About this guide

What this site is

A buyer's reference. It answers the questions a homeowner asks before spending five figures on a furnace, a heat pump or an air conditioner: what the job should cost, which rebates actually apply to the house, what the Oregon code does and does not require, and how to check whether a contractor is licensed before signing anything.

The rule for every page is the same: every number carries its source and the date it was last checked. Where the published sources disagree — and on cost they disagree by two to three times — the page shows the disagreement instead of picking a number and pretending it is precise.

What it is not

• It is not a contractor. Nobody here installs, repairs or services equipment, bids on work, or subcontracts it. Because it performs no construction work, it holds no Construction Contractors Board license and does not claim one.
• It does not recommend contractors. The license lookup is a copy of a public state record. Every business in the dataset appears, none can pay to be removed, and appearing there says nothing about the quality of anyone's work.
• It does not sell your details, and it only shares them when you ask it to. The second-opinion form goes to a person, who replies by email, and nothing from it is passed to anyone. The quote form is different on purpose: when you tick its consent box, your details go to up to three CCB-licensed contractors so they can quote. Nothing is passed to a lead broker or an advertiser. The privacy page has the detail.

Who writes it

The site is written by Mark Griffin and published by Direct-Me LLC, a small Oregon company based in Happy Valley that publishes reference guides and does search-visibility consulting for local businesses. Commercial address: 13203 SE 172nd Ave, Suite 166 PMB 2030, Happy Valley, OR 97086.

Direct-Me is not an HVAC company and has no trade background to sell you on. What it does have is the habit of reading the primary document — the code section, the program information sheet, the statute — rather than the headline about it, and of writing down where each fact came from.

How it is paid for

At the time of writing, it isn't. There is no advertising on the site, no referral fee, no lead sale and no sponsored placement. No contractor pays Direct-Me for anything connected with this site, and no company pays to appear here.

If that ever changes — if any paid relationship with a contractor, manufacturer or program exists — it will be disclosed on this page before it appears anywhere else.

Disclosure added 29 September 2026: the site now offers a quote form that passes a homeowner's request to up to three licensed contractors, with the homeowner's consent. As of that date no contractor pays for those introductions. If one ever does, it will be stated here and on the quote form itself before another request is sent.

Where the figures come from

• Code: the Oregon Building Codes Division's technical summary of the 2026 Oregon Residential Specialty Code, Section N1105.8 — which applies to new dwellings where split-system air-conditioning is installed, not to replacing an existing system — quoted verbatim on the code page.
• Incentives: Energy Trust of Oregon's own information sheets (PI 0320I v2026.5 and PI 0320I-HP v2026.4), IRS guidance on Public Law 119-21, and Oregon Department of Energy program pages.
• Licenses: the State of Oregon's CCB Active Licenses open dataset (data.oregon.gov, g77e-6bhs), filtered to names indicating heating, cooling, mechanical, refrigeration or sheet-metal work.
• Costs: published 2026 cost guides, named in the table on the cost page, shown side by side precisely because they conflict.

Each page states when it was last verified. Programs and code language change; if a date on a page is old, treat the figure as a starting point and confirm it with the program or the Building Codes Division before you rely on it.

Corrections

If something on this site is wrong, say so through the form below with the source that contradicts it. Errors are corrected on the page and the page's verified date is updated.

Corrections made so far:

• 29 September 2026: an $800 Energy Trust gas-furnace incentive printed earlier that day was the Washington line of information sheet PI 0320I v2026.5. The Oregon sheet lists $1,600 only for a single-family rental, an attached home or an income-qualified household, and nothing for an owner-occupied detached house. Fixed on every page that carried it.
• 7 October 2026: the furnace replacement guide said no 2026 gas-furnace incentive had been verified, which contradicted the rebate page. It now states the $1,600 line and its conditions.
• 8 October 2026: cost-table rows whose source was never recorded by name are now marked as unnamed and indicative, and the furnace pages quote only the named sources.

What this site will say that a contractor's site won't

That the right move is sometimes to repair the furnace you have. That the rebate in your quote may not apply to your house. That a state program has not opened yet. And that Oregon does not require a heat pump when you replace an existing system, whatever the quote says.

The guides

Plus what maintenance is worth paying for, a troubleshooting guide to the 50 most common problems, and local pages for the Clackamas County market: