ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
More Americans are looking for climate-friendly home appliances. There are even government incentives to help them do so. But navigating which incentives to use can be exhausting. Even finding someone to install that new furnace or water heater can be a nightmare. That's why companies and nonprofit groups have created programs to help. NPR's Jeff Brady has more.
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: In Whittier, California, Lindsey Williamson (ph) just wanted to replace her gas water heater.
LINDSEY WILLIAMSON: Very old, corroded and was super noisy, like boom, boom, boom.
BRADY: She'd heard about electric heat pump water heaters. They extract heat from the air to heat water and use less energy. One installer came to her house, but then...
WILLIAMSON: Essentially just, like, ghosted us after they were like, yeah, we can do it, and we'll send you a quote. And then heard nothing - texted, called, nothing after that.
BRADY: Then she found a San Francisco startup called QuitCarbon. The company had someone ready to install an efficient water heater within a few weeks, and they helped Williamson get government incentives.
WILLIAMSON: This is the shed to the water heater.
BRADY: The heat pump water heater was more expensive than a gas version, but Williamson used a spreadsheet and figured she'll save money over the long term with lower utility bills.
WILLIAMSON: And other than that, it looks just like a normal water heater. It's gray and kind of ugly.
BRADY: QuitCarbon launched three years ago after CEO Cooper Marcus says he had to hire an expensive consultant to make his San Francisco Victorian home more climate-friendly. Walking around his neighborhood, he had a realization.
COOPER MARCUS: Wow, if the route from here to our fossil-free society runs through a multithousand-dollar plan, just the plan for each home, then we are screwed.
BRADY: His company vets contractors first by making sure they won't try and talk a customer out of converting from gas to electric. Then QuitCarbon checks out reviews and references before matching contractors with customers. If the customer chooses that installer, QuitCarbon earns a commission. A few states also offer this kind of help. In Maine, there's the quasi-state agency Efficiency Maine Trust.
MICHAEL STODDARD: We are entirely focused on the consumer experience.
BRADY: Executive director Michael Stoddard says the goal is to create a lot of demand for cleaner, more efficient appliances by making them easier to buy.
STODDARD: We're not interested in just doing 10 or 20 of these, or a hundred or 200. We need to do hundreds of thousands, converting these homes from imported, expensive, dirty fuels to high-efficiency, clean electrical systems.
BRADY: The agency's website answers basic questions - how an appliance works, what's available and how much it costs. Stoddard says, in some cases, customers don't even have to apply for incentives. Suppliers and stores take care of that.
STODDARD: We've worked out the financial arrangements with them behind the scenes. So you just go to the store, you buy the thing, and instantaneously, the price is marked down to reflect that incentive.
BRADY: Nonprofit groups also have programs to make buying cleaner appliances easier. Ari Matusiak heads Rewiring America. The group has an electrification planner, and it offers electric coaches.
ARI MATUSIAK: Which are basically volunteers, a lot of retired engineers and people who are just committed. And we've trained 1,100 people around the country over the course of the last year or so.
BRADY: Matusiak says they help people make climate-friendly appliance decisions that many Americans haven't thought much about before. But as climate scientists warn that action is needed to produce climate pollution, and with more than 132 million U.S. households, a lot more people will grapple with these decisions in coming years.
Jeff Brady, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALLAH-LAS' "NO WEREWOLF") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
