Back
In January, Lerned Zint’s gas water heater croaked.
It would have been an inconvenience for anyone. For Zint, a Spanish-speaking mother who runs Corazones Daycare out of her San Francisco home, it was an emergency.
Zint takes care of about 10 children, 6 months to 4 years old. Their sticky fingers and stinky messes make hot water essential.
Thankfully, Zint didn’t have to wait long for a solution. Within days, the San Francisco Environment Department worked with a partner contractor to install a shiny new water heater in her home at no cost — and it runs on an electric heat pump, not gas.
Zint is the first participant in the city’s new electrification pilot program for child care centers run out of residential homes. Led by the Environment Department and funded by a TECH Clean California Quick Start Grant, the $300,000 program will swap gas water heaters for heat-pump options at up to 30 facilities. The initiative could be a model for other communities around the country looking to decarbonize their buildings and thereby give their children access to cleaner, safer air.
Electric upgrades can’t come soon enough to the disadvantaged communities the new initiative is prioritizing.
Zint lives in the Excelsior neighborhood, which not only has the highest number of children up to 5 years old in the city but also carries “a disproportionate share of environmental burdens from high pollution,” Supervisor Chyanne Chen, who represents the neighborhood, said during a March press event. This initiative improves indoor air quality, reduces emissions, lowers energy costs, and modernizes child care facilities, she noted. That “means healthier providers, healthier children, and a healthier neighborhood.”
By their nature, appliances that burn material — fossil fuels, charcoal, wood — spew toxic compounds that chronically harm health. The pollutants, from oxides of nitrogen to carbon monoxide, can damage nerves, increase asthma symptoms, heighten the risk of stroke and dementia — and even kill.
For children, whose lungs and immune systems are still developing, the health impacts of gas-appliance pollution are particularly grave. Gas stoves, which often aren’t required to vent outside, are the biggest threat: They can increase any person’s chances of getting cancer, but the risk for kids is nearly double that for adults. Water heaters, furnaces, and dryers fueled by gas pose risks, too.
Low Income Investment Fund, a national community-development financial organization that is helping the Environment Department implement the program, has recently become acutely aware of how ubiquitous these dangers are. “Most of these child care programs, they’re running their stoves more than half of the day, because they cook for the children,” Katherine Perez, a LIIF program officer who is aiding Zint with electrification, told Canary Media.
To date, the Environment Department has installed five heat-pump water heaters under the program and aims to complete all 30 by the end of the year.
After that, LIIF will incorporate learnings from the pilot to update its existing Child Care Facilities Fund, which can go toward renovations and repairs. The grant program awards up to $100,000 per home child care business, with the requirement of a 20% copay. This funding has come to the aid of providers when their appliances break down, and historically has been used to replace gas equipment with gas equipment.
But the nonprofit has started to encourage participants to replace their broken appliances with electric options across the board.
“We haven’t formalized our policies in regards to electric appliances for homes,” said Kimberly Thai, a LIIF program manager. “But it is our practice to fund appliances that improve indoor air quality.”
About 500 child care programs across San Francisco are eligible for LIIF’s facilities grants.
As part of the electrification pilot, the Environment Department is also providing training to the local workforce. Up to 10 San Francisco contractors will gain experience installing heat-pump water heaters in child care facilities, which require more creative scheduling than typical homes, according to Benny Zank, the department’s building decarbonization coordinator and the lead for the pilot. Those skills will equip them to serve many more homes in the future.
San Francisco will need electrification-savvy contractors to fulfill its public health and climate ambitions. Bay Area air quality regulators are finalizing the details on landmark rules that will phase out the sale of new residential gas water heaters starting in 2027 and gas furnaces in 2029.
In just 14 years, the city plans to achieve net-zero-emissions. As of 2022, buildings still accounted for nearly half of its climate pollution.
For her part, Zint is thrilled with her heat-pump water heater and plans to fully electrify her home, she said, as Zank translated. LIIF is assisting her with that transition, which entails replacing a gas-fired furnace, stove, and clothes dryer, in the coming weeks, Perez said.
The appliances create a safer environment for the children, Zint noted. “Especially, they reduce the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, which is really important when taking care of kids.”
Word of Zint’s electrifying update is spreading. “A bunch of other child care providers have reached out to me,” she said, asking about how they can ditch gas appliances, too.
“We make sure to share all this information with each other,” she added. “We’re a real community who all care about the health and safety of the kids that we take care of.”
.svg)
