Converting Our Home to 100% Renewable Energy

For several years, Judy and I have talked about switching our home heating system from natural gas to electricity generated by renewable energy.  We replaced our old gas water heater with an electric one almost four years ago. 

in 2023, we looked into replacing our old gas furnace with an electric heat pump.  We had had our gas furnace since 1999 and worried that it would die sooner or later on a cold winter day. 

Without getting into a detailed physics lesson, heat pumps work by pulling heat from cold outdoor air and transferring it indoors.  But during warm weather, the heat pump pulls heat from indoor air and transfers it to the outdoors.

Heat pumps are more expensive than gas furnaces, but large federal rebates (up to $8000) were promised by the Biden administration which would have eased the pain to our wallets if we purchased one.  However, the promised federal rebate program never seemed to get going.  After last year’s election, we figured it was dead.

For cooling our home, we have an evaporative cooler which sits on our roof. It is cheaper to operate than air conditioning and works well in Denver’s dry but not too hot climate.  This spring, we got bad news from the fellow who installed and maintains the cooler.  He said it would probably only last one more season as the 20-year-old beast was rusting out. 

The news about the evaporative cooler pushed me to re-investigate heat pumps. To our delight, we learned that our energy supplier (Xcel Energy) gave rebates for installing heat pumps which were about as good as the previously promised Federal program.  Plus, there was a maximum $2000 federal tax credit for installing a heat pump system.  The tax credit was due to expire at the end of 2025, so now was the time to act.

The lowest bid we received came from Quality West Heating and Cooling in Denver which had the advantage of being recommended by our friends who had contracted with them to install systems in their home and rental properties.

We gave the work to Quality West which had provided two bids:  one which would include an air handler that would use our existing heat ducts; the other which would use small, wall-mounted air distribution units in several rooms.  We went with the system with the air handler which was less expensive.

Just before work started, Rob, the owner of Quality West, brought his contract electrician, Chris, to the house to look at our very old electrical panel.  Rob had proposed a sub-panel to supplement the existing panel.  The heat pump and air handler would need 220 volt power and we wanted to also have the capacity for an additional 220 volt outlet for a future electric car charger.  No way could we get by with just a new sub-panel, Chris said.   We would need to replace the old panel (dating from the 1963 construction of our house) with a new one with greater capacity.  This upgrade would also require lots of new wiring to comply with the Denver electrical code.  These improvements jacked up the price of the heat pump system by nearly 20% - gulp!

Judy had sticker shock but, without doing extensive research, my gut told me that a 1963 electrical panel which had originally only had two 220 volt circuits (for an electric stove and clothes dryer) and now had three (including the electric water heater) was simply inadequate to handle additional connections.  And after seeing our new top of the line electrical equipment, new wiring, and all the time it took for the installation, I’m convinced we got a fair price. 

With a team of five guys, Quality West got the entire mechanical system installed in one day.  The electrical part of the job took several days for Chris and his helper.  When Chris was finishing up, Joel from Quality West came over to start the system and give us a lesson in its operation.

 

A couple days later, the mechanical and electrical inspectors from the city came by to approve the work.  We were relieved that they found no problems and gave our contractors high marks for the quality of their work and the equipment.

So far, the new system is working fine.  The real tests will come on the coldest winter days and during the summer’s heat. 

I’m not going to publish the costs for the system because every house and local climate situation is different.  Readers would be looking at apples and oranges if they tried use the price we paid as a guideline.

As for electricity use, we have contracted with a solar energy co-op which is feeding its generated power to Xcel’s grid.  How will this new, all-electric system affect our annual energy costs?  It’s hard to say how future expenses will compare with our old combined bills for gas and electric.  It depends, in part, on the future prices of natural gas and renewable energy.  And, by the way, we haven’t installed solar panels on our roof because our roofing is getting old.  We don’t want to put up solar panels now and then have to get new roofing with them up there.    

Whether we actually have higher or lower energy bills in the future is not the point for us.  Instead, we would like to have the satisfaction of knowing we have made a small contribution in the fight against the climate crisis.  And, we hope we can set an example for others who want to join in this effort.    

 

Thanks to Judy Greenfield for her editorial help with this story.

© Will Mahoney, 2025

All rights reserved.  No part of this blog post nor any associated photo can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission of the author and photographers.