One of the main attractions for us to replace our home’s old oil-fueled heating and central air conditioning systems with a geothermal system to be installed by Achieve Renewable Energy LLC was how highly energy-efficient the geothermal system would supposedly be. As you can see in the below excerpt from its contract with me, Achieve Renewable Energy LLC estimated the annual heating and cooling costs of the geothermal system it would install in my home. And they stated my home’s heating and cooling costs would be “dramatically reduced” by their replacement of my home’s prior systems with a geothermal system.
In the below screenshot from their website in 2025, they were still making such claims:
But the geothermal system they installed did not reduce my heating costs. And its actual heating costs turned out to be far above what Achieve Renewable Energy LLC estimated them to be. As detailed further on this page, Achieve Renewable Energy LLC had apparently been doing this to other customers for years.
In the above excerpt from our contract, Achieve Renewable Energy LLC led me to expect $1,186.47 in annual heating costs with this geothermal system they would install in our home. But they replaced our home’s prior heating and cooling systems with the geothermal system in September. And in the below email message, I communicated to Lawrence “Larry” Lessard of Achieve Renewable Energy LLC on December 5th of that year that the system’s operational costs were excessive and concerned me.
When he tardily proposed remedies for the excessive heating costs, Larry Lessard brought in an attorney in what seemed to be an attempt to intimidate me
Mr. Lessard took until January 10th of the following year to finally send me his below recommendations regarding the geothermal system that his company had installed in my home— despite my having communicated to him months prior that the system was not heating my home adequately. After he left me with no proposed solution for months, I had already lost trust in Larry Lessard and Achieve Renewable Energy LLC by the time he emailed me his “recommendations” to address excessive heating costs. Because by that time I was already working with other personnel to diagnose and fix the problems with the geothermal system, I did not bother replying to him. Thus, as you can see in the below email messages, Larry Lessard emailed me again later that month. And he added a recipient to the email message named Chris Jefford, whom I had never heard of before. So I looked up Chris Jefford and discovered that he was a partner at a Boston MA law firm. Since I had not mentioned any lawyer or threatened to sue Achieve Renewable Energy LLC by that time, I was taken aback by Larry Lessard’s tactic of Cc’ing his attorney without explaining to me why he was doing that. I took it to be an attempt at intimidating me. And attorney Christopher Jefford then began a string of such tactics that struck me as dishonest and unethical.
You might notice that Lawrence “Larry” Lessard’s “recommendations” focused mainly on my house but did not address the geothermal system that Achieve Renewable Energy LLC had installed in my home. The “contractor-facing incentives” Mr. Lessard wanted to be paid were for his company Achieve Renewable Energy LLC to:
- Seal the existing ducting
- Replace the register covers with alternatives that provide better air flow
- Conduct air sealing at various locations in the home to reduce infiltration, and
- Improve insulation in key areas
As I documented on this other page’s section regarding the Massachusetts Home MVP program, Achieve Renewable Energy LLC was a participating contractor in that program. And that program would potentially pay Achieve Renewable Energy LLC to do most or all of those tasks that Mr. Lessard recommended to me. Thus, I can certainly see how it might be financially appealing to Mr. Lessard to install deficient geothermal systems, get paid for those projects, then blame his customers’ homes for the performance problems, and recommend that his company be allowed to get paid even more to make unexpected alterations to the customers’ houses.
Mr. Lessard made no mention of identifiable deficiencies in the geothermal system his company installed
Around that time when Lawrence “Larry” Lessard proposed his “recommendations” to me, I consulted with another geothermal system installer and service provider. That company, Bill Wenzel Heating & Air Conditioning, explained all sorts of things to me about the geothermal system in my home that Larry Lessard and Achieve Renewable Energy LLC had not explained:
- The depth of the geothermal wells and piping are critical to the adequate and efficient performance of a geothermal system. And the geothermal wells that Achieve Renewable Energy LLC installed were too shallow for my home’s heating needs.
- Achieve Renewable Energy LLC had assumed a degree of air tightness that was unrealistic for a home like mine built in 1989. (This was also later explained and confirmed for me by our town Building Commissioner.)
- They had left the geothermal system with only about half as much return air ducting capacity as supply air capacity. That’s a fundamental error that adversely affects a system’s performance and efficiency. (This was also confirmed for me by our town Building Commissioner.)
- They installed a ground source heat pump with a full load heating capacity that was too low for our home’s heating needs. (Again, this was also confirmed by our town Building Commissioner.)
- They left much of the ducting uninsulated in my unheated basement, which would cause much of the system’s heat to be lost to my cold basement in winter.
Correcting those deficiencies of the geothermal system would cost tens of thousands of dollars. And I don’t think that Achieve Renewable Energy LLC had a way to get paid to make any of those corrections. Thus, I can see how Mr. Lessard might have preferred to make no mention of those deficiencies and instead recommend alterations to my home for which his company would get paid.
Mr. Lessard’s recommendations failed to correct the geothermal system’s performance problems
Consequently, I was skeptical of Mr. Lessard’s recommendations and did not trust his company or subcontractors to perform those tasks properly. But since the tasks he proposed were low-cost, I figured I’d give them a shot. So I completed some of them and used an insulation contractor to complete the other tasks as well as additional energy efficiency improvements to my home. But, unsurprisingly, those tasks did not reduce the excessive heating costs much. And the system still failed to adequately heat our home.
Mr. Lessard’s assertions under oath about his proposed solution were contradicted by the energy auditor he used
Regarding his proposed solution to the geothermal system’s performance problems, under oath in his deposition Larry Lessard asserted:
Question: Okay. When you made this email, these four suggestions, how did you determine that they would solve the problem or be adequate and effective?
Answer: They’re based on the findings of an energy audit we had conducted.
But that was contradicted by the energy auditor’s testimony in his deposition:
Question: Sure. Did you ever represent to Mr. Lessard or Achieve Renewable Energy that completing the tasks suggested in your energy audit report at Mr. Bush’s home would get Mr. Bush’s geothermal heating and cooling system performing as Achieve had initially represented to Mr. Bush that it would do?
Answer: No.
Mr. Lessard stated in his deposition that his proposed solution was supported by a Manual J calculation, though the energy auditor said it was not
In his deposition, Larry Lessard stated that:
Question: Okay. Were the four steps that you proposed as a solution supported by a Manual J or other formal analysis or calculation?
Answer: I believe so.
And Mr. Lessard went on to clarify that he was referring to his multiple Manual J reports—that had substantially conflicting calculations of my home’s heating load. But the energy auditor refuted that in his deposition:
Question: Sure. Did you intend anything that you communicated to Mr. Lessard or Achieve Renewable Energy to be sufficient for a Manual J calculation of Mr. Bush’s home?
Answer: No.Question: What training did you receive regarding the conducting of a Manual J calculation?
Answer: To be clear, I did not do a Manual J on this property, or I’ve never done a Manual J for Achieve Renewable, so I’m not sure why this is relevant.Question: All right. Did Achieve Renewable Energy ever tell you that they would use your energy audit to explain the difference between the actual performance of the geothermal heating and cool system they installed at Mr. Bush’s home and how they represented to him in their contract that it would perform?
Answer: No.
Question: Were you providing services related to Manual J calculations back in 2018 when you performed the base energy audit at Mr. Bush’s home?
Answer: No.
Achieve Renewable Energy LLC used an inaccurate price for electricity to mislead both me and a MA agency from which it obtained grant funds to install the geothermal system
The price I was paying for electricity at the time of Achieve Renewable Energy LLC’s geothermal system installation project at my home was 25 cents/kWh. And to start that project, they had me give them a copy of my electricity bill revealing that price I was paying for electricity. They then submitted a copy of my electricity bill along with their application for a grant to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. (The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center was at that time the state entity issuing grants to cover a portion of the cost of installation of geothermal systems in MA residents’ homes. But after I confronted that entity about their being complicit in fraud, the state shifted the grant program to a different, quasi-government entity called Mass Save.)
Achieve Renewable Energy LLC submitted false information in their grant/rebate application
Unbeknownst to me, when Achieve Renewable Energy LLC submitted the grant application, they told the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center that I paid only 18 cents/kWh for electricity. That was 28% less than what I actually paid for electricity!
You can see their false statement of 18 cents/kWh in the Project Modeling section on the second page of the below application they submitted to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. But that was not the only false information they submitted. They also falsely stated:
- Type of AC currently used: Window. (My home actually had central air conditioning.)
- Annual heating cost of my prior oil-fueled heating system: $2,779. (My home’s actual annual heating cost was far below that.)
- Heating distribution type: Forced air. (My home actually had hot water baseboard heating.)
- The projected heating and cooling cost savings were way off.
As for what Achieve Renewable Energy LLC represented to me directly, years later they asserted that they disclosed they were using that incorrect price of 18 cents/kWh to me in some proposal they emailed me before we began the geothermal system installation project at my home. But the actual contract I signed with them did not make any mention of the price I paid for electricity. Because I had already given them a copy of my electricity bill showing a price of 25 cents/kWh, I naturally expected that the company was using that correct price to estimate my heating and cooling costs with this system they would install. But years after the fact, they admitted that they had in fact used the much lower, incorrect price of 18 cents/kWh hour as the basis for what they represented to me in our signed contract.
Other customers testified that the geothermal systems that Achieve Renewable Energy LLC installed in their homes cost them far more to heat their homes than what Achieve Renewable Energy LLC led them to expect
In the course of my lawsuit against Achieve Renewable Energy LLC, I discovered that I was not the only customer whose geothermal system had excessive operational costs.
One customer testified under oath in her deposition that during the time period in which Achieve Renewable Energy was trying to install the system at their house, she had a newborn child and no functional heating system. When she communicated her concern to Mr. Lessard, he did “not particularly” express any concern to her about the fact that she had a young child and there was no heat in the house. And once the geothermal system was installed, its operating expenses were an “order of magnitude greater than expected.”
In the below excerpt from another customer’s deposition, he testified under oath that the operating costs of the geothermal system Achieve Renewable Energy LLC installed were “at least 50% higher” than he expected. I redacted the customer’s last name for their privacy.