“A smart home is much better than a dumb home,” says Drew Scott. He and his brother, Jonathan Scott, known as The Property Brothers, stay up at night thinking about the home — your home — and how it could emit less CO2. —As told to Carly Wanna
JONATHAN: On the last season of Brother vs. Brother, [an HGTV show in which the brothers compete against one another to see who can flip houses and sell for the highest price] Drew and I each bought a house. I decided to decarbonize. It’s the very first fully decarbonized home on the network.
DREW: It was a very space-age home. It’s like what you would see in Star Trek.
JONATHAN: The family that bought it said they just absolutely love it. They have a little one. They want to grow their family and they want to be in a house that’s healthy. Decarbonizing the home is critical because of the human health element. 40% of our energy related greenhouse gases come from buildings. The future of the home, in my mind, it’s much cleaner and much safer.
DREW: Cost has been one of the big concerns. Obviously, it’s great if somebody wants to upgrade their furnace from gas to electric heat pump, or their range from gas to induction. It’s been so expensive. But now the price points have come down a lot. And on top of that, the Inflation Reduction Act: It’s like a free bank account for people. The government has rebates and tax incentives that offset cost. In some situations, it actually makes it cheaper than going back to a gas option.
We’ve done over 620 renovations for families on our shows. We’ve never led by fear. We don’t want to be the ones that are “doom and gloom.” But if we just educate people on their best opportunity to have that safe, healthy home, they always come on board — when we tell people the difference between a gas range and an induction range. They understand it. We are speaking to something that is very personal and very emotional to them, to their family.
JONATHAN: The most damaging part of this whole problem are the disinformation campaigns. You’ve had oil and gas companies that have had their wrists slapped because they’ve been caught, you know, paying companies to put out false information, false narratives.
DREW: Now that I have my own child in the house, I’m doing everything I can to make sure the house is safe.
JONATHAN: If we can meet in the middle and understand what we want to get out of our lives, how we want the environment to be as our kids are growing up, I think we'll have a lot more relatable solutions come to the forefront.
--With assistance from Carly Wanna.
