Green Building Community

Next Step Living Out of Business - What does this Mean for Homeowners?

PatPrince317 MA, United States 0 Ratings 5 Discussions 1 Group posts

Posted by: PatPrince317 // Lifelong Learner and Green Energy Aficionado

Next Step Living Out of Business - What does this Mean for Homeowners?

Next Step Living announced that it would cease its operations on March 18, after running out of cash. After starting out as an energy auditing agency in 2008, the company has grown significantly, thanks to an ambitious sales team and VC funding. At one point, NSL had about 800 employees.

Over the years NSL increased the scope of their business to include solar, insulation, window, and HVAC upgrades. The reason for their demise is attributed to growing pains as a result of rapid expansion and moving into industries that have low margins and require a lot of cash, like solar.
Even after selling off their solar division to NRG in 2015, and putting focus back into their core competency – energy audits, VCs saw the writing on the wall and pulled funds out of the business.

Homeowners with concerns are advised to call MassSave at 877-315-1941 for National Grid and Eversource customers or 800-232-0120 for Columbia Gas Customers. Clients can also check with the contractors who worked on their homes, as NSL provided the financing while using subcontractors for their energy efficiency upgrades.

Homeowners who were planning to use NSL to perform energy audits or help finance upgrades in their home should not have problems finding another company approved by MassSave. Perhaps one of the other reason for NSL’s demise is that the MassSave contractors who used to do the work NSL offered them are now utilizing the loan themselves.

Using contractors directly may help ensure quality work and more accountability. This is because they are not running on the smaller margins they would have been, had they been working for NSL. Be sure to check references and make sure they can help with MassSave financing.

Reply
Coastal Windows & Exteriors Beverly, MA, united-states 0 Ratings 0 Discussions 0 Group posts

Coastal Windows & Exteriors // Green Contractor

 Hello all,
I am trying to reach the WINDOW customers of Next Step Living. You have a LIFETIME warranty on your window purchase. Coastal Windows & Exteriors is the NEW exclusive dealer of the Soft-Lite Elements window and can help you with any warranty, open service or job orders. I am trying to reach the 3000 homeowners to let them know. You can reach me directly at 978-304-0495 or svanderbilt@mycoastalwindows.com
Thank you!
Stephanie Vanderbilt, owner

Allison Friedman Weston, MA, united-states 0 Ratings 101 Discussions 131 Group posts

Allison Friedman // Rate It Green Admin

Hi Stephanie - I will post and link to your message on social media to help get the word out, if that is helpful? Feel free to reach me through the contact form or through the message function on my profile. I will help as I can! I am sorry this happened to all of those customers.

On: 04/07/2016 Coastal Windows & Exteriors wrote:

 Hello all, I am trying to reach the WINDOW customers of Next Step Living. You have a LIFETIME warranty on your window purchase. Coastal Windows & Exteriors is the NEW exclusive dealer of the Soft-Lite Elements window and can help you with any war…

 

Please be kind and respectful!

Please make sure to be respectful of the organizations and companies, and other Rate It Green members that make up our community. We welcome praise and advice and even criticism but all posted content and ratings should be constructive in nature. For guidance on what constitutes suitable content on the Rate It Green site, please refer to the User Agreement and Site Rules.

The opinions, comments, ratings and all content posted by member on the Rate It Green website are the comments and opinions of the individual members who posts them only and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies or policies of Rate It Green. Rate It Green Team Members will monitor posted content for unsuitable content, but we also ask for the participation of community members in helping to keep the site a comfortable and open public forum of ideas. Please email all questions and concerns to admin@rateitgreen.com