What about the greenhouse gas emissions associated with manufacturing new stuff?

Legitimate question: if it takes energy to make all this electric equipment, aren’t we adding to carbon emissions when we buy them? The answer is generally yes – and that’s why we don’t necessarily recommend going out and replacing all the fossil-fueled appliances in your home tomorrow. Instead, we suggest you make a long-term plan to phase them out near the end of their useful life. (See our Clean Electric Home Worksheet for some rules of thumb on how long that might be.) You’ll still want to leave a buffer period before your A/C unit or water heater dies, so that your family isn’t sweating it out or waiting on a hot shower while you spend two weeks getting an emergency replacement lined up, but you certainly don’t need to pull out an appliance that’s only been installed for a few years.