Brian Stewart knew he wanted to take all the gasoline out of the house. He credits his Portland, Oregon townhouse as one of his biggest personal contributions to climate change — his water heater, stove, fireplace and stove use fossil fuels. Switching to household appliances would be more energy efficient and reduce its footprint by connecting to a grid that is increasingly powered by renewable energy sources.
He knew he could do some minor home repairs himself, but to replace the gas stove and gas water heater with an electric heat pump, he had to call in a contractor. Everyone he talked to urged him not to change the stove and heater. They doubted the electric alternative would be reliable and insisted that he needed a back-up gas stove just in case.
“You may be very excited about [your home's electricity], but if the contractor you’re talking to says, ‘I wouldn’t do that in my house,’ it’s hard to be confident enough to say, ‘I don’t.’ I believe,” Stewart said.
But Stewart continued his research and kept calling. Eventually, he found a contractor who wanted to replace the gas with electric heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC). Since then, he has never had to pay his gas bills again, and the whole project is estimated to have saved him $1,000 a year in gas and gas bills.
Most of them don’t care about the climate as renewable energy consumers like Stuart. Many home replacements and repairs are unplanned emergencies, such as stoves cracking in winter frosts. Often a homeowner can call the person who installed or serviced the gas stove. And that contractor may not be able to help them electrify — or suggest they do so in the first place.
The federal government is pushing for more electrification of homes. The residential sector accounts for about one-fifth of US greenhouse gas emissions, and many of those homes (about half) still rely on fossil fuels to generate heat and electricity. If they switch to electricity, they will reduce these emissions by connecting to more and more renewable energy networks.
The cost of changing existing infrastructure, especially in a home, can be a huge problem. Democrats this summer approved billions of dollars in federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding to cut costs, including incentives for all essential appliances and accessories such as heat pumps, insulation, electrical wiring, circuit breakers and induction cookers.
The entire economy is eventually moving in the direction of electrification. The biggest obstacle is the human problem. The IRA’s investment will not succeed if the people closest to realizing its ambitions – electricians, plumbers and other HVAC professionals – are also not involved in the clean energy transition.
Brian Stewart’s experience with contractors led him to start a volunteer group called Electrify Now to help other people in the Portland area get electricity to their homes. He heard stories of people across the country who faced resistance when they tried to turn off the gas. One of the most common myths people hear is that heat pumps don’t work in cold climates.
Heat pumps actually work like two-way air conditioners, using electricity and chemical refrigerants to move heat in and out of a building. Because heat pumps are 4.5 times more efficient than gas, environmentalists are clamoring for them as a better alternative to burning fuel in their homes. The myth that the device does not work in cold places persists, like most technology did about 20 years ago. This is one of the reasons fuel oil is more commonly used in gas-fired ovens in New York and throughout the North. Today, with more advanced refrigerant and compressor technology, these systems perform well in freezing temperatures (in fact, heat pumps are already booming in Maine and cold northern Europe).
This has led to an understandable, albeit outdated, contractor bias against electric heat pumps. Their advice is based only on what they did. They see an old or broken gas or oil stove and change it for another one, although replacing an electric one may end up saving people more money. In most cases, contractors are simply unfamiliar with heat pumps because, as of 2015, only 10 percent of households use heat pumps as their primary source of heating, according to the Department of Energy.
Ideally, when it comes time to replace a stove or water heater, contractors and consumers should consider all options, including the electrical system. They need to determine exactly what types of heat pumps will work (for example, with or without ducting and small branch pipes, or perhaps larger units for AC operation). But Sealed, a company that finds and vets contractors to electrify people’s homes, says contractors sometimes overlook an important step in evaluating space for insulation and energy efficiency. For example, a heat pump will not work properly in a room with well ventilated windows. An improperly installed heat pump will not work, confirming the contractor’s prejudice that the technology is defective when he gets a call late at night.
The problem with the learning curve is not limited to heat pumps. Electric vehicles are facing a similar upswing, coming closest to intermediaries selling technology to consumers. In 2019, the Sierra Club sent undercover volunteers to 900 car dealers and found that the vast majority of dealers did not sell any electric vehicles, and some “dealers have not even been trained or properly cared for the electric vehicles they sell.” understanding.”
These barriers can cause even the most motivated climate-conscious consumers to reconsider what they should be doing. For example, Adam Bateman, director of energy communications at the RMI think tank, was trying to replace his water heater with an electric heat pump model in Washington, DC. Several contractors told him that the new system was not suitable. His own research showed this to be false, a guess confirmed by an experienced installer.
But when Bateman found a water source heat pump through Home Depot, his consultation with installers sounded straight out of a gas industry ad. “I don’t know the climate or anything,” he recalls the words of the contractor. “I’m old school. I love gas. I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I think you should reconsider.”
Some contractors are enthusiastic about heat pumps. Larry Nisman is one of them. As director of environmental protection for Phoenix Mechanical, which serves New York’s Westchester County area, oil stoves have been more commonly used to heat homes than electricity, especially in older buildings. Over the past five years, the company has begun to see more demand for electric heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, another name for heat pumps, Nissman said.
“I’ve used one in my own home and probably saved $900 over the cost of my oil this winter,” he said. “I’m using my home as an example to show people what you can expect.”
Nissman also cited his home as an example of his frustration that utility and heat pump manufacturers did not provide him with actual case studies to use with clients. If they did, he says, it would help dispel doubt and ignorance about heat pumps and allow him to tell homeowners how much they can save.
This is not some revolutionary idea. “You are trained by the manufacturer,” he said. “For example, they will introduce a new appliance, a new heat pump, come to our office and tell us. Then we went to the site to actually install it in someone’s house and go through a learning curve, mostly wiring and controls. The more If you do this, the more comfortable you will become.”
Soon, contractors will be more interested in seriously considering electrical alternatives. The IRA spends billions of dollars over its 10-year life cycle to drive down the cost of introducing electric vehicles and heat pumps. Until 2023, homeowners will be eligible for a range of cash rebates and tax credits for energy efficiency and electrification, including up to $2,000 for heat pumps for water and heating and cooling, $1,600 available, according to Rewiring America, a non-profit organization dedicated to electrification. for air-tightness and insulation; and additional incentives for middle-class, low-income households such as $4,000 for electrical panels and $2,500 for new electrical wiring.
In addition to the $20 million provided by the bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the bill provides $200 million for states to create new training programs for contractors. They can be developed by governments themselves, but experts say the most needed education is understanding the key benefits of a heat pump, how much it can save consumers, and its climate benefits. Because the law also provides discounts for every electrical HVAC system they install in low to moderate income homes, there is an additional incentive for contractors to learn about their HVAC technology.
It takes a lot of work to fully electrify a home: while sometimes just replacing an appliance is enough, other times you may need a switchboard that can handle a heavy load, you may need to rewire and improve the insulation. Such projects necessarily require several contractors.
I hope the day will come when finding an electrical HVAC installer is not so random. A decade later, Rewiring America’s Ari Matusiak hopes that the burden of vetting contractors will shift not to consumers but to politicians to ensure the power system wins on merit alone.
“I think when we look back at [the Inflation Reduction Act], we will say that the US has moved from a fossil fuel market to an efficient electricity market,” he said. He hopes families will be the biggest beneficiaries of the transition.
In the meantime, in the meantime, I interviewed experts for their advice on finding contractors with a passion for electrical technology.
One of the most important questions people ask is how many times a contractor has installed an electric heat pump. If there are only a few answers, or if they are trying to convince you to give up, it’s a sign that they don’t have the experience you need. It’s also important to make sure you get advice on how to improve your home’s energy efficiency through insulation; Sealed recommends doing this at least once every 10 years.
Also be wary of reselling technology that you don’t necessarily need. Older homes may need new wiring and switchboards to handle more power, Stewart says, but if you already have some home appliances like a hybrid gas stove and electric oven, you probably won’t need them. He recommends doing a special test called a load calculation that will tell the contractor if you really need to spend thousands of dollars on a new switch assembly.
The moral argument for going through all those electric home headaches is that it reduces your contribution to pollution and climate change. But it also has a purely selfish reason: in the long run, it saves you money by creating a more comfortable environment in your home.
In fact, Sealed CEO Lauren Saltz thinks moral arguments are unnecessary. Contractors don’t need to be climate fighters, they just need to understand the benefits of heat pumps.
“People use heat pumps because they think having a combined heating and cooling system is great,” she said. “They like that they are very quiet. Many homeowners also care about their health just because they have oil and gas in their homes.” life.”
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