Electrification 101: Where to Start If You're Doing One Thing at a Time

"Electrify everything" is easy advice and a genuinely large project. If you're working through it one upgrade at a time — which is how most households actually do it — here's a sensible order to think about, and why.

1. Hot water, usually first

Hot water is a large, steady, easy-to-measure load, and a heat pump hot water system is one of the most reliable payback stories in electrification — it directly replaces a gas or resistive-electric system with something 3–4x more efficient, with minimal disruption to the rest of the home. It's also often eligible for rebates in both countries (see our Rebates pillar).

2. Space heating and cooling, next

If your existing heating is ducted gas or resistive electric, a heat pump (ducted or split-system) is usually the next-highest-value swap — see our Heat Pumps pillar for sizing and the running-cost math. If you're already on efficient reverse-cycle air conditioning, this step may already be partly done.

3. Solar, if your roof and budget allow

Solar doesn't replace a specific appliance the way the first two steps do — it changes the economics of everything else you electrify, by giving you cheap daytime power to run those new heat pumps and (eventually) charge a battery or EV. Sequencing it after you know your new electrified loads (rather than before) can help you size the system more accurately, though many households install solar independently of this sequence for good reason — falling panel and installation costs, and rebates that may not wait.

4. Cooktop, when it's due for replacement anyway

Induction cooktops are efficient and have real indoor air-quality advantages over gas, but the direct energy-cost saving on cooking is small relative to hot water or space heating — this is usually a "replace when the old one dies, or when doing a kitchen renovation anyway" upgrade rather than an urgent one.

5. Battery and EV charging, once the load picture is settled

A battery and an EV charger both interact with everything above them — how much solar you're generating, how much you're now using for heat pumps, what your time-of-use tariff looks like. Sizing these last, once your other electrified loads are in place, generally gives a more accurate answer than guessing upfront. See our Battery & EV pillar.

The exception: do what a rebate or a breakdown forces

This order is a general guide, not a rule — if your existing gas hot water system fails, or a meaningful rebate window is open for a specific upgrade right now, take the opportunity rather than waiting for the "ideal" sequence.