Why Should You Electrify Your Home?

Do you have plans for Saturday, April 6? Make some room in your schedule for Electrify DC’s Healthy Homes Fair! Described as “show and tell for adults,” the free event will be open to anyone who wants to learn how they can fight climate change — with their home. We sat down with Vanessa Bertelli, co-founder and executive director of Electrify DC, to learn more.

The Healthy Homes Fair is a free event targeted toward homeowners, renters, home renovation professionals and career seekers. It’s a chance to get up close and personal with the tools you need to electrify your home, and also to learn more about available incentives in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. From 1pm to 5pm, the fair will be open to the public. Expect an appliance “petting zoo,” cooking demonstrations, and activities for kids.

But why should we electrify our homes? Bertelli started her home decarbonization journey with a simple yet powerful motivation: to do what she could to make the world better for her kids.

“A lot of this is up to our governments or big corporations, but there are some aspects that are largely within our control. Out of these, there is this one that is just so intimately within our control, which is the choices that we make inside our home. And that to me was such an eye-opener, like not only what I choose to install in my home has a direct impact on climate, but it has a direct impact on the health of my children,” says Bertelli. “Yes, recycling also has an impact on climate. But the direct immediate results of recycling are not on me and my kids. There’s just a punch in the gut kind of motivation to do whatever we can in our homes right now.” 

Save The Planet With Home Electrification, But Save Your Health Too

There’s not just an ideological impetus to electrify, but a practical one as well. Bertelli points out that any time we burn fossil fuels in our homes, we’re producing poisonous fumes right inside the spaces where we’re living and breathing. And then — if we have adequate ventilation in place — we’re pushing those fumes out into our communities. Electrifying our homes directly impacts our health and the health of our neighbors.

Bertelli is also inspired by her experiences living in other countries. She grew up in Italy and Switzerland, and has lived in South Africa, China, Singapore, and the UK. “What I bring to this is awareness that we use most of these technologies in the rest of the world. We have been forever,” she says. “For example, I had an induction stove in our apartment in Shanghai in 2007. HVAC heat pumps are ubiquitous in climates like Singapore and even northern China where you need heating and cooling and people do it with heat pumps. That international awareness helps a lot in not being okay with the status quo, in knowing that there is more and better that we could be striving for.”

Electrify DC launched with a mission to help DMV residents strive for more. In Bertelli’s words, the organization’s mission is to “make decarbonization easier, faster, and more affordable for all.”

“As I was decarbonizing, I was like, oh man, we’ve got to make this easier,” she says. “I realized that not enough people knew about the need to decarbonize, and about the ways of doing it, and how much there is to gain from an economic perspective.”

Decarbonize: Go Solar

Renewable energy is part of any homeowner’s decarbonization journey. And Bertelli says DC is “hands down the best place in the country for solar.” Call us biased, but at Uprise we totally agree! With DC’s lucrative Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SRECs) market, and programs like Solar for All, it’s a fantastic time to go green.

“In DC, we’re super lucky because by 2032, Pepco will need to be sourcing all of its electricity with renewables. It’s not only that these machines have better efficiency and consume less energy, but also as long as they are all electric, they will be running on renewables,” says Bertelli. “In the meantime, because 2032 is eight years away and we don’t have time to waste, anybody who possibly can should slap solar on their roofs. It is a total no-brainer.” 

How To Get The Most Out Of The Healthy Homes Fair

Instead of telling everyone to electrify, Bertelli thought, why not show them? Inspired by the days of elementary school, she decided to organize “the biggest show and tell for adults there ever was.”

“This event is not a fancy trade show. It’s not a highbrow panel discussion. It is a come one, come all, let’s have fun, and let’s learn and ask questions about these technologies and products,” she says. “There’s a reason why education uses show and tell so much; it is such an impactful way of increasing knowledge.” 

So how can you make the most of your time at the fair? Bertelli’s first suggestion was to download the Healthy Homes Fair app, available for iOS and Android.

“You will be able to see all the programming minute by minute and all of the exhibitors and their resources,” she says. “On the day of, you will also be able to participate in five different scavenger hunts: one for homeowners, one for renters, one for students, one for career seekers, and one for home renovation professionals, for a chance to win fabulous induction stoves, ranges, plugins, really beautiful machines that you can take home with you.”

She recommends home renovation professionals, realtors, and brokers attend training sessions offered during the morning from 10am to 12pm. The sessions will cover heat pump technology (as they eliminate the most pollution), regulations and the legislative landscape, and how to advise clients on available rebates, with a demo of Rewiring America’s incentives calculator. A networking lunch will follow the training sessions.

Next Steps On Your Home Electrification Journey

Following the fair, for those who are inspired and ready to electrify, Bertelli recommends starting with an energy audit.

“I cannot stress enough how much an energy audit is useful. A good energy auditor will want to spend a good few hours in your home, taking note of the appliances you have and their age and all of the nooks and crannies that need insulating or caulking. That will really pave the way for a more efficient decarbonization journey that will save you time and money and hassle,” she says. 

She also recommends working with professionals who have experience in home electrification. “Uninformed home renovation professionals might have an initial gut reaction to push back. It’s understandable because the learning curve is expensive for the trade,” says Bertelli. “This is where Electrify DC really hopes to be able to help in making the learning curve less problematic.” 

The Future Of Home Electrification In The DMV

In the long run, Electrify DC has big plans to continue showing homeowners how to decarbonize. They’re working on demonstration sites, recruiting homeowners and renters who have gone electric and can help their neighbors learn about the process and available incentives. Electrify DC has one demonstration site running already, and seven in the pipeline. Ultimately, they’d love to have a demonstration site in each one of the District’s 131 neighborhoods.

“Each of our homes is different. Each of our neighborhoods is different. Each of our financial means are different,” says Bertelli. “We don’t need one path to decarbonization, we need 131 paths to decarbonization.”

Electrify DC’s local focus is an important part of their mission. “I live here. We’re residents of Ward 4. We’re not going anywhere anytime soon. I love my community,” Bertelli says. “And more fundamentally, all of this work means absolutely nothing if we do not figure out local implementation. If we do not figure out what happens where the rubber meets the road. One of the biggest drivers for Electrify DC is to be that local implementer, and figure out how to address those very practical, concrete issues of local implementation. And so, yes, we need all of the legislators, we need all of the policymakers at any level of government. But without this piece of hyper-local implementation, everything else falls apart.”

Uprise will be at the Healthy Homes Fair! You can get free tickets on the Healthy Homes Fair website. The fair will happen at DC Armory; the address is 2001 East Capitol Street SE. It’s near the Stadium Armory Metro stop (Blue and Orange lines). We look forward to seeing you there!