The U.S. is suffering from an electrician shortage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unfilled positions in the electrician field are projected to rise by 11% per year over the next decade. However, prospective electricians in the U.S. normally log 8,000 hours before they can get their license; therefore, the shortage will not ease up anytime soon.

In good times, the shortage may be an annoyance while the labor market adjusts accordingly. But the U.S. is in the middle of a tectonic shift in how people and businesses use electricity. Adding solar panels, swapping furnaces for heat pumps, and adding electric vehicle chargers-they all demand electricians, piling projects atop a limited workforce today.

"That pipeline takes a long time to build, and there's not going to be a lot of relief coming in the next five to 10 years," Eric Owski, co-founder and CEO of Treehouse, told TechCrunch. "We have to make the existing workforce more efficient."

In building trades, inefficiencies can come in many forms, but one of the most prominent is the site visit to scope and quote a job. "Do you have to roll a truck?" Owski said. "In most cases, if there's a bit of uncertainty, they roll a truck." Depending on where a job is located, those visits can consume precious hours.

Owski and his co-founders, several of whom previously worked at LinkedIn, based the project on those visits. To reduce "truck rolls," the company has tracked housing footprints and specifics of different electrical jobs in a variety of homes. It has put those into AI models to predict how long it'll take a new job to complete and how many materials it'll require.

According to Owski, the company has gotten better, mostly on easier work such as EV charger installs. "We do the vast majority of EV charger installs, I think well north of 90%, without a truck roll prior to the day of installation," he said.

For those jobs, Treehouse asks the customer a few questions, such as what are the primary uses of electricity in their home, like stoves or water heaters. That would help the company determine whether the homeowner needs to have their electrical connection upgraded or even upgrade their main panel. The survey also requires people to drop a pin on a map indicating where they wish their charger to be located. The idea behind this is to give the customer an estimate in person as they sit in the car dealership.

"They need clarity on pricing and if they're going to finance that purchase, we have to be very good at it," Owski said.

In addition to EV chargers, Treehouse installs heat pumps, whole-house batteries, and thermostats as well as electrical panels. More complicated jobs like the heat pump will require more detailed information from a homeowner, including photos of their circuit breaker. If they still need more information, it will attempt a virtual visit with the customer and if that doesn't work, it will roll a truck. "We are building automation to avoid those surprises," said Owski.

Treehouse has a lot of competition in the space: Qmerit, Kopperfield, and Zero Homes.

Like much of its competition, Treehouse quotes the job, designs the installation, and develops a plan for the permit application. Many times, that gets farmed out to an independent electrician to do the work.

Unlike many other platforms, Treehouse is a licensed electrician and the lead contractor, using independent electricians as subs. And in California and Colorado, Treehouse has its own electricians, and plans to add its own in six to eight more markets within the next year, Owski said.

The startup has already secured $16 million Series A led by Flourish Ventures. Other participating venture capitalists include Acrew Capital, CarMax, Eaton, Holman, Invest Detroit, inVest Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, Montage Ventures, Veriten, and Virta Ventures.

Owski said money will be spent hiring more engineers to enhance the models that help it automate quoting. The company is expanding geographically, too: Treehouse currently works in 40 states, and Owski said it should be in all 50 by the end of the year. It currently has partnerships with CarMax, Holman, Emporia, Quilt, and ChargePoint.

For many people, EVs will be the entry point into electrification, but Owski thinks that will only be the first step for most. "I think we're going through a multi-decade super cycle," said Owski. "EVs are going to transform the way the average consumer thinks about home energy.".