During the 30 years of war in the Middle East, beginning in the ‘90s “natural” gas was promoted as the best way to heat our homes, water and food as a way to diversify away from oil that came predominantly from the Middle East. Natural gas could be found in the US, and fracking technology was making it easier to reach once unreachable stores of it. Many if not most of our houses and our buildings are now built with connections to natural gas pipelines. When Obama was famously asked about his energy policy during his tenure; whether he preferred natural gas, oil, renewables or nuclear, he famously said, “All the above” and this set us on a course to diversify energy sources and frack away at our landscape for more American sourced forms of energy.
However, natural gas is an underground fossil fuel-based methane gas that we now know has its drawbacks. Natural gas often contains other more dangerous substances, such as carcinogenic benzene. It is so highly toxic at low concentrations, that a stinky substance called mercaptin is added so that our noses can detect it early on. Fracking not only desecrates landscapes, pollutes drinking water and releases carcinogenic toxins into the air, it also emits large amounts of greenhouse gasses that are warming the planet at an alarming rate. This is all not to mention that natural gas is highly flammable and responsible for numerous explosions in buildings, homes and City streets.
More and more communities are trying to eliminate these hazards by mandating that new construction eliminate plumbing for natural gas, requiring full electrification, something the fossil fuel industry is trying to fight. Electrifying buildings and eliminating natural gas is one of the quickest ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Electric appliances, coupled with solar energy can completely eliminate emissions or get really close to net zero emissions.
If you do find yourself replacing a gas appliance, remodeling, or doing new construction, choosing energy efficient electric appliances are the way to go. Here are some of the current best in class appliances to help you get the natural gas hazard out of your home.
Some of the challenges you might experience are that you need to provide a 220 Volt plug that may not have existed for your outgoing gas stove.
Heat pump water heaters provide instant efficiency over gas heaters and if your home is powered with solar panels, switching anything on gas to electric will help you save.
A big switch and a big job is switching to heat pumps to heat your home. One of the benefits of doing this is eliminating ducts. Homes can be designed without interstitial spaces or big, ugly, clunky ducts. Architects can go wild on the design front without having to work around ducting. Generally what you see in a home or even a small business are “mini-splits” or wall-mounted units that heat the space. However, you can use an existing duct system to have the usual floor registers if that is more to your liking. The heat pumps have the added advantage of being a double agent; they can both heat AND cool your house. How cool is that? We like Bryant heat pumps.
There are a lot of government and utility rebates for heat pumps for both hot water and space heating. You may find these rebates and the cost savings make it a no brainer to make the switch. While you’re at, consider purchasing or financing solar panels and let the energy of the sun power your home. Solar panels can be a better investment than your retirement fund or the stock market. They pay for themselves in 5-15 years and then provide free energy for at least 25 years. It’s a guaranteed return on investment that you can’t get elsewhere.
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