Heat pump design & installation
Whole-house and room-by-room systems, ducted or ductless, designed around a load calculation and the condition of your ducts. One efficient system for both heating and cooling.
The Big Chill Heating & Cooling
Ethical heating, cooling and ventilation.
We convert homes around Princeton and central New Jersey from fossil fuels to air-source heat pumps, and we repair and maintain all HVAC systems. Our team has spent years making houses tighter first, so we can tell you when a heat pump makes sense and when it doesn’t.
A division of Tay River Builders
- Master HVAC license
- Jesse M. Smith, Master HVACR contractor Lic. # 19HC00253100
- BPI GoldStar contractor
- Certified Heating, AC & Heat Pump Professional and Building Analyst
- Equipment we trust
- Mitsubishi Hyper-Heat and Daikin Aurora heat pumps. We service almost anything.
- PSE&G programs
- Rebates and 0% on-bill repayment, where your house qualifies. We’re on PSE&G’s contractor finder.
No heat or no cooling?
Call (609) 279-0722, Monday to Friday, 8 am to 5 pm, or book a service call online and pick a time.
Smell gas? Leave the house first, then call PSE&G at 1-800-880-7734 or 911.
What we do
Heat pumps, repair and ventilation
Tay River has been air sealing and insulating houses since the late 2000s, so we look at the house as well as the equipment.
Repair & maintenance of all HVAC
We repair and maintain furnaces, boilers, central air and heat pumps, and we start a diagnosis with measurements.
Ventilation & airflow
Fresh-air ventilation for tighter houses, and duct and return fixes for the rooms that are always too hot or too cold.
What “ethical” means here
The right system, or sometimes no new system at all.
- 1
We size it to your house.
We choose equipment from a proper load calculation for your house instead of a rule of thumb or a square-footage chart.
- 2
House first, when that’s cheaper.
If sealing the attic or fixing the ducts will solve the problem for less than new equipment, we’ll tell you, and we can do that work too.
- 3
We measure, and show you.
Static pressure, airflow and room temperatures before and after. You see the numbers we see.
- 4
Straight answers.
If your system has good years left, we’ll say so. If something is unsafe, we’ll say that too.
- 5
Lower carbon, and honest about the bills.
Heat pumps run on electricity, so a well-designed system gets cleaner as the grid does. Whether your bills drop depends on your house and what you burn now, so we run your numbers before you decide.
Heat pumps
How a heat pump works
A furnace burns fuel to make heat. A heat pump moves heat that’s already there: out of the outdoor air in winter, out of your house in summer. That’s why it can deliver several units of heat for every unit of electricity it uses.
- The same equipment does the heating and the air conditioning.
- Variable-speed equipment runs low and long instead of blasting on and off, especially when it’s sized right.
- Seal and insulate first, and the system you need gets smaller and cheaper.
How paying for it works
What the utilities pay, and how the rest gets paid.
Most of this depends on your electric utility. These are the published programs as of November 2026. Programs change and have rules, so none of this is a promise. We’ll check what applies to your house.
PSE&G
- Full conversion (Clean Heat): the lesser of $10,000 or 50% of the largest system’s cost. Income-qualified homes: $12,000 or 60%.
- Dual Heat: $5,000 or 50% ($6,000 or 60%). Hybrid Heat: $2,000 or 30% ($3,000 or 40%).
- Possible add-ons: up to $2,000 to decommission the old system, up to $2,000 for re-ducting, and $2,000 per additional cold-climate unit.
JCP&L
- Clean Comfort, full conversion: the lesser of $10,000 or 50% ($12,000 or 60% for income-qualified homes), on existing single-family homes heated with fossil fuel.
- Dual fuel: $5,000 ($6,000). Add-ons similar to PSE&G’s.
- Standard replacement rebates: $500 to $1,000.
Other utilities
- New Jersey’s other utilities run their own programs, and not all of them offer the conversion rebates. Tell us who sends your electric bill and we’ll check.
- New Jersey’s federally funded home energy rebates hadn’t opened when we last checked.
0% on your PSE&G bill
PSE&G customers can repay the balance on their monthly bill at 0% interest, with no credit check, if they have 12 months of on-time payments. The limits are up to $25,000 on a regular HVAC project and up to $50,000 on a decarbonization project, usually over 84 months. The contractor applies before work starts.
The math, with round numbers: a $24,000 system earns a $10,000 rebate, because $10,000 is less than half of $24,000. The remaining $14,000 over 84 months is about $167 a month. That’s arithmetic, not a quote.
On one recent Princeton job, the homeowner saved over $10,000 through the program and is repaying the rest on the bill over seven years. That was one job, and your number will depend on your house.
The fine print we’d want to know
- Equipment must be on the cold-climate (NEEP) list, and the design needs a Manual J covering 100% of the heating load, plus a Manual S.
- Owner-occupied homes of one to four units. No new construction.
- If your PSE&G account closes, which includes moving out, the balance is due within 30 days.
- You can’t pay extra toward the principal, only pay it off in full.
- The utilities can change or end these programs. New Jersey’s current cycle runs through June 30, 2027, followed by a one-year transition with smaller budgets. Nobody has said what that does to these rebates.
- The federal tax credits for heat pumps ended for equipment installed after 2025.
Comparing quotes
How to compare heat pump quotes.
Prices are easy to compare. The rest is harder, because most of what makes a system work happens where you can’t see it. Jesse wrote about that in Asterisk. These are the questions to ask, and you should ask us too.
Tell us what’s in a quote you’re unsure about- Ask to see the load calculation, and read it. A Manual J should describe your house: its size, its orientation, its windows, its insulation. Jesse has written about one of the largest HVAC companies in New Jersey keeping a file for each equipment size and renaming it to fit the address. If nobody measured your house, ask where the numbers came from.
- Ask what they will measure, and whether you get photos. Static pressure and airflow, before and after, with pictures of the readings and of the equipment nameplates. Don’t ask whether they can do it, since anyone can say yes. Ask to see it from a past job.
- Ask for the exact model numbers. Then check them against the cold-climate list and the manufacturer’s capacity at your winter design temperature. “Heat pump” alone tells you very little.
- Ask what they would do about the ducts and the house. A quote that never mentions duct leakage, return size or the attic has assumed all of them are fine.
- Get the total, then the incentives, then the monthly. In that order, in writing, with the electrical work and any permits listed. Ask who files the rebate paperwork and when.
“Not only are we enjoying lower utility bills, we are more comfortable in our home after Tay River’s work. Jesse was very receptive to our questions, and took time to explain everything.”
From the field notes
“You can’t suck your way out of distribution problems.”
Why are second-floor rooms hot in summer? Usually because not enough cold air reaches them, not because they lack a “hot air return.” Jesse’s case for testing the hypothesis before spending a dime.
Read the noteQuestions
Questions we hear a lot
Will a heat pump keep my house warm in a New Jersey winter?
Modern cold-climate heat pumps are built to keep heating well below freezing. Whether one is right for your house depends on how much heat it loses, which is what we calculate. Tightening the house first makes the answer easier and the system smaller.
Do I need ductwork?
Not necessarily. Heat pumps come in ducted and ductless versions. If you have ducts, we’ll test whether they’re up to the job; if you don’t, a ductless or compact ducted system can work well.
Can you service my existing furnace, boiler or air conditioner?
Yes. We repair and maintain all kinds of HVAC systems, not just heat pumps.
Which heat pumps do you install?
We’ll service almost anything, but we’re fussy about what we install. Our go-to equipment is Mitsubishi’s Hyper-Heat line and Daikin’s Aurora line.
Can you also do the insulation and air sealing?
Yes, and we plan the two together. The Big Chill is a division of Tay River Builders, whose crews have been air sealing and insulating homes since the late 2000s, with more than 2,000 energy retrofits behind them.
Are there rebates or incentives?
Often. See how paying for it works for what PSE&G and JCP&L offer. Programs change, so we’ll check what applies to your house when we put together a proposal.
Is there still a federal tax credit?
No. The federal credits for heat pumps ended for equipment installed after 2025. Plenty of websites still mention them. If you had a credit from an earlier year, ask your accountant whether any of it carries forward.
When can I call or book a service visit?
We work Monday to Friday, 8 am to 5 pm. Call (609) 279-0722, or book online and pick a time. If you smell gas, leave the house first, then call PSE&G at 1-800-880-7734 or 911.
Start a project
Thinking about a heat pump?
Start with a conversation and a look at your house. We’ll tell you what size system the house needs, what to fix first, and what it should cost to run.