Energy Efficiency

We are about to move into an all-electric apartment. That means cooking, space heating and water heating are all accomplished by electric energy. Same with air conditioning. This will be our first time living in an all electric home. I’m a worrier so I’m concerned about the electric bill.

The leasing agent called the power company and they told her our apartment cost about $105.50 per month for the previous tenant. I had budgeted $50 for gas and $75 for electric and was surprised that the all electric home would be less costly. Still I worried!

I wondered why a landlord or investor in an apartment building would choose all-electric rather than a blend of electric and gas. Although it is understandable a building owner would be most concerned with property and life safety, quality of life and national energy standards should be a concern as well in my opinion. Or is it?

Safety: an electrical fuel source eliminates gas explosions from fire and disaster calculations. Electrical fires are still possible but usually only from deteriorating or faulty wiring. Open flame cooking is eliminated by electric stoves and ovens.

Investment in physical plant: electric appliances are less expensive than other energy sourced units, and last longer with fewer moving parts. Depreciation costs are less as well.

However, when energy costs are contemplated efficiency and cost effectiveness standards are starkly different. If the landlord pays for energy use, it would pay to determine use-costs combined with original equipment purchase, maintenance and replacement costs. Most likely energy efficient equipment is likely to be less expensive overall. However, if the investor does not pay for operations of the equipment, it is the tenant who is stuck with the bill!

Quality of life should be an issue for housing providers.  Humidity levels of ambient indoor air are much lower than gas heat furnaces or heaters. Gas heating equipment normally relies on air circulation from fans and provides opportunity to filter the air at the same time.

At this point I searched Google for more answers and came up with a surprise. You guessed it! All electric homes are less expensive to operate than one energized by gas and electric appliances. When technology is added to the matrix I learned that electric cooking with induction units is actually safer, cheaper and faster than gas stoves.

Electric base board heating is less noisy than gas. Of course an electric forced air furnace cancels that comparison. Electric heat is drier than gas heat but then a humidifier is easily added in either situation to address that issue. And so it goes. With each question and assumption I learned there are answers that surprised me. My assumptions did not prove to be true!

So I’m looking forward to experiencing the all-electric environment to see for myself. I’ll keep you posted on the results!!

As a kid we moved from southern California to western Massachusetts. In New England homes were heated by oil furnaces, gas was not commonly available for stoves and electric appliances were more the norm. Although that may have changed in the past 60 years (you think?) my dad moved east to take a new job with General Electric. Of course their mantra was ‘all-electric homes’ and dad thought that was a good idea. Especially when he got his first winter’s oil bill!  However, New England was slow to accept gas heat and cooking because the rock-ribbed landscape made gas line installations expensive. In California, then the home of oil wells and natural gas transmissions, gas heating and cooking were the norm.

The juxtaposition of geography and technology over time has changed perceptions and experience. Certainly the all-electric home is more convenient and less expensive to buy and outfit. Now I only need to see how it works in practice to determine if all the rest of my assumptions were baseless!

We shall see.

December 18, 2013