVAC contractors, the message is powerful: a high-performance system is not only about lower energy use, comfort, reliability, and safety; properly documented and communicated, it can also contribute to the home's future value and marketability.

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottarosenberg/

Website:www.257.co

Sign up to see the power of this data: https://257.co/#product

The study we mention: https://257.co/blog/highlighting-home-efficiency-boosts-value

Canary Media: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/heat-pumps/heat-pump-home-value

This episode was recorded in June 2026.