The Basics

 A lot of the “burning stuff” that we do isn’t always that obvious. It happens in your basement furnace, your gas tank, even your dryer. Because of that, you may not realize how much it’s going on in your daily life and how much it contributes to your climate footprint. But fortunately, as new energy technologies have developed, it’s gotten a lot easier to switch to electricity, whether you want to truly “electrify everything” or just tackle the biggest items.

What are those biggest items? Here’s the list, based on data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Energy Information Administration:

• Cars: A typical gasoline-powered passenger vehicle in the U.S. emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

• Natural gas use at home: Average U.S. household use of natural gas results in emissions of 2.29 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year — likely more if you’re the part of that average who depends on natural gas for heat, and if you account for methane leaks in the natural gas extraction and distribution process. Of course, this is not all from one source; 99% of it breaks down into three categories:

  • Home heating: About 70% of total residential household natural gas consumption in the U.S. is for home heating (also sometimes called space heating).

  • Hot water heating: Another 26% of total residential household natural gas consumption in the U.S. is for hot water heating.

  • Cooking: Around 3% of total residential household natural gas consumption in the U.S. is for cooking.

  • The other 1%? That’s attributable to clothes dryers, pool heaters, and hot tub heaters.

• Other home heating fuels: Although it’s a smaller slice of the U.S. population, those who rely on fuel oil or propane for heating their homes (i.e., you have a fuel tank) — mostly but not exclusively in the Northeast — will find that’s a big part of their climate footprint. For an average U.S. home the resulting emissions are (using these figures to convert to metric tons of carbon dioxide):

  • Fuel oil: 5.11 metric tons of carbon dioxide for an average home using 69 million BTU of fuel oil per year.

  • Propane: 2.75 metric tons of carbon dioxide for an average household using 43.8 million BTU of this less carbon-intensive fuel.

So if you’re looking to shift to clean electricity to reduce your climate footprint, your priorities should be:

• An electric vehicle (“EV”) — or two if like many Americans your family has more than one car

• Home heating, especially if you use fuel oil

• Your hot water heater

The good news is that there are reasonably affordable electric options in all three of these categories, and in the long term you may well even save money by making the switch for one or more. Let me say that again: there are affordable options available today for EVs, home heating, and hot water heating. The horror stories you may hear about electric vehicles that run out of juice miles from a charging station or electric heating that results in huge monthly bills are years out of date. There’s even a U.S. non-profit, Rewiring America, recently formed to help people pursue home electrification; they’ve put together a fantastic and detailed guide to going all the way down this path. You may have sensed a theme by now: the world is ready to hit the accelerator (not the gas pedal!) on clean energy.

There’s also real analysis out there demonstrating that switching to these electric technologies can actually contribute to reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers looking at EVs, heat pumps, and hot water heaters have run the numbers in studies over the last several years to show that the greenhouse gas emissions associated with efficient electric technology for all three uses are lower than with fossil fuels. That’s even true assuming you’re still getting some of your electricity supply from fossil fuel sources, so if you’re done with Step One and have moved to carbon-free electricity then you’re in even better shape.

Now if you cross these three items off your list, you still won’t have “electrified everything.” Switching over to an induction cooktop, an electric dryer, and an electric pool or hot tub heater might seem like a walk in the park if you’re already tackling home electrification, and I’m not suggesting you leave them out. But if you face constraints on your time, budget, or overall bandwidth for this step, it’s your transportation, home heating, and hot water that you should consider the “top three” areas in your quest to stop burning stuff.

That said - some final thoughts as to why you might want to go all the way and truly “electrify everything”:

• Cost: Let’s say you get rid of all the big natural gas appliances in your home but you can’t quite bring yourself to let go of your beloved gas range. You tell yourself you’ve cut your natural gas use to a fraction of what it once was and at least your utility costs will go way down. You look at your monthly bill…and it’s still $15 or $20 or $30 a month?! (Or more for some of you….) That’s because even if you don’t use much natural gas, you’re still paying for the gas company to keep you hooked up to the whole pipeline system, send you your bill each month, and do all the same things they do for any other customer. In many places, the charges for the privilege of just being a natural gas customer are as much or more of your bill as the actual cost of gas. So if you don’t want to pay several hundred dollars each year just to hold onto gas for cooking, or a fireplace, or a dryer, you may want to take those final steps to get yourself off the natural gas customer rolls for good.

• Cost again: As you’ll learn in Step Three, electricity prices are different than fossil fuel prices in an important way: for many people, they can vary by time of day. That means everything in your home that runs on electricity can potentially be cheaper if you’re timing it right. You can’t do nearly as much to control your natural gas or propane prices, which means shifting to electricity can offer a big advantage in terms of giving you more options to lower your utility bills.

• Health: As we’ve established, when you burn stuff it results in carbon dioxide emissions. That’s not all. Burning natural gas also produces a range of other pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulates outdoor exposures to nitrogen dioxide because of potential adverse health impacts such as exacerbation of respiratory problems like asthma. A growing body of research shows that indoor exposure to nitrogen dioxide through cooking on a natural gas range can also be harmful; for example, a 2013 meta-analysis of 41 prior studies found that “in children, gas cooking increases the risk of asthma and indoor NO2 [nitrogen dioxide] increases the risk of current wheeze.” This is one factor that you may want to consider in addition to climate impact in deciding whether to cut the cord on a gas range.

• Safety: Even the gas industry recognizes that, as a flammable, combustible substance, natural gas poses safety risks. Yes, natural gas fires and explosions are relatively rare. But having had the conversation with my kids about what to do if they smell a natural gas leak after an (empty) house blew up a few miles from our home, I can say that I consider this to be a pertinent issue.

The When

You may have gotten the idea on the “when” by now — there’s certainly plenty of overlap with Step Zero. The main addition to the list is to make sure you have the right expert help you need in terms of an electrician and an HVAC contractor who are on board with your goals. That means there are four key decision points where you can move the ball forward on your Step Two plans:

1. When you move.

2. When you’re identifying your go-to electrician and HVAC contractor.

3. When you buy a new car or replace fossil-fueled home appliances (furnace/boiler, AC unit, hot water heater, etc.).

4. When your utility (or someone else) offers to help pay for something.

 The How

Let’s be clear: this is the most complicated step. It involves changing over major home appliances plus your personal transportation and potentially doubling (or more) your home electricity use. If you get intimidated by the finicky details, the good news is that you can keep calm and electrify on with a number of great resources. For home heating and water, I recommend the Rewiring America guide that I’ve mentioned previously and a booklet put together by a company doing hands-on electrification work, Redwood Energy; or if you happen to live in California, a non-profit website called The Switch Is On provides something of a one-stop shop for home electrification. As you’re sorting through product options, the Carbon Switch website has some helpful buyers’ guides. You can also turn to a handful of energy-focused consumer sites like Energy Sage, which has recently announced it will expand beyond solar system shopping to a broad range of home electrification technologies. When you scope out an EV and charging set-up, there are EV-specific websites like myev.com or PlugStar.com, but traditional car-buying resources like Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds can offer guidance too. There’s even advice available on specific niches like used EVs and EV leasing. You’ll likely want to seek out this detailed information as you move through Step Two — but hopefully the below will help you understand how to get off to a running start.

A New Home

Unsurprisingly, the simplest way to shift your energy use to electricity is to move into a home that’s already set up for it, so you should ask about your priority items when you’re checking out a new place. Garage or driveway with access to power for EV charging? Electric heat and hot water? Electric or induction stove? You’re all set! Go on your merry way to Step Three. (And even if you pick a place that needs some supplemental work, you’ve done a favor for the world just by asking a realtor or leasing agent; each inquiry provides important feedback to the real estate and construction industry that there is marketplace demand for electrification technology.)

If your dream home — or at least your next mailing address — doesn’t quite check all the necessary boxes, you can still take the opportunity to start mapping out your pathway to cutting back on how much you burn fossil fuels. If you’re not planning to stay for that long, now might be the time to focus on switching to an EV that can move with you to your next address. Or if you’re planning to install electric heat, it might actually be a good thing if the existing natural gas furnace doesn’t seem likely to last much longer. The goal of shifting to electric power doesn’t need to dictate where you decide to live, but it can inform what you do (and budget for) once you move into a new home.

A New Contractor

You may be thinking: “Isn’t this step about buying new things?” Yes, it is, but you may well be buying those things — a new AC unit, a new furnace or boiler, a new stove — in an emergency situation when the old one has given up the ghost and you can’t just blithely go a week in January without heating your home or a week in August with no air conditioning. Unless you’re purposefully retiring some major home appliances before the end of their useful lives (a perfectly valid option!), you’ll want to be ready to pivot to electricity without a lot of notice.

That means some advance planning is key. To do that planning, you’ll want to loop in two important people: your electrician and your HVAC contractor. (Unless you’re a DIY kind of person, in which case the best thing I can probably do for you is make sure you look at the Rewiring America guide; that should have most or all of the information you need to take the ball and run with it yourself.)

It’s Electric!

The electrician piece should be fairly simple: you want to make sure that you have electrical service that will work to power all the doohickeys you’ll be converting to electricity. This comes down to: (1) panel size — i.e., how much electricity can flow into your home at once, in case you’re charging your EV and running the AC and cooking and showering all at the same time; and (2) having the right wiring in all the right places for EV charging and electric appliances. Both of those may be in good shape already, but if not you may need to upgrade your service panel and wiring, either as an independent project or combined with other planned renovation work if that helps cut labor costs. Either way, you’ll need to have a conversation with an electrician to figure out your home setup ahead of time.

If you want to get a head start, you can check your panel size (measured in amps (“A”)) on your own; Rewiring America (along with a number of YouTube videos) provides some straightforward instructions. You’ll want at least 100A, which is the current code minimum for a single-family home, although 200A will give you some room to spare for scenarios like charging multiple EVs at once. If you have an energy hog like a pool or hot tub you may even need more. Generally, a professional electrician will help you figure out what the right level is depending on your electrification plans, and if there are any workarounds to do the most you can with your existing service. (For example, there are companies that make “smart” panels or other energy management systems to keep your electricity use within your panel limits — and also to potentially take advantage of the best rates, more on that in Step Three.)

Whether you scope out your panel yourself or wait until you have other electrical work planned, you’ll want to talk to your electrician about the other piece of the puzzle: the appropriate wiring and outlets. If they’re not in place already, you should look at having wiring and outlets put in for a hot water heater, plus an induction stove and electric clothes dryer if you plan to change those from gas to electric. If you have the budget and the logistics are doable, setting up 240 volt (or “Level 2”) charging for an EV is also a great idea — more on that below. Once you have all that in place, you’ll be ready to “plug and play”!

Keepin’ It Cool (or Hot)

Your HVAC contractor will also be a key partner if you’re looking to convert your home heating. There’s a saying from 1980s politics, “personnel is policy,” which definitely applies here. The biggest favor you can do for yourself is to find a home heating and cooling expert who will work with you to achieve your electrification goals.

Most importantly, you’ll need someone who’s familiar with — and this is the one time I’ll saddle you with some real technical jargon — installing “inverter-driven air source heat pumps.” For the moment, you mainly just need to know that’s the type of electric heating you’ll want to put in. Although there’s an older form called “resistance heat,” that’s the kind you may have heard horror stories about, since it’s fairly inefficient and expensive. Think of heat pumps as the smartphone of home heating: the next level of performance beyond existing technology. Don’t stick with the flip-phone version! (Note that you may have heard of heat pumps for heating individual rooms or smaller areas using a “mini-split” or “ductless” heating unit, but these days they’re also a viable option for a central heating system.)

I won’t lie: finding an HVAC contractor who’s comfortable with heat pumps may be a little tricky in some places, especially those colder regions where the technology has only improved enough to be a viable option in the last several years. But there’s a home electrification guru, Nate the House Whisperer, who’s developing a network of contractors in the United States that you can check out here; he’s also started a Facebook group, Electrify Everything, where you can ask for recommendations for your area. If you’re in California, there’s also a contractor directory available through The Switch Is On. You may need to spend some time vetting options, but there are good candidates out there, and more every day — in part because of people like you joining their customer base.

A New Purchase

Never Change Your Engine Oil Again

In strict greenhouse gas emissions terms, your biggest priority for moving to electricity should be your vehicle. (If you travel mostly by public transit, bicycle, or walking, then pat yourself on the back and ignore this part. Also, if you’re interested in an electric bike as yet another option, those are a real thing now — but since that’s not likely to be a lot of you in the car-centric U.S., it won’t be my focus here.) This used to be a fairly big ask back when EVs had limited range and high sticker prices. But with most vehicles now able to go hundreds of miles on a single charge, dozens of models (even trucks and SUVs) available at rapidly decreasing price points, a growing used vehicle market, and a public charging network that’s growing every day, a lot more of you should be able to find an option that won’t require a crazy budget or a huge change in your driving lifestyle.

For the most part, looking for an EV is the same as any other vehicle shopping experience, where you figure out your top priorities and then see what you can afford that fits those criteria. The first half of that task is up to you. As for the second, you may be happy to hear that EVs are actually a purchase where you may end up coming out ahead financially. Remember: a traditional gasoline-powered has hundreds of essential parts, versus just a couple dozen for a fully battery-powered EV, plus you’re not constantly creating mini-explosions inside an EV by combusting gas. That translates into lower maintenance costs for EVs since you can skip out on oil changes and transmission service. (If you’re thinking of going with a plug-in hybrid that can use gas or electricity, keep in mind that you’ll miss out on those savings.) Also, in many places electricity is a cheaper fuel than gasoline on a per-mile basis.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) provides a cost calculator where you can put in some basic information about what makes and models you’re looking at, how much you drive, and where you live to get a sense of the comparative costs of ownership between electric and non-electric vehicles. There are a few important caveats to this calculator: (1) it doesn’t account for potential purchase incentives, including a $7500 federal tax incentive for purchase of a new EV that’s currently available for vehicles from manufacturers other than Tesla and GM; (2) it uses average state electricity costs that may not reflect utility programs that will let you charge your vehicle more cheaply at certain times of day — more on that in Step Three; (3) it doesn’t reflect potentially different vehicle registration costs for an EV versus a gas-powered vehicle; and (4) it doesn’t include the cost of purchasing a home charger. But the DOE calculator provides a reasonable initial benchmark, and you can layer on additional factors from there.

Speaking of a home charger: the main way that getting an EV is different from a gas-powered vehicle is that you don’t generally fill up your gas tank every night right outside your door. By contrast, a federal study of thousands of EV drivers found that on average over 80% of their charging occurred at home. That means the other important piece of the puzzle in switching to an EV is figuring out your home charging setup.

There are basically two options for home charging: plugging straight into a standard outlet for “Level 1”; or using a 240V outlet and a home charger for “Level 2.” The first of these is the simplest and cheapest, assuming you have an outlet that’s accessible from your usual parking spot; but as you may have guessed there is a downside. Level 1 charging is fairly slow, adding just a few miles of range per hour of charging, versus Level 2 charging which can provide 10-30 miles per hour. To get that speedier Level 2 charge, however, you may need to upgrade your electric service and purchase of charging equipment, which can cost anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars (although there are often government tax credits or incentives available). You’ll have to choose which one fits your preferences and your budget, although as you’ll hear more about in Step Three, it’s worth considering whether a Level 2 setup is likely to pay for itself by letting you charge when electricity is at its cheapest.

What if you don’t have easy access to home charging? I know some of you live in apartment buildings or condos where you can’t just set up a charger for yourself, or the costs may just be prohibitive for wiring your garage or installing a standalone charger in your driveway. In that case, you may want to consider a plug-in hybrid, which can run on electricity most of the time or gas if you’re out of juice. That option can definitely still reduce your overall climate footprint as long as you rely on the battery a lot of the time — and of course, charge from a carbon-free energy supply.

Of course, there’s still that 20% of so of charging that you may not be able to do at home. My main message here is: for a large percentage of you, that’s not going to be a big problem. Take a look at a map of EV charging stations from the U.S. Department of Energy or PlugShare and you’ll see that there are a number of options in many metro areas and along highway corridors, with more coming every day. Those of you who get Teslas will have access to their “Supercharger” network, which may also open up to non-Tesla owners in the future. Workplace charging is growing too. If access to chargers away from home has given you concerns about going the EV route in the past, check again — and you may be pleasantly surprised.

Pump It Up (With a Heat Pump)

If you heat your home with natural gas, propane, or fuel oil, it may seem like a big change to switch to electricity. Here’s where I’ll point out that you almost certainly already use electricity to cool your home. That means switching your heat over is as simple as two magic words: heat pump. That’s a technology that can use electricity to move heat into your home in the winter, just like you use electricity to move heat out of your home in the summer — basically an air conditioner that can go in reverse. Because a heat pump uses existing heat instead of creating heat through combustion (i.e., burning stuff), it can deliver heat more efficiently and with a lower climate impact compared to the most efficient gas furnaces in many homes (even accounting for the use of global warming agents as chemical refrigerants).

Heat pumps have been around for decades, and they’re not uncommon in milder climates like the southern U.S. or in Europe., whether as part of a ducted system or a ductless “mini-split.” But it’s only more recently that the technology has improved enough to make heat pumps a viable option in colder regions (especially combined with good home insulation, backup electric resistance heating for the coldest few days of the year, or both). That means, as I pointed out earlier, one of the most important things you can do is find an HVAC contractor who’s comfortable with installing heat pumps, since they may not be thick on the ground in some places.

Once you have a contractor you can work with, you need a plan. If you wait until an HVAC emergency before you think about switching your home heating to electricity, you’ll be limited by what equipment is available, your electrical setup, and your emergency budget. The good thing is there are three simple steps you can take to be ready to take the heat pump leap:

1. Figure out what heat pump you want: There are a lot of models out there, so you’ll want to identify the best options for your home ahead of time. This will be a conversation with your HVAC contractor, although Rewiring America’s home electrification guide offers a lot of useful pointers and the Redwood Energy booklet covers this topic in-depth as well. Your contractor may want to do a home energy audit to help figure out what size you need. That’s a good bet since it can help you figure out whether you can use a smaller, less expensive model, either based on your home’s existing airflow or with some targeted air sealing and insulation.

2. Figure out what electric service you need: If you haven’t done this already, you should check whether increasing your electricity use for home heating will require upgrading your electrical panel. If so, make sure you get that taken care of ahead of time so you’re ready for your shiny new heat pump when the time comes.

3. Figure out your timing: Since a heat pump can both heat and cool your home, you can switch your home heating to carbon-free electricity when either your heating equipment (furnace or boiler) or your air conditioning needs to be replaced — whichever is likely to “hit the wall” first. In either case, you should plan ahead for when your HVAC equipment will be getting toward the end of its lifespan but before it fails entirely, so that you’re not stuck trying to hunt down the heat pump you want in an emergency or come up with several thousand dollars in a pinch. Of course, if you’re ready to fully electrify even with appliances that have some good years left, don’t let me stop you from going that route; the important thing is to plan out your timing so you can have the information and money you need ready to go. No matter what, make sure you never buy a “one-way” air conditioner again!

Getting Into Hot Water

The good news is that, compared to switching over your home heating, the change to an electric hot water heater is pretty straightforward. There are plenty of reasonably priced, efficient models out there using the same heat pump technology that works so well to heat your home without burning fossil fuels. And the process is generally the same as for home heating: figure out the model you want to buy, make sure your electric service is sufficient, and figure out when it makes sense to make the switch.

The main piece of advice I have for you on this front is to consider Step Three before you choose a tankless hot water heater. As you’ll learn there, if you have a tankless model you won’t be able to heat your water before you need it, which might keep you from accessing lower utility rates or cleaner electricity. And although a tankless model does keep you from wasting electricity on hot water that cools down before you use it, if you’re getting your electricity from carbon-free sources that’s not a big concern in terms of climate impact.

A New Discount

I’m going to assume here that you’ve at least skimmed the discussion of this topic in Step Zero rather than cutting and pasting that here. But I do want to reiterate that you should always check whether there are programs or incentives available to help you stop burning fossil fuels, the same as with your overall home efficiency investments. This type of assistance used to be vanishingly rare, but as policymakers are coming to recognize the importance of electrification in addressing climate change and the many market barriers in the way, “fuel-switching” programs have become more common (at least through certain states and utilities — the federal government is another story). That means it’s worth seeing if you can access tax deductions, rebates, up-front discounts, or help with installation and electrical upgrades. There may even be special utility rates available — more on that in Step Three. If these types of incentives are available where you live, it can be a good push to move forward with your electrification improvements sooner rather than later, when you know you’ll get at least some help.