Buildings are one of the few places where individuals have direct control over greenhouse gas emissions. You can’t instantly reduce a farmer’s beef production by eating less meat or personally shut down a natural gas power plant. But if you’re a homeowner, it’s up to you whether or not you’re burning fossil fuels every time you heat your home, use hot water, dry your clothes, or cook food. Together, these activities account for about 7% of annual U.S. fossil fuel-related carbon emissions.
That may not sound like a lot, but it adds up. When you buy a new heating system or a new clothes dryer, you’re investing in a machine you’re going to use for 15 to 20 years or more. You can decide to lock in a system that burns fossil fuels and is guaranteed to add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere throughout that time — or you can invest in one that can drive down emissions as the electric grid becomes cleaner. (If you want some advice for which new appliances to go with, we have some guides for that.)
“There’s an inflection point that we’re facing right now,” Sara Baldwin, the senior electrification director at the think tank Energy Innovation, told me. “If we lock in another two decades of fossil fuel infrastructure in our homes, we’ve got way more work down the line.”
That’s not to say these are easy changes to make. Perhaps it’s not even totally fair to say “it’s up to you,” because for some homeowners, the cost of making some of these changes will be out of reach. Electric appliances are often more expensive to install than their fossil fuel counterparts. And in some cases, as in places where natural gas is much cheaper than electricity, the switch might also increase your energy bills, even though the appliances themselves are more efficient.
If you have the means, though, the benefits can be significant. Replacing your furnace with an electric heat pump — which can both heat and cool your home — could have two-for-one benefits for those without central air, especially as summers get hotter. Many homeowners also praise the quieter, more even temperature control that heat pumps provide. Electrify any of your appliances and you’ll also be helping to reduce local outdoor air pollution; switch to an electric cooktop and you’ll reduce indoor air pollution for you and your family, as well.
Another way to think about electrification is as a chance to leave your mark on the world. Political scientist Leah Stokes, who serves as policy counsel to the electrification advocacy group Rewiring America in addition to teaching at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told me she likes to think of the appliances in our homes as “the infrastructure that we are in charge of.” You can lobby your representatives to build bike lanes, but the decision is mostly out of your hands. You’re the only one that can decide to change out your furnace or your water heater, however. “These are huge opportunities for us to make legacy impacts on carbon pollution,” Stokes said. And unlike behavioral changes such as eating vegetarian, you only have to do it once. “If you sell that house, if you die, it's a piece of infrastructure that continues on.”
Making these changes won’t necessarily result in immediate emission reductions. It depends on where you live and where your power comes from. If a lot of your electricity comes from coal, for example, a natural gas furnace might emit less carbon than even the most efficient heat pump. But that’s just how the math works out today. Researchers who have modeled out the emissions impacts over the average lifetime of the equipment — about 16 years — have found that as the grid continues along its trajectory of getting cleaner, heat pumps will emit less carbon overall in every state.
Not every home electrification project will get you the same carbon bang for your buck. Space heating is by far the most energy-intensive thing we do in our homes, so from an emissions standpoint, replacing your boiler or furnace is the most effective change you can make. Clothes dryers and stoves use so little energy, comparatively, that swapping them out looks almost inconsequential for the climate, at least on paper.
But the reason electrifying your home can be such a high leverage action is not just because of the absolute emission reductions you can achieve. It can also accelerate structural changes. If you’re currently a natural gas customer, going fully electric means you’ll be able to disconnect from the local distribution system and stop paying into the pool of funds used to maintain it. That can increase rates for the remaining customers, which is far from ideal. But it also makes the economics of electrification more attractive.
“It's very important that we can't leave low income people behind,” said Stokes. “But the more folks who get off of gas, even a small number, it can really start to force the question of, should we start thinking about if we should be investing hundreds of millions of dollars into aging gas infrastructure? Or should we use that money to subsidize electrification for low income folks?”
So, where to begin? Space heating is the biggest opportunity, but it’s also the most expensive and complicated project. There’s no reason you have to start there, especially if your existing heater has a lot of life left in it. “Don't start with the hardest thing,” said Baldwin. “If it feels daunting, start with the easiest thing, or start with something that feels within reach.”
Larry Waters, an HVAC contractor I interviewed for our heat pump guide, recommends making a “gas inventory” — a list of all of your gas appliances and how old they are. Replace whichever appliance is nearest to the end of its useful life first, but plan ahead for future projects. Figure out if you’ll need to budget in an electrical upgrade, or if you can combine any of the work to save money.
The following guides will help you navigate each of these projects, with recommendations from experts who are on the ground, helping homeowners through this every day.
Everything is bigger in Texas. John Bistline
