A helpful scheduler from Riggs Distler, the company installing new high-pressure gas lines in my neighborhood for BGE, came to the house the other day and asked a question: Do I want the new gas service regulator placed on the inside or the outside of my house?

While that’s the immediate question for me and my neighbors — and one that thousands of BGE customers will likely face over the next 20 years — there’s a larger question looming over the utility’s big investment in new gas lines and regulators: Shouldn’t we be saying goodbye to all that?

Shouldn’t we be moving to the all-electric household?

Shouldn’t we be retiring our gas furnaces, water heaters, driers, cooktops and stoves?

Isn’t it time for more of us to get in the act of addressing climate change at home?

In Maryland’s efforts to get off fossil fuels and meet the state’s goals in arresting carbon emissions, shouldn’t the government and/or BGE be promoting a transition to cleaner, cheaper electricity as a way to power, heat and cool our homes?

“Absolutely,” says David Lapp, the Maryland People’s Counsel who represents our interests before the Public Service Commision, the agency that regulates BGE and other utilities. “There should be a ton of public messaging. Customers that buy new gas furnaces or even new air conditioners, rather than electric heat pumps, are making decisions that will cost much more over the lives of those appliances.”

And that, he says, is aside from the health and climate considerations of continuing to use gas.

Lapp and his staff at the Office of People’s Counsel have been vigorously and publicly challenging BGE’s big investment in gas infrastructure at a time when Maryland should be moving in another direction, away from natural gas. Lapp calls the investment misguided and fraught with high costs to BGE customers for years to come.

The state is supposed to reduce its carbon footprint by 60%, based on 2006 levels, by 2031. The goal is carbon neutrality by 2045.

Spending billions to upgrade a gas-delivery system flies in the face of that.

But the PSC has approved BGE’s plan, and the company’s president and CEO insists that the overhaul is “absolutely necessary” for safety reasons and because all gas customers are not going to switch to electric overnight.

Understood.

But still, the letters I received from BGE in November suggested that a deadline loomed.

They seemed to tie the immediate question, about the placement of gas regulators, to the larger one, about electrification.

The letters asked if we intended to fully electrify our house — meaning, switch all appliances to electric — and disconnect from gas. If that was our intention, the letter said, we had 180 days “to complete the electrification process before BGE switches your neighborhood over from low-pressure to higher-pressure [gas] pipelines.”

If we don’t switch, then we’re back where we started with the man from Riggs Distler – choosing between an indoor or outdoor gas regulator and continuing as a BGE gas customer.

This whole business of the “full electrification option” came out of the blue, with those BGE letters in November.

But now that it’s before us, I go back to my main point: Shouldn’t all gas customers, residential and commercial, be thinking about making the switch? Seems to me the state and utility should be pushing us that way.

Lapp, of course, agrees.

“There are huge savings for all gas customers when customers electrify rather than replace the gas infrastructure, even just for one house,” he said.

In an exchange with me last week, he described his personal experience.

“In my own house,” Lapp said, “we eliminated all gas with a heat pump, an induction stove and an electric heat pump water heater. We have seen no difference in heating our home. The electric heat pump is better because the heat is more steady and very quiet compared to our gas furnace, and we are saving money. We’ve also replaced two appliances, the gas furnace and air conditioning, with one electric heat pump for overall lower costs.”

Getting a contractor to make the conversions was harder than it should have been, Lapp said, and estimates for the conversions varied drastically.

That gets us to his next point: BGE customers not only need to consider the “fully electric option,” but they need time to figure it all out: What are the best systems for their homes? What are the costs and potential savings? Do we qualify for tax incentives and rebates under the Inflation Reduction Act?

“We argued [to the PSC] that customers should get at least two years’ notice because it can easily take that long to swap out all your appliances,” Lapp said.

Denny Kougianos, co-founder of Halethorpe-based Supreme Service Today with his brother, Alex, says increasing numbers of customers are converting to electric heat pumps and geothermal systems to heat and cool their homes.

“They want gas out of their homes and they want to go with high-efficiency electric heat pumps,” Kougianos said. “They just don’t want gas anymore.”

Those are customers, he said, who have a “green conscience” or who believe, correctly, that they’ll save money in the long run, or both.

A lot of people understand what’s at stake — the quality of life on the planet for future generations — but more Marylanders need to get the message: Climate action starts at home, and it’s time to start saying goodbye to gas.