A few weeks ago, I had just finished writing my last story of 2022 — about how aging gas water heaters are prone to sudden failure, so don’t wait to upgrade to an electric heat pump model — when I heard the sound of a waterfall cascading through my Berkeley, California, home. Without warning, my nearly 17-year-old heater had burst, and I found myself in the very predicament I’d counseled against: without hot water for more than two weeks during an unusually cold December.
Installing another natural gas water heater would have been quick and affordable but it was also out of the question. I was determined not to lock in another 15-plus years of carbon emissions in a state where gas water heaters account for about 90% of the market. Heat pump water heaters, by contrast, are up to four times more efficient than a conventional model, as they extract warmth from the air to heat water rather than burn fossil fuel.
Getting a heat pump water heater, however, swiftly became an expensive and frustrating endeavor, even for someone who writes about home electrification and lives in climate-forward California. While everyone’s experience will differ, here are four important lessons from my crash course in home decarbonization.
