Our home electrification project is complete. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) turned off the fossil gas supply and pulled the gas meter.[1] It seemed anticlimactic after all the work we put into it.
PG&E’s service technician went about his business efficiently and professionally, sealing the gas line leading to the house and the now unused gas line entering the house. He slung his tools over his shoulder, picked up the meter in one hand, and the remaining fittings in the other and off he went.
It’s been nearly three years since the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed and nearly two years since we began this odyssey to “stop burning stuff” by electrifying our home.
None of this has been easy or cheap despite incentives in the IRA and subsidies from the state of California. However, it’s done now. All that remains is writing up our experience of the process.
We won’t know how these new appliances will affect our electric consumption for some time. Our four kW solar system generates about 6,000 kWh per year, roughly equivalent to our total consumption, including our electric car. Our consumption will go up for sure, possibly by as much as 2,000 kWh per year, but we won’t know for sure until a year or two from now.
All told we bought nearly $26,000 worth of high-efficiency appliances at a net cost to us of ~$14,000. We could have shaved another $3,000 off of that by using California’s Phase II implementation of the IRA rebates. And we could have possibly cut another $1,000 by going with a low bid on the water heater.
California has been glacially slow at launching its implementation of the IRA program and the second phase may never go into effect now that the Trump regime is trying to claw back the program’s funds. We got tired of waiting and went ahead without Phase II funding.
Here’s what we installed.
- High efficiency, variable-speed heat-pump HVAC system.
- High efficiency heat-pump water heater.
- High efficiency heat-pump dryer.
- Induction stove.
- Two new 240-V circuits to power the heat-pump water heater and the induction stove.
The HVAC system was the most expensive item followed by the heat-pump water heater. The appliances cost about double what we normally spend, but the rebates took some of the sting out of that.
So far everything is working as planned. Most importantly, we’re no longer “burning stuff.”
More in the Electrification series.
- Steps to Electrification: Dumping Fossil Fuels
- Electrification: Tracking Down a Mystery Outlet
- Electrification: Induction Stove
- Natural Gas Is Linked With Cancer — Not Wind Power
[1] Fossil gas was formerly called “natural” gas to distinguish it from “town” gas that was created by burning coal in a reducing atmosphere. The “natural” in natural gas was used because the gas came from the earth. It was natural and not man made. However, with time the word “natural” has taken on new, expanded meanings to include healthy. Fossil gas is, if anything, not “healthy,” and we haven’t manufactured “town” gas in a century or more. Thus, it’s more appropriate today to call gas mined from the earth as “fossil” gas because it is a fossil fuel like petroleum.
