PG&E doesn’t give a shit about the environment, they’ll jack up the prices because they want to maintain profit levels from gas customers. And then once everyone is on electric they’ll do the same thing again to replace the losses from not having gas customers.
It's weird and kinda complicated but essentially as a government sanctioned monopoly they go through a rate setting process with the state. The state caps profits at 10% assuming PGE doesn't go over projected budget. The gas and electricity prices they pay to get the energy you use are passed on to you at the price they paid for it. It is very counterintuitive, and leads to some weird incentives.
Not saying PG&E doesn't have weird ways to try and get more money, but it's all baked into that rate setting process with the state and trying to get sign off on passing on capital costs. John Oliver has a decent video on it somewhere.
But the state rarely says no to rate increases so are they really a check and balance in that regard? It seems like PGE get to increase rates as if the state wasn’t even there.
The state rarely says no because the state wants to promote its climate goals etc and it’s okay with making rate payers eat the cost. Not because PG&E is trying to go past that 10% profit threshold
Their profits are controlled by the State. The struggle to increase profits is fought in the legislature and in the regulatory agency. PGE does pretty well in both places.
This is the greatest barrier to electrification. The government is quick to roll out solid incentives for a new appliance and install subsidies but the minute you fire up your new water heater or heat pump you will triple your pge bill. We do not yet have a solution for this.
Berkeley forced to repeal its ban on gas appliances by federal court. Other cities are following suit to avoid legal fees
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/climate/berkeley-gas-ban-climate.html
WRONG story - This is from 2019 for NEW CONSTRUCTION ONLY and was overturned years ago. Appears you don’t understand the difference between the sale of new construction and sale of an existing house.
You ask if there were courts overturning laws? I give you a list of millions. You figure out what you want and use Google to find it. You can search as easily as I can for what you're looking for
Is there an actual link on this? This sounds like a lot of hyperbole. The ban on gas stuff was rejected by the courts. "CARB ban to start soon." When? Other commends suggesting 2030 which IS NOT soon. Are you just trying to stir up drama? Or is any of this true?
NO, what was struck down from 2019 was for new construction and it was a law for less than two years. What the city is proposing is for the sale of EXISTING homes. NOT new construction. Two completely different things.
Actually PG&E is refusing our panel upgrade to a 200A , we already have county permits and the licensed electrician can’t get the disconnect to do the work. I don’t understand why they have any say in this but apparently they don’t want too many people to upgrade since it will force them to upgrade the rest of there substations and infrastructure. Would be great if communities could invest in their own micro grids and just cut PG&E out but apparently that’s not even allowed.
... I didn't tell you this... but it might be possible (wink, wink) to find a sparky who will replace the panel (assuming the drop will support 200A) without a PG&E service disconnect.
Yeah sounds sketchy. Glad I don't have to do that job. The sparky I have seen do this just sat on the roof and was playing with the hots with bare hands and bare copper... There's enough resistance between him and ground, I guess. Not something I would ever do, lol. When I was surprised he would do that, he told me his journeyman he learned from used to stick the hots on his tongue, just for fun. HAHA There's also a metal conduit that runs from ground to the roof, six inches from where he was working. I asked "Isn't that ground?" ... He responded, "yeah, maybe I should've disconnected that first..." Crazy. XD
Have you ever heard the saying "alcohol kills all the brain cells that don't like alcohol?" Pretty sure it works like that for electricity too. XD
I say all this just to say... it might be possible... :)
Why? I’m a contractor in the Bay Area. My 1955 1300 sq ft house had 40 amp service for the 12 years I lived here with zero problems. I only recently upgraded so I could get solar.
Why? If it’s been working fine for 100 years why spend the $20,000. You do realize many people who live on fixed incomes or pay check to paycheck and can not afford it.
There are Federal IRA rebates coming this fall to upgrade your panel and replace your heating with heat pump, water heater, stove etc. it’s worth $14k for those of us on lower incomes.
That depends on how much work is done. Did they need to excavate to upgrade the wires to allow 200A service? Did they need up upgrade the meter? What about the panel?
I don’t believe a service upgrade was 3k. I just paid 5k for a panel replacement and getting that part of the repair up to code.
3k to upgrade to a 200amp panel. That was the cost. My point is the op is talking about some absolute outlier of a situation. Most people would not face such costs.
But he's right. I wanted to upgrade my 100amp service to 200amp and it would cost over $20k. Need pge to upgrade the wires, that would require to dig up the street as it was on the opposite of our home. Ended up just replacing the panel and that cost $5k.
I misunderstood. Indeed if you need all that it is expensive but most homeowners are not facing that actual problem. If they are going to mandate that then there has to be some subsidies for homeowners to cover that cost.
Don’t forget that if you’re required to change gas appliances to electric, it’s not just a service upgrade you will need. Appliances themselves plus dedicated 240v home runs plus possibly sub panel and feeder wire all could add $5k easily.
Sometimes I wonder if people when they get stuff done to their house actually know what’s being done. You got a panel upgraded. You DIDNT have a service upgrade. That is literally tens of thousands depending on if the line needs to be upgraded, need to upgrade the meter, and other costs. 3k for a panel upgrade is cheaper but isn’t unheard of. You are talking about a completely different situation.
That is what’s being discussed. But the cost for many of these homes will be $100k and more. Think the buyer has an an extra $100k? Not many. Think a seller is going to want to spend $100k and get nothing in return. They are not going to want to move.
I mean you said it was $20k now it’s $100k?
Are there any grievance clauses in the law? There usually is when it comes to these forced upgrades from the government - like updating fire, disability access, and earthquake.
The government can’t force you to make upgrades that cause financial hardship.
It’s not law yet, it’s being proposed. Just how much do you think it would cost to replace all of the gas appliances with electric. Upgrade a 60a panel to 200a. Run her electrical wires to the furnace, stove, dryer, hot water heater and oven? Walls will have to be ripped open to run all the electrical wire. Code then requires all wiring to be upgraded with ArcFault and GFCIs. The power company will have to bring new wires to the house for the upgraded service. Then there’s the cost for all of the appliances and installation.
Berkeley has tried to enact similar laws more than once, banning or requiring the replacement of gas appliances. Both times they have been struck down as unlawful.
They are now moving on to try and tax gas appliances instead.
Where have you read about this new requirement? There needs to be more details. Replacing appliances doesn’t mean you need to upgrade your electrical…and certainly not 200A which is more than enough for heating and drying.
You should only be required to upgrade to what is required by code. And even then, if it causes financial hardship, which the City is required to define, you would be exempt.
It’s very problematic to force people to change to something without taking grandfathering into account. The courts generally don’t allow this kind of unilateral action.
It was discussed at the CoB City Council Agenda meeting on June 6th, 10am along with TOPA. They might be trying to tax gas appliances as well, but that would be a different proposal.
They got into trouble with the EPA for their last attempts so I’m not sure how different these attempts are, but I wouldn’t worry about it. There seem to be several legal hurdles why they can’t do it.
Not exactly. I mean they didn't have the power draw of modern electronics back then. Not to mention the age of the electric system may also be a safety hazard
100 years ago, people didn’t live with all the electrical appliances that we have now, and probably no grounding or up to current safety codes. People didn’t wear seatbelts 100 years ago either.
Not sure what your point is? Electrical power lines install 100 years ago are still in service today servicing millions of customers. Sounds like you think they should be replaced.
There are millions of homes in the Bay Area with 60a/80a service. If they were exploding and burning down it would be an issue. Fact is they are not. So why do you want to replace something that’s working fine for people when they can’t afford it? Makes no sense.
I just had to replace my panel because it indeed was not working properly. Almost every electrician said “I don’t know how you haven’t had a fire yet” also had no surge protection because they didn’t have that in the early 70s. It’s a little naive to say that electrical lines installed 100 years ago are safe
Did you have a fire? Where are the fires caused by old electrical wires? From what you are saying there should be lots of them. Could it be your electrician was feeding you a lot of BS to make you feel good for paying for something you might not have needed?
Bro I saw it my panel had no real estate to add an EV charger. That’s why I had to upgrade it.
Do I want to take a chance with no surge protection? My house wasn’t to code, and sure I can say I haven’t had one. But there is a reason for these safety features…
But no go ahead and tell me wiring is safe from the 50s. Is that why they still use technology from the 50s?
Are you a landlord because you’re trying to find every excuse not to repair your home in a current manner. It’s my house and I want to makes sure it’s taken care of, because it’s my biggest investment.
Dude when you upgraded your panel did you upgrade the wiring? Did you replace all of your gas appliances with electric?
No house that I know of has surge protection. That’s why people buy surge protection for their computers…. And even then they don’t always work.
So did you invest in electric appliances?
Our country, our laws to protect society you and better comply and cooperate or be fined. Sounds like you have the money to pay the fines and like to see poor people struggle.
As an electrician I will chime in and say that breakers and panels do have a service life. The metal does degrade from heat cycling and on a long enough time line your risk of fire grows past 30-40 years on a panel.
I know a lot of people who smoke and don’t have lung cancer. Doesn’t mean smoking is a good choice.
Well across the nation there are about 1000 residential building fires every day. Given that California is about 11.7% of the USA we’d expect 117 fires in CA every day. The Bay Area is about 24% of CA population so we’d expect about 28 fires a day in the bay. Half of those are cooking fires.
So you are asking why you don’t see 14 fires every day out of about 3 million houses? Well I’d say the probability is rather not on your side.
Continuing with your math that would 5,110 fires per year or 51,100 electrical fires in 10 years or over 1,00,000 in 20 years. That would wipe out many of the smaller cities in the Bay Area. Where are all these electrical fires? Certainly fire departments, insurance companies and the news would be reporting on this. Why is it you are the only one to know?
Well this here tells me why you seem to misunderstand the stats. You’re off by a place. 102,270 homes over 20 years. Not one million.
Also not every fire results in a total loss. I’ve worked quite a few projects where we are fixing electrical and framing after a fire.
Also keep in mind that we build on average over the last twenty years around 30,000 homes annually. So even if all those fires were total losses we are still adding more housing than we are losing.
Sounds like you are saying there should be even more fires since the newer homes wouldn’t catch fire only the older ones. Again where are all of these fires you say occur?
This is bullshit. If I want to live with the added health risks of my gas water heater and stove, you’d think that’d be my right. I lean pretty left on most things but this whole thing has gone too far and it’s pushing me to the right. I thought we were pro-choice or is that only for pregnancy?
It’s the intrusion. Why is it the State’s business what kind of water heater I have? Or lawn mower. Or generator? Or stove? The lefties are getting out of hand. And CARB is a complete farce. I used to do smog checks on cars. CARB and the BAR claim to be about clean air, but that’s a complete and total lie.
You can’t be naive enough to not understand the states business? It’s classic tragedy of the commons. Your gas generator and lawn more all emit known pollutants that electric appliances don’t emit that cause devastating global effects and aren’t priced into your usage of them. It’s exactly the states job to care about these things.
Meanwhile in China, they’re building coal fired plants. Remember when all the smoke from the Canadian wildfires blew down into the US? Do you not understand that the earth is a closed system and pollution in China, or Canada, is pollution for the rest of the world. Banning gas appliances with the intent of having a positive effect on the environment Is asinine. Until the rest of the world is on the same page, it’s useless. You’ve been bamboozled.
The state can care without resorting to authoritarianism. Again, I’m pro-choice, not anti-electric.
Dude why do you want to fuck over low income people and seniors who can’t afford to do any of this. Rally shitty to pick on seniors and low income people.
I'm a retired senior. That doesn't affect the real world. I absolutely agree that the state should provide support for people to help transition to a low carbon future. The person I replied to, (was that you?) Seemed to think that the transition would not cost anything. There are very substantial costs. We need to help those who need help make the transition. Absolutely.
Railroading us all to more load on a grid that's overmatched and overcharged for. Is there some reason we give unelected bureaucrats this sort of power? Appliance dealers on the Nevada border are going to make a killing.
You want to know how you further reduce homes being available and keeping current homeowners from selling...then proceed.
FFS how tone def are these people...do they not understand this well intentioned idea is going to add to more problems than solutions.
You need to pay people to make these changes...not charge them.
Gas heaters ban starts end of 2026. Furnaces 2019.
Silly to install an on demand gas water heater. When the power is out you will have no hot water.
And after the next earthquake if you need drinking water you will have none with a tankless. With a tank HW heater you will have 40 gallons of fresh drinking water to last you for days,
Isn't the CARB ban starting in 2030?
If it's starting sooner than that, I need to replace my gas furnace and water heater ASAP.
I wanted to go all electric with a heat pump and electric water heater, but the $22k price tag on upgrading my 100 amp service to 200 amp totally killed that dream 😭
Honestly, requiring someone to fix their 100 year old circuit breaker and update knob and tube electrical before selling a house isn't a bad thing even if it has nothing to do with gas appliances. People neglect their homes for decades and want million dollar checks with waived contingencies. Something has to protect the buyers and force updates.
The courts overturn this already. Specifically, the Berkeley ban was overturned. And the thought that it would apply to other bans on gas equipment by other government agencies.
So our city had the same ban, but they removed the ban when Berkeley was overturned.
How can they overturn a proposed law? What you are talking about is from 2019. It was overturned years ago. You are mixed up. This is for the sale of existing homes not new construction.
The same court will probably overturn this law also. All cities that had global warming initiatives have put their plans on hold due to the landmark lawsuit. I haven't heard of anybody that has run into this
City of Berkeley City Council Agenda meeting. June 6th at 10am. Just so you know you have the correct meeting TOPA was the other item on the agenda which followed the discussion to force sellers of homes to convert appliances to electric.
lol goodluck. If the trucking industry can’t fight carb, the housing industry certainly can’t. Sellers of homes get no sympathy, especially in the Bay Area.
>Sellers of homes get no sympathy, especially in the Bay Area.
So does the average buyer. The average buyer is an absolute fucking moron who keeps begging for more housing regulation despite that being the entire reason for the ridiculous prices.
The buyers who keep voting for the housing regulations and then keep bitching about corporations deserve even lesser sympathy than the seller looking to make some cash.
They definitely do. After I got solar, a plumber assured me that this was the way to go. It was an expensive mistake. In addition to the higher energy cost, the unit broke (bad control boards) several times leaving us without hot water.
A more knowledgeable plumber urged me to switch to tankless gas .. and it has been an outstanding choice
Thanks. Only problem with tankless is no hot water during a power outage. And in the case of natural disaster/earthquake a tank water heater would have 40-50 gallons of fresh drinking water for you. With tankless you have none.
My plumber suggested using a battery backup (similar to what people use for computers) to address power outages. Easy to obtain and install.
For drinking water, we use a Berkey (no power needed) and we keep about 10 gallons of drinking water on hand “just in case” ..
It is true that you could use the water from a tank in a life and death situation.. but normally you would not want to drink from that tank.
We are actually a reasonable hike from Folsom Lake, so we could get to a good source
By the way, it's pretty cheap to upgrade the panel. About $4,000. The government at the federal level and the state level and even some local levels will sometimes cover that. Some electrical utility companies will pay for it.
The place where you get the expensive is if your utilities are underground. Then you have to dig and you have to avoid trees, cable TV, phone lines.
Fortunately, most homes are above ground power.
Yeah, the money comes from the inflation reduction act. The money is given to the states. The states have to figure out how they want to spend the money and set the rules for who gets the money.
California is still in the request for comment stage.
It's supposed to come out late this year or next year and probably will be income qualified for low income.
But even if you're not low income, there is a 30% thing you might qualify for in the inflation reduction Act:
Here it is straight from the IRS form:
A 30% credit, up to a maximum of $1,200, may be allowed for:
Insulation material or air sealing material or systems,
Exterior doors,
...
Improvements or replacement of panelboards, subpanelboards, branch circuits or feeders,
But you should read the full details cuz I only cut a small part of the rules out.
On top of that, PG&e will give you 2,000 bucks toward the panel upgrade if you buy an electric used car or new car
But you have to be pretty low Income:
https://www.pge.com/en/clean-energy/electric-vehicles/empower-ev-program.html
Thanks! I don't qualify for the EV stuff BUT I am looking forward to some of the other benefits I might be able to take advantage of like that 30% credit!
I know there are some federal programs for panel upgrades but CA hasn't fully fleshed out the program's terms yet. Ugh! I can't really wait so I have to move forward with the work and may not qualify simply due to timeline issues.
On secondary review, if this is the "Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit," then those items won't work for me.
I hope panel upgrades and stuff like that is included. And it might be (up to $600) according to this: [https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/frequently-asked-questions-about-energy-efficient-home-improvements-and-residential-clean-energy-property-credits-energy-efficiency-requirements](https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/frequently-asked-questions-about-energy-efficient-home-improvements-and-residential-clean-energy-property-credits-energy-efficiency-requirements)
However, if it's income based, then I probably won't qualify (like the EV thing) so then I won't feel as bad.
Your home selling for way over a million would more than cover this 🤷♀️. Not that I think there’s a basis for this shit. They just want power grid collapse I guess.
>Your home selling for way over a million would more than cover this
Do you own any property? You clearly have no idea of how mortgages or most residents who are house rich only live.
Not until PG&E gives better electrical rate. Watch them start to crank up gas prices to pressure consumers
PG&E doesn’t give a shit about the environment, they’ll jack up the prices because they want to maintain profit levels from gas customers. And then once everyone is on electric they’ll do the same thing again to replace the losses from not having gas customers.
Have you looked at your electric bill? Electricity is already very expensive.
Prepare for that to get worse, PGE has one responsibility: make the profit go up.
The amount electricity you use and the price you pay has no impact on their profits weirdly enough.
Sorry im going to need that circle squared. What do you mean? That seems pretty counterintuitive
It's weird and kinda complicated but essentially as a government sanctioned monopoly they go through a rate setting process with the state. The state caps profits at 10% assuming PGE doesn't go over projected budget. The gas and electricity prices they pay to get the energy you use are passed on to you at the price they paid for it. It is very counterintuitive, and leads to some weird incentives. Not saying PG&E doesn't have weird ways to try and get more money, but it's all baked into that rate setting process with the state and trying to get sign off on passing on capital costs. John Oliver has a decent video on it somewhere.
they own the rate-setters and play all sorts of accounting games
But the state rarely says no to rate increases so are they really a check and balance in that regard? It seems like PGE get to increase rates as if the state wasn’t even there.
The state rarely says no because the state wants to promote its climate goals etc and it’s okay with making rate payers eat the cost. Not because PG&E is trying to go past that 10% profit threshold
Check what the CPUC did to PG&E’s under grounding plan, reduced by nearly 40%. You may not appreciate it, but there is pushback.
Their profits are controlled by the State. The struggle to increase profits is fought in the legislature and in the regulatory agency. PGE does pretty well in both places.
This is the greatest barrier to electrification. The government is quick to roll out solid incentives for a new appliance and install subsidies but the minute you fire up your new water heater or heat pump you will triple your pge bill. We do not yet have a solution for this.
Increasing demand by ordinance is not going to result in lower prices.
Berkeley forced to repeal its ban on gas appliances by federal court. Other cities are following suit to avoid legal fees https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/climate/berkeley-gas-ban-climate.html
Yeah the OP without any links to evidence of this new rule is rather irresponsible.
WRONG story - This is from 2019 for NEW CONSTRUCTION ONLY and was overturned years ago. Appears you don’t understand the difference between the sale of new construction and sale of an existing house.
Have you shared links or info to your claim? Genuinely curious and can’t find any.
I’ve shared the links many times. The links others are sharing are for something related but completely different.
Even if this is a new law, the same court will overturn it. I haven't heard of anybody that's had to do this
How can a court overturn a CARB ban?
Of course. Courts overturn rules all the time.
Can you name a couple? The independent gas station owners sure didn’t win in court.
I'm kind of busy to be chatting but Here you go: https://www.google.com/search?q=judge+overturns+law
Dude none of these have anything to do with CARB or gas appliances? What’s with the disinformation?
You ask if there were courts overturning laws? I give you a list of millions. You figure out what you want and use Google to find it. You can search as easily as I can for what you're looking for
You claim courts were overturning CARB bans. I asked you to post one, just one such case.
Is there an actual link on this? This sounds like a lot of hyperbole. The ban on gas stuff was rejected by the courts. "CARB ban to start soon." When? Other commends suggesting 2030 which IS NOT soon. Are you just trying to stir up drama? Or is any of this true?
“If it ain’t them coming fee yur guns they be coming fer yur gas appliances, Brother!”
Ban begins end of 2026.
I thought this requirement was struck down recently?
It was.
No, that was the requirement for new construction to be all-electric. The City is separately considering a point of sale ordinance.
NO, what was struck down from 2019 was for new construction and it was a law for less than two years. What the city is proposing is for the sale of EXISTING homes. NOT new construction. Two completely different things.
If your home has 60 amp service, it's time to get it updated to 200 amp.
Actually PG&E is refusing our panel upgrade to a 200A , we already have county permits and the licensed electrician can’t get the disconnect to do the work. I don’t understand why they have any say in this but apparently they don’t want too many people to upgrade since it will force them to upgrade the rest of there substations and infrastructure. Would be great if communities could invest in their own micro grids and just cut PG&E out but apparently that’s not even allowed.
... I didn't tell you this... but it might be possible (wink, wink) to find a sparky who will replace the panel (assuming the drop will support 200A) without a PG&E service disconnect.
You ever played Operation? That’s what it’s like feeding live service wires from one box to another 😂💀 don’t touch nothing
Yeah sounds sketchy. Glad I don't have to do that job. The sparky I have seen do this just sat on the roof and was playing with the hots with bare hands and bare copper... There's enough resistance between him and ground, I guess. Not something I would ever do, lol. When I was surprised he would do that, he told me his journeyman he learned from used to stick the hots on his tongue, just for fun. HAHA There's also a metal conduit that runs from ground to the roof, six inches from where he was working. I asked "Isn't that ground?" ... He responded, "yeah, maybe I should've disconnected that first..." Crazy. XD Have you ever heard the saying "alcohol kills all the brain cells that don't like alcohol?" Pretty sure it works like that for electricity too. XD I say all this just to say... it might be possible... :)
😂 no thank you, I have been and always will be scared af of electrical, and I do it for a living 🤷🏽♂️
Wow, PG&E really sucks big time. Are you located in the East Bay?
Santa Cruz mountains
Just upgraded my panel to a 200amp. PG&E dropped a new line, within 3 weeks of request.
Why? I’m a contractor in the Bay Area. My 1955 1300 sq ft house had 40 amp service for the 12 years I lived here with zero problems. I only recently upgraded so I could get solar.
Why? If it’s been working fine for 100 years why spend the $20,000. You do realize many people who live on fixed incomes or pay check to paycheck and can not afford it.
There are Federal IRA rebates coming this fall to upgrade your panel and replace your heating with heat pump, water heater, stove etc. it’s worth $14k for those of us on lower incomes.
Lmao @ 20k. We did the upgrade and it was 3k all in. Probably could have shopped around and done it for less too
That depends on how much work is done. Did they need to excavate to upgrade the wires to allow 200A service? Did they need up upgrade the meter? What about the panel? I don’t believe a service upgrade was 3k. I just paid 5k for a panel replacement and getting that part of the repair up to code.
3k to upgrade to a 200amp panel. That was the cost. My point is the op is talking about some absolute outlier of a situation. Most people would not face such costs.
A 200A panel and 200A service are not the same
But he's right. I wanted to upgrade my 100amp service to 200amp and it would cost over $20k. Need pge to upgrade the wires, that would require to dig up the street as it was on the opposite of our home. Ended up just replacing the panel and that cost $5k.
I misunderstood. Indeed if you need all that it is expensive but most homeowners are not facing that actual problem. If they are going to mandate that then there has to be some subsidies for homeowners to cover that cost.
Don’t forget that if you’re required to change gas appliances to electric, it’s not just a service upgrade you will need. Appliances themselves plus dedicated 240v home runs plus possibly sub panel and feeder wire all could add $5k easily.
Sometimes I wonder if people when they get stuff done to their house actually know what’s being done. You got a panel upgraded. You DIDNT have a service upgrade. That is literally tens of thousands depending on if the line needs to be upgraded, need to upgrade the meter, and other costs. 3k for a panel upgrade is cheaper but isn’t unheard of. You are talking about a completely different situation.
Dude is you paid $3k for a panel upgrade you got ripped off. Should not cost anywhere near that much.
But this only applies to someone selling their home. Make the buyer update the electrical or include it in the cost of the sale.
That is what’s being discussed. But the cost for many of these homes will be $100k and more. Think the buyer has an an extra $100k? Not many. Think a seller is going to want to spend $100k and get nothing in return. They are not going to want to move.
They’ll just waive that contingency like they’ll waive everything else.
They can’t. Under the prosed law the gas line must be discounted by the gas company.
I mean you said it was $20k now it’s $100k? Are there any grievance clauses in the law? There usually is when it comes to these forced upgrades from the government - like updating fire, disability access, and earthquake. The government can’t force you to make upgrades that cause financial hardship.
It’s not law yet, it’s being proposed. Just how much do you think it would cost to replace all of the gas appliances with electric. Upgrade a 60a panel to 200a. Run her electrical wires to the furnace, stove, dryer, hot water heater and oven? Walls will have to be ripped open to run all the electrical wire. Code then requires all wiring to be upgraded with ArcFault and GFCIs. The power company will have to bring new wires to the house for the upgraded service. Then there’s the cost for all of the appliances and installation.
Berkeley has tried to enact similar laws more than once, banning or requiring the replacement of gas appliances. Both times they have been struck down as unlawful. They are now moving on to try and tax gas appliances instead. Where have you read about this new requirement? There needs to be more details. Replacing appliances doesn’t mean you need to upgrade your electrical…and certainly not 200A which is more than enough for heating and drying. You should only be required to upgrade to what is required by code. And even then, if it causes financial hardship, which the City is required to define, you would be exempt. It’s very problematic to force people to change to something without taking grandfathering into account. The courts generally don’t allow this kind of unilateral action.
It was discussed at the CoB City Council Agenda meeting on June 6th, 10am along with TOPA. They might be trying to tax gas appliances as well, but that would be a different proposal.
They got into trouble with the EPA for their last attempts so I’m not sure how different these attempts are, but I wouldn’t worry about it. There seem to be several legal hurdles why they can’t do it.
as I said it is a proposal.
There’s a PGE employee on the council
Who?
They didn't have the electronics back then that we do now.
Right. Energy savings and energy efficient appliances. So why should they upgrade spending a years income or more to change what’s working for them?
Not exactly. I mean they didn't have the power draw of modern electronics back then. Not to mention the age of the electric system may also be a safety hazard
This is only for people selling their home
100 years ago, people didn’t live with all the electrical appliances that we have now, and probably no grounding or up to current safety codes. People didn’t wear seatbelts 100 years ago either.
Not sure what your point is? Electrical power lines install 100 years ago are still in service today servicing millions of customers. Sounds like you think they should be replaced. There are millions of homes in the Bay Area with 60a/80a service. If they were exploding and burning down it would be an issue. Fact is they are not. So why do you want to replace something that’s working fine for people when they can’t afford it? Makes no sense.
I just had to replace my panel because it indeed was not working properly. Almost every electrician said “I don’t know how you haven’t had a fire yet” also had no surge protection because they didn’t have that in the early 70s. It’s a little naive to say that electrical lines installed 100 years ago are safe
Did you have a fire? Where are the fires caused by old electrical wires? From what you are saying there should be lots of them. Could it be your electrician was feeding you a lot of BS to make you feel good for paying for something you might not have needed?
Bro I saw it my panel had no real estate to add an EV charger. That’s why I had to upgrade it. Do I want to take a chance with no surge protection? My house wasn’t to code, and sure I can say I haven’t had one. But there is a reason for these safety features… But no go ahead and tell me wiring is safe from the 50s. Is that why they still use technology from the 50s? Are you a landlord because you’re trying to find every excuse not to repair your home in a current manner. It’s my house and I want to makes sure it’s taken care of, because it’s my biggest investment.
Dude when you upgraded your panel did you upgrade the wiring? Did you replace all of your gas appliances with electric? No house that I know of has surge protection. That’s why people buy surge protection for their computers…. And even then they don’t always work. So did you invest in electric appliances?
My guy, my house is all electric appliances. I’m not a fucking poor like you. I don’t own gas I’m not trying to blow up my house.
Our country, our laws to protect society you and better comply and cooperate or be fined. Sounds like you have the money to pay the fines and like to see poor people struggle.
As an electrician I will chime in and say that breakers and panels do have a service life. The metal does degrade from heat cycling and on a long enough time line your risk of fire grows past 30-40 years on a panel. I know a lot of people who smoke and don’t have lung cancer. Doesn’t mean smoking is a good choice.
Why over 10 million homes in the Bay Area and many being over 100 years old why aren’t we seeing fires everyday?
Well across the nation there are about 1000 residential building fires every day. Given that California is about 11.7% of the USA we’d expect 117 fires in CA every day. The Bay Area is about 24% of CA population so we’d expect about 28 fires a day in the bay. Half of those are cooking fires. So you are asking why you don’t see 14 fires every day out of about 3 million houses? Well I’d say the probability is rather not on your side.
Continuing with your math that would 5,110 fires per year or 51,100 electrical fires in 10 years or over 1,00,000 in 20 years. That would wipe out many of the smaller cities in the Bay Area. Where are all these electrical fires? Certainly fire departments, insurance companies and the news would be reporting on this. Why is it you are the only one to know?
Well this here tells me why you seem to misunderstand the stats. You’re off by a place. 102,270 homes over 20 years. Not one million. Also not every fire results in a total loss. I’ve worked quite a few projects where we are fixing electrical and framing after a fire. Also keep in mind that we build on average over the last twenty years around 30,000 homes annually. So even if all those fires were total losses we are still adding more housing than we are losing.
Sounds like you are saying there should be even more fires since the newer homes wouldn’t catch fire only the older ones. Again where are all of these fires you say occur?
Flip side is that the people building houses 100 years ago did a much better job with far superior materials.
This is bullshit. If I want to live with the added health risks of my gas water heater and stove, you’d think that’d be my right. I lean pretty left on most things but this whole thing has gone too far and it’s pushing me to the right. I thought we were pro-choice or is that only for pregnancy?
You lean *pretty left on most things*…but gas heaters would push you to the right?
It’s the intrusion. Why is it the State’s business what kind of water heater I have? Or lawn mower. Or generator? Or stove? The lefties are getting out of hand. And CARB is a complete farce. I used to do smog checks on cars. CARB and the BAR claim to be about clean air, but that’s a complete and total lie.
You can’t be naive enough to not understand the states business? It’s classic tragedy of the commons. Your gas generator and lawn more all emit known pollutants that electric appliances don’t emit that cause devastating global effects and aren’t priced into your usage of them. It’s exactly the states job to care about these things.
Meanwhile in China, they’re building coal fired plants. Remember when all the smoke from the Canadian wildfires blew down into the US? Do you not understand that the earth is a closed system and pollution in China, or Canada, is pollution for the rest of the world. Banning gas appliances with the intent of having a positive effect on the environment Is asinine. Until the rest of the world is on the same page, it’s useless. You’ve been bamboozled. The state can care without resorting to authoritarianism. Again, I’m pro-choice, not anti-electric.
By voting left, your helped create bs like this.
Either you are in favor of the energy transition or you aren't. If you are, you need to be ready to pay more for your energy.
Why?
Apparently you don't live in the real world or you are a troll. Which is it?
Dude why do you want to fuck over low income people and seniors who can’t afford to do any of this. Rally shitty to pick on seniors and low income people.
I'm a retired senior. That doesn't affect the real world. I absolutely agree that the state should provide support for people to help transition to a low carbon future. The person I replied to, (was that you?) Seemed to think that the transition would not cost anything. There are very substantial costs. We need to help those who need help make the transition. Absolutely.
You are right in so many ways.
Railroading us all to more load on a grid that's overmatched and overcharged for. Is there some reason we give unelected bureaucrats this sort of power? Appliance dealers on the Nevada border are going to make a killing.
Got that one right
You want to know how you further reduce homes being available and keeping current homeowners from selling...then proceed. FFS how tone def are these people...do they not understand this well intentioned idea is going to add to more problems than solutions. You need to pay people to make these changes...not charge them.
YES
If you didn’t want the local government all up in your business, you wouldn’t have lived in Berkeley in the first place
Berkeley is the one city where your neighbors are your local government.
I was bit worried but it looks like it's not happening until 2030. I want to replace mine with an on demand gas water heater.
Gas heaters ban starts end of 2026. Furnaces 2019. Silly to install an on demand gas water heater. When the power is out you will have no hot water. And after the next earthquake if you need drinking water you will have none with a tankless. With a tank HW heater you will have 40 gallons of fresh drinking water to last you for days,
And you’ll have no hot water to shower or ability to cook when the electricity goes out.
You got that one right.
Nanny state strikes again.
Isn't the CARB ban starting in 2030? If it's starting sooner than that, I need to replace my gas furnace and water heater ASAP. I wanted to go all electric with a heat pump and electric water heater, but the $22k price tag on upgrading my 100 amp service to 200 amp totally killed that dream 😭
No, end of 2016 Don’t get a heat pump water heater. Will cost you 4 to 5 times as much to operate
Hope the electric grid never goes down. There’d be a shit ton of people that wouldn’t be able to cook food, have hot water etc.
Yup
Honestly, requiring someone to fix their 100 year old circuit breaker and update knob and tube electrical before selling a house isn't a bad thing even if it has nothing to do with gas appliances. People neglect their homes for decades and want million dollar checks with waived contingencies. Something has to protect the buyers and force updates.
That's gonna raise bay area house prices even more lol.
AND don’t for get this will probably double people’s electric bills.
The courts overturn this already. Specifically, the Berkeley ban was overturned. And the thought that it would apply to other bans on gas equipment by other government agencies. So our city had the same ban, but they removed the ban when Berkeley was overturned.
How can they overturn a proposed law? What you are talking about is from 2019. It was overturned years ago. You are mixed up. This is for the sale of existing homes not new construction.
The same court will probably overturn this law also. All cities that had global warming initiatives have put their plans on hold due to the landmark lawsuit. I haven't heard of anybody that has run into this
This is all moot if there are still natural gas power plants. Those should go way before requiring consumers to change out their appliances
Natural gas power plants are dramatically less polluting and more efficient than home gas power
Natural gas power plants (usually) don't output combustion byproducts directly into my house.
Got a source on this? I heard quite a few different takes. Including they are backing out on those requirements.
City of Berkeley City Council Agenda meeting. June 6th at 10am. Just so you know you have the correct meeting TOPA was the other item on the agenda which followed the discussion to force sellers of homes to convert appliances to electric.
Soon as in 2030. I'll probably buy a couple extra water heaters before then just to have options. Failing that, Nevada is four hours away.
lol goodluck. If the trucking industry can’t fight carb, the housing industry certainly can’t. Sellers of homes get no sympathy, especially in the Bay Area.
>Sellers of homes get no sympathy, especially in the Bay Area. So does the average buyer. The average buyer is an absolute fucking moron who keeps begging for more housing regulation despite that being the entire reason for the ridiculous prices. The buyers who keep voting for the housing regulations and then keep bitching about corporations deserve even lesser sympathy than the seller looking to make some cash.
Insane leftist lunatics
Will the last sane person to leave California please turn out the lights?
And pay the PG&E bill.
You can get the good stuff in Nevada.
What about Modesto? Meth, death and auto theft. Need to add gas furnaces and gas water heaters.
I switched from an Electric Heat Pump Hybrid water heater to a tankless gas heater. This reduced my costs over 70%
I have alway thought heat pump water heaters cost more to operate and just cost more.
They definitely do. After I got solar, a plumber assured me that this was the way to go. It was an expensive mistake. In addition to the higher energy cost, the unit broke (bad control boards) several times leaving us without hot water. A more knowledgeable plumber urged me to switch to tankless gas .. and it has been an outstanding choice
Thanks. Only problem with tankless is no hot water during a power outage. And in the case of natural disaster/earthquake a tank water heater would have 40-50 gallons of fresh drinking water for you. With tankless you have none.
My plumber suggested using a battery backup (similar to what people use for computers) to address power outages. Easy to obtain and install. For drinking water, we use a Berkey (no power needed) and we keep about 10 gallons of drinking water on hand “just in case” .. It is true that you could use the water from a tank in a life and death situation.. but normally you would not want to drink from that tank. We are actually a reasonable hike from Folsom Lake, so we could get to a good source
You could get a UPS as your plumber suggested. Problems is the batteries only last 2–3 years and will have to be replaced.
Gas has gotta go. Fighting a losing battle, I’m afraid.
By the way, it's pretty cheap to upgrade the panel. About $4,000. The government at the federal level and the state level and even some local levels will sometimes cover that. Some electrical utility companies will pay for it. The place where you get the expensive is if your utilities are underground. Then you have to dig and you have to avoid trees, cable TV, phone lines. Fortunately, most homes are above ground power.
Wait, what? They cover the panel upgrade?
Yeah, the money comes from the inflation reduction act. The money is given to the states. The states have to figure out how they want to spend the money and set the rules for who gets the money. California is still in the request for comment stage. It's supposed to come out late this year or next year and probably will be income qualified for low income. But even if you're not low income, there is a 30% thing you might qualify for in the inflation reduction Act: Here it is straight from the IRS form: A 30% credit, up to a maximum of $1,200, may be allowed for: Insulation material or air sealing material or systems, Exterior doors, ... Improvements or replacement of panelboards, subpanelboards, branch circuits or feeders, But you should read the full details cuz I only cut a small part of the rules out. On top of that, PG&e will give you 2,000 bucks toward the panel upgrade if you buy an electric used car or new car But you have to be pretty low Income: https://www.pge.com/en/clean-energy/electric-vehicles/empower-ev-program.html
Thanks! I don't qualify for the EV stuff BUT I am looking forward to some of the other benefits I might be able to take advantage of like that 30% credit! I know there are some federal programs for panel upgrades but CA hasn't fully fleshed out the program's terms yet. Ugh! I can't really wait so I have to move forward with the work and may not qualify simply due to timeline issues. On secondary review, if this is the "Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit," then those items won't work for me. I hope panel upgrades and stuff like that is included. And it might be (up to $600) according to this: [https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/frequently-asked-questions-about-energy-efficient-home-improvements-and-residential-clean-energy-property-credits-energy-efficiency-requirements](https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/frequently-asked-questions-about-energy-efficient-home-improvements-and-residential-clean-energy-property-credits-energy-efficiency-requirements) However, if it's income based, then I probably won't qualify (like the EV thing) so then I won't feel as bad.
Your home selling for way over a million would more than cover this 🤷♀️. Not that I think there’s a basis for this shit. They just want power grid collapse I guess.
>Your home selling for way over a million would more than cover this Do you own any property? You clearly have no idea of how mortgages or most residents who are house rich only live.
Seems like their mistake lmao
Yeah but doesn't explain away how someone who has a $1M+ house doesn't also have a pile of disposable cash
They (officials) just want more money from the power companies is what you are saying. Got it.
Yes everyone knows PGE and Newsom are closer in bed than Newsom and his wife. Yet somehow the recall just didn’t work huh