Need help switching appliances from gas to electric? A ‘coach’ can help

WHITTIER, Calif. — After replacing her gas car with an electric one and installing solar panels on her century-old house, Lindsey Williamson and her husband were looking for more ways to reduce their climate pollution.

“We just started thinking, what are the next things that we could change out, from gas to electric?” Williamson says. She learned about efficient heat pump water heaters on the home improvement television show This Old House and decided that was their best option.

Williamson says she called contractors. Some claimed to have never heard of a heat pump water heater, while others tried to convince her to install another gas water heater. Only one installer came to her house, but then she says he “essentially, just like, ghosted us.”

“My main problem was finding somebody locally who could actually install what I was looking for,” Williamson says.

Enough people are having the same experience that companies, non-profit organizations and government agencies are offering help. They’re also helping homeowners and renters navigate confusing government incentives for purchasing cleaner appliances. Think of it as a climate coach.

A coach to help you decarbonize

Converting from natural gas to electric appliances in your home can reduce your contribution to climate change, especially for big energy users like a furnace or water heater. Nearly a third of the United States’ greenhouse gases that are heating the planet come from the energy used in buildings. Burning fossil fuel gas in appliances is one of the biggest sources.

That’s why electrification — switching from gas to electric — is a key climate solution. Appliances are powered by electricity that’s generated from an increasingly cleaner grid.

And there are indications these electric appliances are becoming more popular. Heat pumps have outsold gas furnaces in the U.S. since 2021, according to the energy transition group RMI. And Consumer Reports found in a 2022 survey that while only 3% of respondents had an induction stove in their kitchen at the time, “almost 70 percent of people said they might or would consider induction for their next range or cooktop.”

In Williamson’s search for an installer in the Los Angeles area, she came across QuitCarbon’s website. The startup operates only in California for now, but plans to expand nationwide. It vets contractors, first by making sure they won’t try and talk a customer out of converting from gas to electric. The firm also checks out reviews and references before matching contractors with customers. If the customer chooses that installer, QuitCarbon earns a commission.

QuitCarbon launched in 2022 after CEO and “Chief Quitter” Cooper Marcus hired an expensive consultant to make climate-friendly changes to his San Francisco Victorian home. “Walking down the street in my neighborhood, looking at my neighbors homes,” Marcus says it occurred to him, “Wow, if the route from here to a fossil-free society runs through a multi-thousand dollar plan — just the plan — for each home, then we are screwed.”

Marcus says he created his company to solve this problem. He thinks of the business as a decarbonization “coach” that helps people navigate the confusing transition to a home with cleaner energy.

Williamson says QuitCarbon found her a contractor, who was willing to install a new heat pump water heater within a few weeks. It was more expensive than a gas model but she expected that.

“We’ve done the math, like on an Excel spreadsheet,” Williamson says, and the water heater will save money on her utility bills over the long-term by using less energy.

She says QuitCarbon also identified available government incentives, which reduced the cost. “That was an added bonus,” she says, “I’m not a tax person, so I didn’t really know too much about that.”

Marcus says the company closely tracks incentives — what’s available now, when they expire and what’s coming. “We can advise our clients, perhaps, to wait,” he says. “You’re thinking about this upgrade, but if you just hold off a little while, we can help you get more free money from the government.”

States and nonprofits offer coaching too

A few states offer services to residents that ease the transition from gas to electric appliances. In Maine there’s the quasi-state agency the Efficiency Maine Trust.

“We are entirely focused on the consumer experience,” says Michael Stoddard, executive director. He says the goal is to create a lot of demand for more efficient appliances by making them easier to buy. “We’re not interested in just doing ten or 20 of these or 100 or 200. We need to do hundreds of thousands — converting these homes from imported, expensive, dirty fuels to high efficiency, clean electrical systems.”

Efficiency Maine’s website answers basic questions about how an appliance works, what’s available and how much they cost. Stoddard says in some cases customers don’t even have to apply for incentives — suppliers and stores take care of that.

“We’ve worked out the financial arrangements with them behind the scenes,” he says. “So you just go to the store, you buy the thing, and instantaneously the price is marked down to reflect that incentive.”

Stoddard says by focusing on demand for cleaner appliances, the rest of the local marketplace aligns behind that. “When customers start buying hundreds of thousands of heat pumps, heat pump suppliers will hire more workers and they will pay to train them,” he says.

Part of creating that demand is ensuring customers have information about more efficient appliances when they need it.

“Most of the time, when people have the conversation about needing to replace their water heater, it’s because the shower is cold in the morning,” says Ari Matusiak, president and CEO of Rewiring America. If they haven’t already done research on cleaner appliances, he says that puts them at an information disadvantage when they need to make a quick decision.

His group offers advice, including how to plan for electric appliances and what renters can do. Rewiring America also is training volunteers to help households get the information needed to choose more climate-friendly appliances.

“We’ve started an electrification coaches program, which are basically volunteers — a lot of retired engineers and people who are just committed,” Matusiak says. They attend a four-week training, so they have the technical knowledge to help consumers.

“We’ve trained 1,100 people around the country, over the course of the last year or so,” Matusiak says. But with 132 million U.S. households, there’s also a big demand for this kind of help.