My first reaction is: be wary! Not that it's a bad idea, but that retrofit residential stuff is such a pain in the ass (been there, done that (home automation

My first reaction is: be wary! Not that it's a bad idea, but that retrofit residential stuff is such a pain in the ass (been there, done that (home automation and security installations)). If you do pursue this, I would suggest you do what I figured out rather quickly: concentrate on only new construction and only custom homes. Forget the retrofit, and forget the tract-home developers where the builders just want to turn the units quickly and not get the homebuyers distracted with fancy add-ons. Also, depending on what state you're in, certifications and regulations can be cumbersome also. And lastly (well, not last, I could go on about this for days...) if you haven't done this before, getting decent E&O and general liability insurance will be somewhere between expensive and impossible, many insurers don't want to insure someone with no experience running around a $400K jobsite with fancy power tools and equipment. All the above being said, I would still say go for it under the right conditions. I personally find "hardware" startups 100 times more challenging and rewarding than web-app or general software startups. No offense to the software guys, it's just a whole different world when you are producing or working with physical goods. If you do pursue it, contact me offline and I might be able to give you some advice and pointers about things, plus some other products you could carry/install that go along with the energy conservation theme.