Heat pumps – Golden Real Estate's Blog

Governor Polis Signs into Law Massive Tax Credits for EVs and Home Electrification

A package of new climate-related legislation signed this year by Governor Polis is designed to make it more attractive for Colorado households to ditch fossil fuels.

Many of the discounts are designed to be combined with other incentives, but not all the savings will be available right away.

Here’s a guide to what’s coming and when:

Electric Vehicles: Right now, Colorado has 80,000 registered plug-in hybrids and battery EVs, a long way from the state’s goal of 940,000 EVs on the road by 2030. The new incentives are intended to speed up their adoption through a $5,000 tax credit on the purchase of a battery-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle with a suggested purchase price of less than $80,000. For cars priced under $35,000, buyers can get an additional $2,500 credit. Any Colorado resident qualifies, beginning on July 1, 2023. After Jan. 1, 2025, the base rebate decreases until it’s phased out in 2029.

E-bikes: Denver proved the power of e-bike rebates last year. The state is now hoping for similar success. The Colorado Energy Office plans to launch an e-bike rebate program for low- to moderate-income residents this summer but hasn’t detailed the size of the discounts.

The plan for all Coloradans regardless of income is clearer. Under legislation signed into law this year, the state will offer a $450 discount on e-bikes starting on April 1, 2024 and continuing through 2032. The discount will be applied at the point of sale.

Electric lawn equipment: Because gas-powered lawnmowers and other lawn equipment is a major source of ozone pollution, the state will institute a 30 percent discount on electric lawnmowers, leaf blowers, trimmers and snowblowers, applied at time of purchase, starting Jan. 1, 2024 and continuing through December 2026.

Heat pumps: Heat pumps for household space heating and water heating, powered by electricity, are seen as key to reducing pollution from natural gas. Colorado currently has a rebate worth 10 percent of the cost of installing heat pump equipment. It was scheduled to expire at the end of this year, but recent legislation extended it through 2024. The same bill also includes new incentives depending on the technology.

For air-source heat pumps, a resident is eligible for a one-time $1,500 tax credit from 2024 through 2026. After that, it drops to $1,000 until 2029, then to $500 through the end of 2032.

For ground-source heat pumps, residents are eligible for a $3,000 tax credit from 2024 until 2026. After that, it drops to $2,000 until 2029, then again to $1,000 through the end of 2032.

For heat pump water heaters, residents can apply for a $500 tax credit from 2024 until 2026. After that, it drops $250 until 2032.

You can expect vendors of such equipment to be well versed on all these discounts and rebates.

Geothermal Heating and Cooling Can Be Practical and Affordable When Done on a Community Scale

When it comes to “kicking natural gas” and reducing a home’s carbon footprint, geothermal heating & cooling is the “gold standard.” But it’s extremely expensive to implement as a retrofit and still quite expensive on new construction.

My friend, Martin Voelker, a leader with the Colorado Renewable Energy Society, recently replaced his gas forced air heating system with geothermal, and the cost for drilling the 300-foot-deep wells in his backyard was $18,000, which included running the pipes into his house but didn’t include the heat pump itself. Even though such a project would garner a 30% rebate under the Inflation Reduction Act, that’s still a heavy lift for any homeowner.

I know of another home which installed geothermal pipes horizontally in their large backyard at far less cost.

New construction is more affordable, because you can have the wells drilled within the footprint of the future home while it’s still open ground. And if it’s an entire subdivision, such as the Geos Community in Arvada, the cost is reduced because all the wells can be drilled one after the other.

In that scenario, each home still has its own geothermal well, but what if you could drill a geothermal well that was extensive enough to feed multiple heat pumps in multiple buildings?

That was the concept proposed by a group of Harvard students in Ivory Innovation’s annual Hack-A-House competition, for which they won first place in the “Environmental Solutions and Construction Technology” category.

Those Harvard students may have known something the judges didn’t — that Eversource Gas, a Massachusetts utility, had already begun a “networked geothermal” demonstration project 17 miles west in Framingham. That project is featured at www.HEET.org, short for Home Energy Efficiency Team, which in 2017 started promoting the concept of gas utilities delivering 55º water instead of gas to multiple buildings from a grid of geothermal wells. (The above graphic is from their website.) Think of it as a 21st Century version of what Con Edison still does in NYC, which is to deliver steam from its central boilers to local buildings through pipes under Manhattan’s streets. But steam, unlike water, can’t be used in the summer for air conditioning.

A local vendor that I recommend for both geothermal and air source heat pumps is Sensible Heating and Cooling, (720) 876-7166.

How Does Geothermal Work?

Geothermal heating does not require the presence of a thermal feature such as a hot spring. In fact, if you dig down about 10 feet anywhere at our latitude, you’ll find that the soil temperature is about 55ºF year-round. Circulating a fluid through underground piping heats that liquid to 55º so a heat pump can then raise its temperature to 100º or so for heating purposes utilizing either radiant floor heating, baseboards or forced air.

Geothermal is far more efficient than an air-source heat pump system which takes in outdoor air as cold at 10 degrees below zero and works much harder to achieve the desired temperature for heating.

In the summer the 55º fluid from geothermal requires far less energy to be cooled further for air conditioning your home.

‘Everything You Need to Know About the Wild World of Heat Pumps’

That’s the title of an article in a February 14th post from MIT — https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/14/1068582/

I have written about and provided my own explanations regarding how heat pumps differ from forced air furnaces and traditional A/C systems, but the article cited above goes the extra mile.

If you’ve spent a night in a hotel or motel, you have probably slept in a room that was heated or cooled by a heat pump, because invariably that’s what those units are which you saw and controlled under each window.

In my other post today, heat pumps provide the heating and cooling for every Boxabl home. They are also what heats and cools many electric vehicles, since they require less battery power than conventional electric car heaters.

I was surprised to hear that heat pumps were invented in the 1850s but only started being used to heat and cool homes in the 1960s. It took the global climate crisis and the need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels to make them the hottest trend in new homes.

Speaking of new homes, however, I lamented as recently as last fall that I haven’t found a single new Denver area home builder which has abandoned gas-based home heating or even offers an upgrade to heat pumps. If you know of one, please tell me, because I’d be happy to promote that home builder in a future column.

The MIT article provides some useful information, including about the rebates being offered for heat pump installations. It also debunks the myth promoted by fossil fuel interests that heat pumps don’t work in colder climates. They are actually in use from Alaska to Maine, where, for example, my sister in Kingfield, Maine, installed a heat pump in her home to save on her fuel oil bill. Her fuel oil vendor told her that the adoption of heat pumps by her neighbors has noticeably reduced his sale of fuel oil in that rural community near the Canadian border.

According to the article, 60% of the homes in Norway are heated by heat pumps, as are 40% of the homes in Finland and Sweden (where another of my sisters lives).

“Wherever you look,” the MIT article concludes, “the era of the heat pump has officially begun.”

Here’s a Guide to the Tax Credits and Rebates Available for Making Your Home More Energy Efficient

Inspired by a recent article in The Washington Post, I’m able to provide you with a simplified guide to the improvements you can make to your home that might earn you a tax credit or other benefit under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

If you are wealthy, some of those IRA benefits may not be available to you, so check with your tax advisor. Even if you don’t qualify for the tax credits or rebates, almost all of the following investments will produce savings down the road as well as being “the right thing to do.”

Heat pumps to replace your HVAC system and water heater are the first and greatest improvement you can make. Unlike gas and resistance-based electric devices, heat pumps move heat, they don’t generate heat. And a heat pump HVAC system uses far less electricity that a baseboard or other electric HVAC system does. The IRA provides for up to $2,000 tax credit for heat pump purchases, with extra benefits for low- and middle-income homeowners. I haven’t used this company yet myself, but you might contact Sensible Heating and Cooling, 720-876-7166, www.SensibleHeat.net, one of those rare vendors who will talk you into a heat pump HVAC system over a traditional one.

Many heat pump systems, including water heaters, are “hybrid,” meaning they have backup gas or electric resistance functions that kick in or can be activated when the heat pump can’t produce the needed heat. For example, a water heater in heat pump mode has a slower recovery than in conventional electric mode, so if you have a big family (or a teenager) you may find that you run out of hot water quickly and it takes longer than you want to reheat the water in the tank. In electric mode, you’ll get the quick hot water recovery you’re used to.

A heat pump HVAC system will probably work just fine without backup so long as you don’t turn down the thermostat too much overnight. Our office is heated solely by heat pump, and we leave it on 70 degrees 24/7, and it’s still way more affordable than the gas forced air furnace it replaced.

Xcel Energy charges commercial customers about $50 per month (that’s $600 per year!) just to have a gas meter before you burn any gas, which contributes greatly to making gas forced air more expensive than heat pump heating. Note: you need to have the gas meter removed, not just stop using gas, to save that $50 per month. Even in a residential application where the monthly meter fee is less, consider replacing all your natural gas appliances (including your fireplace and grill) so you can have the gas meter removed and save that facility charge plus those other gas-related fees that have exploded of late. There are great electric fireplaces on the market, and Rita & I love our electric grill!

Here’s food for thought: If you get rid of gas in your home and have only electric cars in your garage, you’ll never have to worry about your family being killed by carbon monoxide poisoning. In addition to spending less on home energy and fuel for your car(s), the IRA will reward you for every aspect of that conversion! And with enough solar panels on your roof, your home energy bill will be under $10 per month (to remain on the electrical grid), and you’ll pay nothing to fuel your transportation!

Induction stoves to replace gas ranges not only save you money (including an $840 rebate if you qualify based on income) but can improve you family’s health. Despite right-wing raging about this topic, it has been proven statistically that gas cooking has increased asthma cases in children and some adults. (Click here to read a study on this topic.) The rebate is available on non-induction electric stoves, but induction cooking costs less to operate and heats food and water faster. You can dip your toe in this technology by buying a single countertop induction burner for $50 to $70, as I did. You’ll be amazed. Click here to read an article about how chefs have come to prefer induction cooking. As they say, “try it, you’ll like it!”

Electric cars that cost under $55,000 and trucks or SUVs under $80,000 that are assembled in North America qualify for a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 and a Colorado tax credit of $2,000 (without those federal restrictions, which include an income cap of $150,000 single or $300,000 filing jointly). Even the Tesla Model Y’s base price is now below those price limits.

What’s new with the IRA is that you can get a federal tax credit of $4,000 or 30% of the purchase price (whichever is less) of a used EV that is at least 2 years old, has a purchase price under $25,000, and is purchased from a dealer. I have always advised that a used EV is your best buy, because a used EV is as good as a new EV since it has none of those components of a gas-powered car (such as transmission or engine) which may be about to fail. Google “used electric cars” and you’ll see many for sale by dealers. I just ran that search and found 72 EVs under $25,000 on autolist.com alone!

The IRA increased the tax credit on solar panels to 30% for the next 10 years, and, given the steady reduction in the cost of solar over the past two decades, this investment is a no-brainer, assuming you have a roof that’s not shaded by trees. (Ground mounted solar panels is an option if you have a large unshaded backyard area. Otherwise, consider buying solar panels in a “solar garden.”) Xcel Energy allows you to install enough panels to provide up to twice your average usage over the last 12 months, which is great, because that could provide all the electricity you will need for a not-yet-purchased EV or not-yet-electrified heating system.

My advice is to purchase your solar photovoltaic system outright, not lease it or sign up for a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). When it comes to selling your house, anything other than a system that is seller-owned could complicate the sale. I’m a repeat customer of Golden Solar (303-955-6332), but also like Buglet Solar (303-903-9119). What these companies have in common, and which I think is important, is that they are local family-owned businesses, which I much prefer over a national firm such a Tesla or Sunrun Solar.

One situation in which a Power Purchase Agreement or lease works better is if the customer is a tax-exempt non-profit (which can’t benefit from tax credits). Golden Solar put a solar array on the roof of a Golden museum doing a PPA that Golden Solar financed, taking the tax credit for it. The museum pays no more than they were paying Xcel Energy to Golden Solar but will own the system after a few years. If you know of a non-profit that would like to go solar, have them contact Don at Golden Solar.

Improving your home’s insulation should always be the first step in saving money on energy. The IRA provides a 30% tax credit, up to $1,200 annually, for such improvements, specifying $600 for windows and $500 for doors. The gold standard in windows and doors is Alpen High-Performance Products, a Louisville CO company, which made the triple-pane windows we purchased for our South Golden Road office — expensive but worth it in terms of comfort and energy savings. Contact Todd Collins of AE Building Systems, 720-287-4290.

Whole-house energy efficiency retrofits are eligible for a rebate under the IRA, based on proven reduction in your home’s energy costs. Speak with someone from a company like Helio Home, Inc. (720-460-1260) which covers most aspects of reducing home energy use covered by the IRA, from solar to insulation to appliances. The IRA also provides a $150 rebate on a home energy audit, which is an essential first-step to figuring out the best and most cost-effective efficiency improvements you can make. You can learn more about energy audits at www.REenergizeCO.com.

Buy a new washer and dryer! The new top-loading high-efficiency washers are the best, speaking from personal experience. The washer automatically reduces water consumption based on the size of the load; and a heat-pump electric dryer saves on electricity.

Landscaping, done right, can save on energy and water. Think shade trees and xeriscaping, or installing buffalo grass, which requires little watering or mowing. Call Darwin at Maple Leaf Landscaping, Inc. (720-290-8292), a client of mine, to discuss the possibilities at your house.

If your house doesn’t already have one, a whole-house fan is a great energy saver, allowing you to flush hot daytime air out of your house before activating the A/C when you come home. It can also allow you to leave the A/C off overnight by bringing in cool nighttime air on a quiet, low-speed setting. Whole-house fans cost between $500 and $2,000 installed. They don’t earn their own IRA benefit, but would contribute to the benefit you earn with the whole-house retrofit mentioned above. I am a happy repeat customer of Colorado Home Cooling, now part of Colorado Home Services, 303-986-5764.

Not mentioned in that Washington Post article was daylighting of your home, which is one of my favorite ways to reduce electricity consumption by drawing sunlight into dark interior spaces. I installed Velux sun tunnels in two of my past homes, including in a windowless garage, and in our former office on South Golden Road. For that, I used Mark Lundquist, owner of Design Skylights (303-674-7147).

What Is a Heat Pump, and How Does It Work?

I came across a website that gives a great description of heat pumps, how they work, and why they are more efficient. Here’s the link for it.

Most Americans are accustomed to heating systems that generate heat using fossil fuels, wood, or electricity. But heat pumps don’t create heat, they move heat. Here’s how the process is explained on that website:

Heat pumps function similarly to refrigerators or air conditioners, which take warm air from one space and send it to another. In the winter, a heat pump transfers heat from the outdoors inside and, in the summer, it reverses this process.

There are two main types of heat pumps, and both can function as space heaters or coolers and as water heaters.

A ground-source (or “geothermal”) heat pump sends a mixture of water, antifreeze, and/or a refrigerant through a network of pipes buried below the frost line. As the liquid passes through the pipes, it absorbs the earth’s approximately 55-degree heat. The liquid is then drawn up into a compressor, which heats it further, creating a vapor. The heat pump then distributes the warm air through ducts or tubes throughout your home. In the summer, the heat pump reverses the process, taking warmth out of the house and transferring it to the earth.

An air-source heat pump extracts heat from the air rather than from the ground. It functions the same way, but because air temperature, unlike earth temperature, can get very cold, it has more work to do bringing up the temperature. As with a ground-source heat pump, a reversing valve inside the heat pump allows the same unit to function as an air conditioner in the summer. At right is an air source heat pump that was retrofitted into a ducted forced air heating/cooling system of one of my current listings in Golden.

Looking for a vendor who specializes in heat pumps? I recommend Sensible Heating & Cooling, 720-876-7166, or Helio Home, Inc., 720-460-1260.

What’s the Cost of Converting a Home from Natural Gas to All-Electric?

In recent columns, I have promoted the idea of eliminating natural gas and converting one’s home to all-electric, using heat pumps for heating & cooling and installing a heat pump water heater. I have also promoted induction cooktops as an alternative to gas or standard electric cooktops.

One reader asked me to provide information on the cost of making the conversion to all-electric, so I have done some research and can also speak from personal experience.

First, I asked Bill Lucas-Brown of Helio Home Inc., who installed the heat pump mini-split system at Golden Real Estate’s former office on South Golden Road as well as in our storefront in downtown Golden.

I asked Bill for a rough estimate of the cost of making a typical 2,000 sq. ft. home all-electric, and he responded with the following numbers and comments.

Note that rebates and tax incentives are available from the state, feds, utilities, and local municipalities that typically range from 15 to 30 percent off total cost. The following are costs without those rebates. Click here to view Helio Home’s web page about the rebates and tax credits available under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Air source heat pump for heating and cooling your home, $22,000
Heat pump water heater, $4,000
Insulation and air sealing work to improve efficiency, $5,000
Ventilation system for indoor air quality, $4,000
10kW solar system PV, $30,000
Electric panel upgrade, if needed, $4,000
Electric vehicle charger, $1,500

That said, Helio Home’s average job is around $50,000. With rebates, figure $35,000 to $43,000. You can get a proposal on the company’s website www.heliohome.io.

Sadly, there are few vendors who are experienced and competent in heat pumps for heating and cooling homes. Heat pump water heaters are less of a challenge, because they are sold by Lowe’s and Home Depot, and you just need a plumber to install them and an electrician to pull a 240-Volt circuit to it. I bought a 50-gallon heat pump water heater in 2021 for $1,200 (on sale – prices are higher now) and was able to do the electrical work myself because of a nearby 240V circuit that was no longer in use. The self-employed plumber I used charged just $500, and I got a $400 rebate from Xcel Energy, so the cost was less than the figure quoted above. The federal rebate taking effect in January under the IRA makes such a purchase almost free.

You may find it more practical to leave your gas forced air furnace in place and install a ductless mini-split system. A compressor (similar to an A/C compressor) is installed outside your home, and two coolant lines are run to wall-mounted units in different rooms of your house. This works best in a one-story home. These same wall units provide both heating and cooling, because that’s how heat pumps work — they are like an air conditioner that works in two directions, moving heat out of your home in the summer and into your home in the winter. As the name suggests, they don’t create heat, they move heat, and they do it more efficiently than baseboard electric heating or heating generated by burning natural gas (or propane).

Instead of wall-mounted mini-splits, you can install a ceiling-mounted “cassette” which functions the same way. That’s what Helio Home installed in our downtown storefront, and it works just as well. (Come by our office and I’ll show it to you.) I have also seen a wall-mounted cassette which has a picture frame on it. When the heat pump is operating, the picture moves out a couple inches from the wall to allow the movement of air.

As for an EV charger, the biggest variable is the cost of bringing a 240V circuit to your garage, which depends on the distance between the garage and your breaker panel. I spent less that $300 for that, again from a self-employed electrician.

Tesla vehicles have the charger built into the car, so you only need a 240V outlet (similar to the outlet for your clothes dryer) to plug the provided cord into. Don’t buy the Tesla Wall Connector — it’s totally unnecessary for home use. Just use the charging cord with a 240V head.

Other EVs may require you to purchase a Level 2 charging station, which I did when I had a Chevy Volt. By googling “Level 2 EV chargers,” I found prices as low as $200 (Home Depot, 16 amp model), and several under $500. So your real cost depends on what your electrician charges. Here’s an idea: If you have an electric dryer outlet available close to your garage, you could adapt that circuit for your EV at minimal cost.

Another use of natural gas that you’re probably using is for cooking and grilling. You’ll really love induction cooking if you try it, because it is so much faster. Buy a countertop unit for under $100 and play with it. For grilling, we love the George Foreman electric grill we purchased for $100.

Above all, pay attention to the tax credits and rebates that take effect on Jan. 1, 2023, under the Inflation Reduction Act. They make going all-electric more realistic.

Report Details How the Inflation Reduction Act Will Transform the Building Sector

One of the best analyses of the impact of the IRA on sustainability and the mitigation of climate change was released on Aug. 31st by the Rocky Mountain Institute. Below is a graphic from that report summarizing the IRA’s biggest direct impacts. Click here to view the full report.

As reported by Fast Company, the report “finds that the IRA’s main rebates and tax credits could bring electrification and energy-efficiency upgrades to millions of homes. In total, the bill’s new rebates and expansions of existing tax credits will create more than $23 billion in funding to electrify homes, upgrade heating, cooling, and ventilation equipment, and develop entirely new buildings that meet the highest federal standards for efficient energy use.” The IRA provides funds or rebates for:

Electric heat pumps that can both heat and cool your home, which the Department of Energy estimates will save families $500 to $1,000 every year. There’s a rebate of up to $14,000 for installing them.

Induction cooktops, which replace dangerous and health-harming gas stoves that contribute to asthma and other respiratory diseases.

Insulation, windows, doors, and sealing ductwork, which will ensure a home’s heating and cooling systems don’t have to work as hard to keep families comfortable.

Upgraded electrical panels and wiring for homes that have older electrical service.

The tax credits provided for in the IRA are available immediately, but the rebate program will take some time to be implemented, since it requires the creation of rules and forms.

Home Builders Are Not ‘Getting It’ When It Comes to Building Sustainable Homes

Last week I worked with a buyer looking at new homes. One community we visited was in central Arvada; the other was just north of Golden at the corner of Hwy. 93 and 58th Ave.

Neither builder was even offering upgrades such as solar panels, heat pump HVAC systems, or induction cooktops.

Yes, they were enhancing the insulation of their homes, but little else.

And, speaking of solar panels, neither builder was building into the design of their homes an orientation that would favor solar panels on the roof. One had unnecessary peaks or dormers on their roofs that would seriously inhibit the usefulness of the roof for installing a solar photovoltaic system.

The heating systems in both communities were gas forced air furnaces, which I consider obsolete. Such furnaces require the separate installation of an A/C compressor to provide cooling. I asked if an upgrade to a heat pump system was available, and it wasn’t.

These are silly and unnecessary design flaws in any new construction. A heat pump HVAC system provides both heating and cooling within one unit. It is the preferred choice in Europe and Asia, but our builders seem to know only gas forced air furnaces with a conventional A/C add-on.

New-build homes are typically equipped with conventional gas water heaters, while it would be just as easy and cost little more to install a highly efficient heat pump water heater, as I have done.

Geothermal heat pump systems are the “gold standard” when it comes to energy efficiency and sustainability in new home construction. Retrofitting an existing home with geothermal can be prohibitively expensive, but on a dirt-start build, it would be easy to drill geothermal wells in the middle of the basement or crawl space before installing the foundation and building the house. There’s even more efficiency in a dirt-start subdivision, because the drilling rig could go from one unit to the next, drilling 10, 20 or 100 geothermal wells in one area.

I have written in the past about the Geos Community west of Indiana Street and 68th Avenue in Arvada, where all the detached single-family homes have geothermal heat pump systems, and all the townhomes have air source heat pump systems. They also have heat pump water heaters and induction electric ranges, and all have south-facing roofs with solar panels providing all the electricity to run each of those systems. There is no need for natural gas service to the homes.

Geos was intended to showcase the cost effectiveness of all-electric homes using geothermal and air source heat pump systems and orienting the homes for maximum passive solar as well as active solar efficiency. But it seems that builders are slow learners. The developer who purchased the lots next to the previously built Geos Community felt it necessary to install natural gas service to all its new homes currently under construction “because buyers want gas,” much to the understandable dismay and anger of the Geos Community residents.

There is similar inertia in the HVAC industry itself. It’s hard to find an HVAC company that even understands the advantages of heat pumps for heating and cooling homes. It is so much easier for them to do what they have learned to do, even though it represents an obsolete technology. I have heard countless stories of homeowners whose forced air furnace needed replacing and who were unable to get their HVAC vendor to sell them a heat pump system. Most HVAC vendors just want to keep doing what they already know how to do.

(I can recommend a couple vendors who specialize in heat pump systems and even geothermal drilling. Ask me.)

This is not unlike the problem with car dealerships and electric vehicles. If you go to a Chevy dealer and ask about the Chevy Bolt EV, the salesman will often bad-mouth the Bolt and try to sell you a non-electric model that he loves to sell and requires no learning on his part of new technology.

This guest speaker at the April meeting of the Denver Electric Vehicle Council was a man who, having bought a Chevy Volt in 2012, convinced a Texas Chevy dealership to let him be a salesman of EVs exclusively. Other salesmen started sending him buyers who expressed an interest in EVs, and he quickly became the number one seller of EVs in the state of Texas. It helped that hardly any other Texas car dealership had a salesman who was comfortable selling EVs. Their loss.

Getting back to home construction, we need and the planet needs home builders to be more educated about the wisdom and relative ease of building energy efficient, solar-powered, all-electric homes with a passive solar orientation and design. It’s not that hard to learn, but we need to overcome the inertia built into that industry just as with the automotive and other industries.

Must Read: ‘From Homes to Cars, It’s Now Time to Electrify Everything’

Every now and then I read an article that I am compelled to share, because it simply “nails it.”

Such was the article by Saul Griffith, published Oct. 19, 2021, on the Yale School of the Environment website, http://www.e360.yale.edu, and re-posted Nov 30, 2021, on GreenBuildingAdvisor.com.

Here’s a link to the full article: https://e360.yale.edu/features/from-homes-to-cars-its-now-time-to-electrify-everything.

The thesis of that article is summarized as follows: “The key to shifting away from fossil fuels is for consumers to begin replacing their home appliances, heating systems, and cars with electric versions powered by clean electricity. The challenges are daunting, but the politics will change when the economic benefits are widely felt.”

The diagram above right shows what can be electrified in a home. Rita and I are most of the way there. This fall I purchased an electric snow blower to complement our electric lawn mower, weed eater, leaf blower and automobiles. Earlier this year I purchased a heat pump water heater to complement our heat pump hybrid furnace. (Hybrid, because it still burns natural gas when the outdoor temperature dips below 30° F.)

All these electric devices are powered by the sun, thanks to our 10-kW solar PV system installed when we bought our home in 2012. Because we still cook with gas and occasionally burn gas in our furnace and fireplace, our Xcel bill is still around $35-40 per month, but we’re doing our part to “electrify everything.”

You can do that, too.

The central thesis of Saul Griffith’s article is that we have little control over the supply side of energy, although there are encouraging signs of it becoming less dependent on fossil fuels. But we have total control over the demand side of energy:

“We don’t have a lot of choice on the supply side, but we have all of the choice on the demand side. For the most part, we decide what we drive, how we heat our water, what heats our homes, what cooks our food, what dries our laundry, and even what cuts our grass. This constitutes our ‘personal infrastructure,’ and it is swapping out that infrastructure that will be a key driver of the global transition from fossil fuels to green energy.”

According to Griffith, who co-founded the non-profit Rewiring America, there are 280 million cars and trucks in America, 70 million fossil-fueled furnaces, 60 million fossil-fueled water heaters, 20 million gas dryers, and 50 million gas stoves, ovens and cooktops. Until now, the conversation has been about making each of those fossil-fueled appliances more efficient, earning “Energy Star” ratings.

But the real goal should be to replace them with electric appliances burning the increasingly green electricity which is being generated by our electric utilities.

A common refrain from people regarding electric cars is that they are not really zero emissions because of how the electricity is generated. I myself was originally reluctant to buy an EV because I didn’t want to “switch from burning gas to burning coal.”

However, that argument overlooks the relative efficiency of electric motors. In a fossil-fueled car, only 20% of the energy in the fuel is propelling the car. The rest is waste energy, primarily creating heat which then requires more fuel to cool it. In an EV, 90% of the energy from the battery propels the car. There’s almost no waste energy.

An suitable analogy to the gas-powered car is an incandescent light bulb, in which light is a byproduct of heating the filament. It’s no surprise that the LED light bulb uses about 20% of the electricity of an incandescent light bulb for the same amount of light, because light is the primary product of the LED, not a by-product of waste energy.

Because of its relative efficiency, even if an EV is charged from electricity created entirely by coal, its carbon footprint is far below that of a fossil-fuelel vehicle. The same applies to today’s highly efficient heat pumps for both space heating (and cooling) and for water heating.

Griffith’s point is that more efficient fossil-fueled appliances won’t get us where we need to be to save the planet from catastrophic climate change. We need to get to zero emissions, which is only possible by going all-electric in our homes and vehicles as our electric utilities make their inevitable transition — whether incentivized by government or simply by the economies of renewable energy — to clean energy.

You, like me, will love the effects of this transition to all-electric living. Imagine a future where carbon dioxide is not a household poison; where motorcycles don’t disturb the peace and quiet of our streets and canyons; where semis slow down quietly because they are putting energy back into their batteries instead of using loud and polluting engine braking; where our neighbors aren’t disturbed by loud lawn mowers, snow blowers and leaf blowers; and where children no longer suffer health problems from their own school buses or playgrounds next to highways.

You, like me, will appreciate the ease of use and near-zero maintenance of electric devices. My snow blower, lawn mower, and leaf blower start by pushing a button or pulling a lever and never need a tune-up, refueling or oil change.

Griffith is not arguing that everyone should immediately swap out their fossil-fueled cars or appliances but rather avoid replacing them with newer ones. Cars, for example, can last for 20 years, and gas furnaces for 15 years. When they need replacing, make the smart choice and replace them with their electric counterparts. You’ll be glad you did five or ten years later when their resale value has evaporated due to public recognition that they became obsolete before you purchased them.

My Favorite Home Improvements When Purchasing a New-to-Me Home

This column is adapted from my July 18, 2019, column on this topic.

Energy efficiency is very important to Rita and me, so the first thing we did when we purchased our current home was to pay for an energy audit to identify opportunities for making the home more air-tight. One result of that test was to blow additional cellulose insulation into walls and ceilings and to caulk around windows. We considered installing an energy recovery ventilator (ERV) to bring fresh air into the home using a heat exchanger that warms outside air in the winter and cools outside air in the summer. Instead we installed a fan in our powder room that runs 24/7 at a very low volume, but higher when occupied.

I love bringing sunlight into a home, with sun tunnels. Rita and I had Mark Lundquist of Design Skylights install a Velux sun tunnel in our garage and another one in our laundry room. (He installed four more at Golden Real Estate.)

Speaking of sunlight, we replaced every light bulb in our home with LEDs which are “daylight” color.

Installing solar photovoltaic panels is a no-brainer now that the cost has dropped so much. Your roof doesn’t have to face due south. Southeast and southwest are good enough. Since everyone will be driving an electric car eventually, install as much solar PV as Xcel Energy allows to cover that future load.

Don’t you hate climbing a curb to enter your driveway? Developers install mountable curbs the entire length of residential streets, because they can’t know where each driveway will be. One of the first things we did at our home was to remove the mountable curb in front of our driveway. It cost about $2,000 for our 3-car-wide driveway, but we love it every time we enter from the street!

When your gas forced air furnace needs replacing, consider replacing it with a heat-pump or hybrid furnace. And when your gas water heater needs replacing, I recommend buying a heat-pump water heater. We bought a 50-gallon Rheem unit for $1,200, but it came with a $400 rebate. Once you’ve replaced both, you will have eliminated the most common sources of carbon monoxide poisoning in your home.

Other improvements I’d recommend: Replacing any bathroom carpeting with ceramic or porcelain tile; replacing regular double-pane windows with Low-E windows on south-facing windows; replacing fluorescent fixtures (as we did in our garage) with flush-mount LED panels sold at Lowes for about $100. Love ’em!