About Mike Cesaroni — Founder, Horizon HVAC

Mike Cesaroni founded Horizon HVAC in 2023 to bring honest, flat-rate pricing back to Rhode Island residential HVAC. Two years in, Horizon serves 15 RI cities, holds a 4.9 average across 147 verified Google reviews, and is a Clean Heat RI-registered heat pump installer.

Background

Mike has spent his career inside Rhode Island residential heating and cooling. The decision to start Horizon was driven by a simple observation: too many RI homeowners were getting hourly-rate bills that ballooned mid-job, or being upsold replacement systems when a $300 repair would have done the job.

Horizon runs the opposite playbook. Every job gets a flat-rate written quote before work starts. If a repair is the right call, we repair. If replacement is genuinely the right call, we say so with the math behind it — including the Clean Heat RI rebate, federal tax credit stack, and operating-cost comparison.

Credentials & Certifications

What Mike personally handles at Horizon HVAC

Every quote at Horizon is reviewed before it leaves the office. Mike does not pretend to be on every truck — what he does do is set the pricing, set the standards, and review the field reports.

• Pricing standards. Flat-rate book is published internally and never deviated from on-the-fly. The number on your quote is the number on your invoice.
• Heat pump system design. Manual J load calculations on every retrofit so the system is sized to the house, not the easy install.
• Clean Heat RI paperwork. Horizon files the rebate documents on behalf of every eligible install so the homeowner sees the net price, not the gross.
• Field quality. Every repair carries a 90-day labor warranty. Every install carries the manufacturer parts warranty stacked on Horizon’s own workmanship coverage.

How Mike thinks about HVAC in Rhode Island in 2026

The Rhode Island residential HVAC market is in the middle of the heat pump transition. The Clean Heat RI program (60 percent of installed cost, capped at $11,500 per home, with a lifetime $18,000 ceiling per address) has changed the math.

A cold-climate heat pump that would have been $20,000 fully installed five years ago is, for most RI homeowners under 150 percent of State Median Income, a net cost in the $7,000–$8,500 range after the state rebate and federal tax credit stack. That is now cheaper than replacing a 15-year-old gas furnace + AC + water heater on the standard replacement cycle.

The catch: most of the homeowners eligible for that rebate stack do not know it exists. Mike’s position is that the contractor’s job is not to sell the most expensive system — it is to put the math on the table and let the homeowner decide.

Service area

Horizon HVAC serves 15 Rhode Island cities with same-day or next-day dispatch: Providence, Pawtucket, Cranston, Warwick, East Providence, North Providence, Central Falls, Cumberland, Lincoln, Smithfield, Johnston, Barrington, Bristol, Woonsocket, and North Smithfield.