Noticed my gas and electric bills doubled from what they were 2 years ago.  Last couple of years I have been considering replacing the furnace air conditioner and water heater in a 1996 house.

How practical would it be in Iowa to go to an electric water heater and electric furnace - eliminating all gas supply to the house.   Not talking about a heat pump because they don't do well below 20 degrees.  Most of my gas electric bill seems to be gas increase in fees. Is going all electric a bad idea?



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Just No....

Edit.

Let me expand on this answer for you.  Do some research on the requirements of energy needed for both those sources.  What you'll discover is that the electricity is a lot less efficient.  While Natural Gas can be subject to failures (partially because of the fact that someone thought that it might be a good idea to have the pumping stations for NG run by electricity hooked to the grid - read up on the Texas fiasco a year or so ago), it's not nearly as subject to outages as the electric grid.  Then add the fact that there are things that are making the grid less resilient (great post on that by kategora over in the Ukraine war thread) with the move to renewables plus trying to add additional future demand (and the supply upgrades that are on tap aren't big enough) to it and you're increasingly likely to be cold at some point.

Personally, I'd really like to be able to be NetZero WITH impressive backup capabilities, but Solar doesn't make sense where I'm at, plus it's easiest to do NetZero with a new build with the insulation requirements needed.  I'd want to be Solar with Geothermal and NG with a wood stove just in case.

I’d love to add a wood stove like a quadrafire. I’m looking at options and starting to think if a 96% gas furnace might be as good as it gets. Last two month the gas electric bill doubled. FJB

Geothermal is way out of my budget.

Electric is actually 100% efficient

What are the rates where you live? In Cedar Falls we pay $.055 per Kwh - lots of all electric homes here, and its much cheaper to heat with than gas.


I put a 7,500 watt electric heater in the first of November to heat my 3 stall garage. Keeping it at 50 degrees from nov 1 to today has cost me $30.

I am looking at doing and outdoor wood burner / water heat pump setup as I have almost a lifetime supply of dead tree and would default to my propane tank in an emergency or extreme cold.  The burners are bit spendy up front, looking at about 10k or so for set up and everything but the fuel is essentially free.

I live in NE Iowa also.
We built the house in 98, we are all electric, no gas.  House also well insulated and energy efficient windows, etc.  Total average electric bill is $170 per month.
Our electric heat pump/furnace works just fine, keeps the house at 70 degrees during the heating season.  We get a few days a year that the emergency electric heat kicks on but rarely more than just a few days each year.

I am looking into an electric heat pump water heater now as the original electric water heater is 25 years old.

Only time we have lost electricity for more than a few hours is when we got the ice storm back in 2012?   Was without power for 10 days while they replaced electric poles.  Shit happens, be prepared.
I bought a 8kw diesel generator and an indoor vent less propane heater for emergencies.

Do your research and check out http://www.energystar.gov

Wow, in the CR area my actual average rate is $0.18/kwh. is 0.05 your actual average or just a sub-part specific to consumption?
(Utility bills have tons of other things they tack on, many of which may scale directly with use also)

@amaixner - Correct - its a bit more than that - but we sure aren't getting hosed like you guys in CR

Basic service charge - $19.60
first 800 @ .0542 - $43.36
remaining 2107 @ .048 - $101.14

those both have a net energy cost adjustment totaling $72.42

Net Energy Cost Adjustment (1,111.50KWH at $0.049/KWH)
Net Energy Cost Adjustment (1,795.50KWH at $0.01/KWH)

local option tax - $2.37

$238.89/2907KWH = .0822

ETA cost adjustment breakdown

I recently restored the 740sqft house on my farm. The walls are mostly uninsulated, when I do the exterior siding, I’ll add 1/4” of insulation boards plus wrap the whole house with Tyveck and add insulation to the attic.

Not being able to add a conventional furnace with ducting, and wanting to get away from the gas space heater, I went with a mini-split heat pump. It will freeze you out in the summer, but it has a hard time keeping up below 15F outside on windy days, despite it being rated to -13F. It has no emergency backup.

To take care of that, I put in a wood burning stove that you could cook on if necessary and it will easily cook you out of the house. It’s designed for 1500sqft and at half the space, one cord of wood will last all winter.

I did add an electric baseboard heater in the bedroom. The electric bill on budget billing is less than $90 a month. I do have an electric water heater, and a gas range for cooking.

If you go all electrical on your house, be sure to have a non electric back up heat source for at least part of the house.

When we remodeled our 1931 farmhouse in 2000, we installed a geosource heat pump with horizontal coils. Water heater is electric as well.

Upfront cost for furnace was higher but it has paid for itself compared to a high efficiency LP furnace.

I would do it again.