Building Energy is now a Quilt Certified Partner. Here’s what makes the Quilt heat pump architecturally different from what most Vermont homeowners have seen before, and why we added it to our lineup.
A New Name in a Mature Category
For decades, the ductless heat pump market in Vermont has been defined by a handful of Japanese manufacturers. Their equipment is proven, and we install plenty of it. But the category itself has been incremental for a long time. “New” models from the established brands are refinements of designs that are ten or fifteen years old, with a thermostat or controller added on.
Quilt is a different story. The company is headquartered in Redwood City, California, and the product was designed from scratch by a team with backgrounds in consumer electronics and building science. The result is a ductless heat pump system that takes seriously the things homeowners actually complain about: the look of the indoor unit on the wall, the awkwardness of remote controls, the lack of room-by-room intelligence, and the difficulty of getting straight answers when something goes wrong.
We evaluated Quilt carefully before signing on as a Certified Partner. Below is what stood out.
The Appearance of the Indoor Unit.
The indoor head is 7-7/8 inches tall. For comparison, most wall-mounted ductless heads on the market today are 12 to 13 inches tall. That difference matters when the unit is going above a window, under a soffit, or in a finished living room where the indoor unit is in plain sight every day.
Quilt ships indoor units with a choice of two front covers: a real white oak veneer, or a paintable white panel that can be matched to wall color or covered with wallpaper. Built-in accent lighting is included and can be turned off entirely if the homeowner prefers. The visual footprint is closer to a piece of trim than a piece of mechanical equipment.
The Sense Module: Why It Matters
The most architecturally interesting part of the system is something called the Quilt Sense Module. It is a small electronics package that inserts into each indoor unit. It ships complimentary with the head and handles connectivity, sensing, and on-device intelligence.
What that means in practice:
Per-room occupancy detection. Each indoor unit uses millimeter-wave sensing to detect whether someone is in the room, out to about 15 feet. When enabled, the system can prioritize conditioning toward occupied rooms and ease back where no one is present. The feature is optional and works best for cooling and shoulder-season operation; in homes where the heat pump carries the full winter heating load, we generally recommend running fixed setpoints in heating mode.
Remote diagnostics. Each Sense Module is collecting telemetry from the indoor unit. When something goes wrong, the Quilt support team and Building Energy’s service technicians can see what the equipment is doing without driving to the house. Most issues can be resolved over the phone, often before the homeowner has even noticed a problem.
Over-the-air updates. The Sense Module receives firmware updates the same way a phone does. Features that did not exist when the unit was installed can be added later. The module itself is upgradeable, so the platform is designed to keep getting better in place rather than going stale the day after installation.
Cold-Climate Performance
Quilt’s outdoor units are rated to operate down to -15°F. According to the manufacturer’s published specs, the 3-zone system holds 30,000 BTU/h of heating capacity at 5°F, 28,200 BTU/h at -5°F, and 23,900 BTU/h at -13°F. The 2-zone system holds 18,000 BTU/h all the way down to -5°F.
Both systems are Energy Star Cold Climate certified and meet the CEE Tier 1 efficiency thresholds that qualify for Vermont rebates. SEER2 ratings are 25 for the 2-zone and 25.3 for the 3-zone, which puts Quilt at the top end of what is available in the ductless category. Heating efficiency (HSPF2 Region V, the rating that matters in Vermont) is 9.5 for both systems.
For homeowners deciding between brands, the practical takeaway is that Quilt’s cold-weather performance is in the same conversation as the leading Japanese cold-climate equipment, with the same Energy Star and CEE qualifications for rebate purposes.
Control: Dial, App, and Manual Fallback
Quilt’s control system uses a small physical dial mounted to the wall, plus a phone app. The dial gives instant local control without opening anything. The app handles schedules, zone-by-zone setpoints, monitoring, and notifications.
If the home Wi-Fi goes down, the system automatically falls back to a manual comfort band of 68 to 72°F and keeps running. No homeowner is going to be left without heat because their router rebooted.
Where Quilt Fits in Our Lineup
To be clear about what we are not saying: we are not replacing the heat pump lines we already carry. Mitsubishi still makes excellent equipment, and they remain our recommendation for many projects, especially larger multi-zone installs and applications with specific technical requirements that Mitsubishi handles particularly well.
Quilt fits a specific homeowner profile:
- Whole-home or partial-home electrification, typically 1 to 3 zones per outdoor unit
- Households who prioritize the architectural integration and aesthetics of the indoor head
- Households who want genuine per-room intelligence rather than a Wi-Fi-only thermostat
- Households who value being able to call a US-based support team that can see what their equipment is doing in real time
- Households who appreciate that the system gets better over time through over-the-air updates
If that sounds like your project, Quilt is worth a serious look.
What “Certified Partner” Means
As a Quilt Certified Partner, Building Energy has completed Quilt’s installation training, carries equipment in stock, and has direct access to Quilt’s partner support team for installation and warranty matters. The Quilt heat pump system carries a manufacturer warranty when installed by a certified partner, and our standard Building Energy installation workmanship warranty applies on top of that.
We currently have a Quilt system installed and operating in our Williston showroom. If you’d like to see what the indoor unit actually looks like on a wall, check out the oak cover, and try the dial and app for yourself, stop by. We’re at 1570 South Brownell Road in Williston, Monday through Friday.
Ready to talk about whether Quilt is right for your home? Contact us at 802-859-3384 or [email protected] to schedule a free consultation.