Electrifying Your Home
- What is electrification? Building electrification is the process of replacing fossil fuel-burning equipment like furnaces and gas stoves with their electric counterparts. Switching to electricity to run your home means that your energy can come from clean and more affordable sources like solar or wind. It also means you can protect yourself from high gas costs and improve indoor air quality.
- Why does CUB support it? While it won’t happen overnight, a thoughtful, managed, long-term transition away from gas for all consumers is needed, for the sake of our bottom lines, our health and our climate. Read CUB’s quick explainer.
Electrification requires planning. The first step toward going all-electric is to make your home as energy efficient as possible. This will maximize savings before you switch from gas, and it will help when the time comes to replace your gas-heating equipment with an electric heat pump. That’s because an energy efficient home may require a smaller, less expensive pump.
- Energy Assessments and Audits–The best way to create a personalized checklist of efficiency upgrades for your home is through a home energy audit, which is offered by local contractors. The cost of an audit may be partially covered by federal or utility company incentives. You can also contact your local utility to see if they offer a more generalized energy assessment.
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- ComEd and Ameren Home Energy Assessments
- Home Energy Audit contractor directory
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- Energy Efficiency and Weatherization–Once you have your checklist of efficiency upgrades, you can start tackling them one by one. By improving efficiency first, you ensure that your future electric appliances will work optimally and won’t have to compensate for wasted energy.
- Technology–To fully electrify your home, you typically need to replace four key gas-powered appliances: your clothes dryer, furnace, water heater and stove. Read more about them below.
- Heat Pump Resources:
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- Other resources for getting started:
The Inflation Reduction Act enacted in 2022 contains several federal incentives for electrification and home improvement. (The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency says Illinois residents may not see rebates available until later this year, due to delays in federal program guidance. In the meantime, you can take advantage of the available tax credits and utility company incentives.)
- Resources:
Hear from residents who have installed heat pumps in their homes.
CUB and advocates around the state are working towards implementing building electrification in a way that is equitable and consumer-friendly. Learn more about initiatives in Illinois below.
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- Illinois:
- Chicago: Proposed Clean Affordable Buildings Ordinance
- Evanston: Proposed Healthy Buildings Ordinance
