In his guest column Jan. 30 [“All-electric rule: Costlier homes, worse efficiency”], David Murphy poses several objections to Northampton’s fossil fuel-free construction ordinance. In fact, all of the points that he makes in the column were made by him or by other members of the public at both the Jan. 16 City Council meeting and at the Legislative Matters Committee meeting on Jan. 6.

The reason the bill sponsors and support staff were revising the ordinance up until the last minute was to carefully write the exceptions and waivers that address all the legitimate issues that he and many others raised, while keeping to the deadline imposed by the state.

The column opens with a claim that “you may not be able to keep your gas furnace.” This is simply untrue. The ordinance explicitly states that replacement of one fossil fuel appliance with another of the same capacity is always allowed. No one is coming for your furnace, and if it breaks, you can just replace it.

Mr. Murphy correctly focuses his real concern on major renovations and additions, as did most of the comments from other members of the public, including professional architects, builders, and representatives of Smith College. This is why Councilors Alex Jarrett and Rachel Maiore, along with the Building Commissioner Kevin Ross, spent so much time carefully writing exceptions.

First, in many cases the “big old Victorian” is already exempted from the requirements of the building stretch code due to the historical fabric exception. Further, the next iteration of the stretch code will relax the HERS rating required for major renovations, in recognition of the issue Mr. Murphy rightly raises. Neither issue is affected by the ordinance, as both are adopted at the state level.

Finally, the ordinance has an exception that allows existing or same-capacity fossil-fueled equipment to heat any addition or renovation if it has the capacity. In most cases, boilers and furnaces are so oversized, they will have no trouble heating a new energy-efficient addition. Besides, most people want to add cooling, and a great way to heat and cool is with an electric heat pump. A “major renovation” either affects more than half of the existing floor area or is an addition that doubles the floor area, so most alterations and additions will not be affected.

While the ordinance addresses Mr. Murphy’s legitimate concerns, his next concern is based on a misunderstanding of the relevant technologies. He points out that the electric grid uses natural gas in power plants to deliver electricity at 60% efficiency, while his furnace burns natural gas to deliver heat at 90% efficiency. He asks, “am I missing something?”

His analysis assumes that electric homes will deliver heat through electric resistance at 100% efficiency. This is the “something” that he was missing. They will use heat pumps, which use electricity to mechanically move heat from outside to inside the house at a seasonal average of about 320% efficiency. Using the column’s assumptions, but accounting for heat pump efficiency, the electric heating system uses natural gas at the power plant to deliver heat at 198% efficiency.

Of course, as the New England electric grid adds wind and solar power, as well as transmission capacity from hydropower, it will emit less and less carbon. Using today’s grid, the heat pump will be responsible for 68% less carbon emissions than a gas-fired furnace to provide the same amount of heat.

Finally, the column claims that the process was not transparent and that his commentary was limited to two minutes. His commentary on Jan. 6 ran for nearly five minutes, and he separately shared a study with the entire City Council. However, if one is concerned about process, one should look to the results. In this case, every one of the objections and concerns raised in the column was addressed in the final version of the ordinance.

The ordinance was written to balance the needs of current building owners and builders with those of people who will use those buildings next. This law enables building owners to make the economically most rational decision for themselves without locking the next owner into obligatory fossil fuel dependence even as it may become increasingly burdensome. As more people leave fossil fuel systems, the cost to maintain them will fall on those who remain dependent on them.

Northampton is skating to where the puck is going.

Benjamin Weil is Northampton’s director of Climate Action and Project Administration, but he wrote this response on his own time and speaks only for himself as a Northampton resident.