Weatherization effort some relief from cold

By HOLLY RAMER The Associated Press

January 21, 2009 - 12:00 am

Anasa Mpingo's refrigerator thermometer showed 36 degrees - ideal for keeping food cold without wasting electricity. The only problem? The thermometer was outside the refrigerator, not in.

Since a flood forced her out of her Allenstown home two years ago and her contractor walked off the job, Mpingo has spent her days in the unheated house and nights with friends or family. Relentlessly cheerful, she warmly welcomed volunteers from a state weatherization program earlier this month, though it was obvious that nothing in the tool kits they carried would do much to help her current situation.

"I'm grateful for this," she said as the volunteers used a hair dryer to stick foam weather-stripping around sliding glass doors. "I'm making it."

Mpingo's case is extreme - the StayWarm NH program is designed for low-income residents seeking help lowering their heating bills, not those without heat. But it illustrates the wide gap between the need for such services and the available resources.

The state has enough money from the federal government and utilities to fully weatherize 900 homes this winter, and StayWarm NH - a new initiative - aims to reach another 5,300 homes.

Paid for mostly with money raised by auctioning pollution credits, StayWarm expects to fully weatherize 570 homes, plug air leaks in 730, send volunteers to 500 to make small changes such as caulking around drafty windows, and distribute 3,500 do-it-yourself kits.

Even with the new program, the number of homes benefiting doesn't come close to approaching the estimated 16,000 that are eligible, said StayWarm NH director Laura Richardson. But she is encouraged by signs that both the state and federal governments are beginning to focus not just on helping people pay high energy bills but helping them reduce those bills in the first place.

"We have this big bucket that we keep pouring energy dollars into, and that energy just leaks out the bottom," Richardson said. "This program is really designed to help plug that hole."

In his Jan. 8 inaugural address, Gov. John Lynch proposed expanding the StayWarm NH program as part of a new Green Jobs Initiative, putting carpenters, electricians and plumbers to work helping families cut energy costs. Funding would come from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a 10-state cap-and-trade system that began auctioning pollution credits in September.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama has called for weatherizing 1 million homes a year. By comparison, 5.6 million low-income homes have been weatherized with public help in the 30 years since the federal government began sending weatherization funding to states.

"We need this. Our housing stock is not adequate. Some of it is really attractive, but a lot of it does not perform well," Richardson said. "We have the technologies to fix it. We need it to be our priority. And Gov. Lynch and President Obama, they both recognize that there is tremendous energy savings and money savings through this kind of a program."

Andy Gray, weatherization program manager at the state Office of Energy and Planning, also hopes the program will get a boost under Obama, but he'll believe it when he sees it.

"Certainly the talk is going in the right direction. But the Bush administration had talked about doubling our budget over four years, and that never happened. We actually had a 15 percent reduction," he said.

Weatherization, he said, is probably the most cost-effective investment government can make.

"It just makes sense. It's immediate savings to the customer and the public, and it provides jobs," he said.

Though Obama's advisers estimate that 28 million homes nationwide are eligible for weatherization help, reaching 1 million a year would be a significant accomplishment, said Brian Lips, a policy analyst for the North Carolina Solar Center at North Carolina State University. The center tracks state incentives for renewable energy and efficiency.

In New Hampshire, those incentives include programs run by utilities for low-income customers and programs open to all customers. Some pay for home energy audits, others give rebates to customers who weatherize their homes themselves or have energy efficient equipment installed.

Though StayWarm NH is for low-income residents, it has spurred some volunteers to tackle weatherization projects in their own homes, Richardson said.

"When you see somebody else's home from that perspective, it makes you look more critically at your own home," she said.

On Jan. 10, volunteers Anne Saunders and Barbara Bernstein spent about an hour at Mpingo's home before heading to Betty Gagne's home in the Holiday Acres Mobile Home Park. Compared to Mpingo's unheated house, Gagne's mobile home felt toasty, but it was only 59 degrees and Gagne was bundled up in longjohns, pants, sweater and sweatshirt. She wears a bathrobe over her pajamas to bed.

"It's really drafty," said Gagne, 61. "I'll try anything. Anything to save money, I'll try."

The volunteers checked the windows for drafts, installed low-flow faucet fixtures and placed insulation behind electrical outlet covers on exterior walls.

Saunders said she has been impressed by how many homeowners already have taken steps to make their homes more energy efficient. But some homes are major challenges, she said, describing a mobile home with a damaged roof and floors.

"To go in there and put on outlet covers," she said, shaking her head. "We did everything we could, but the whole thing is just not designed for New England."

The volunteers made a difference in Mpingo's case, however. After hearing about her situation, state officials are looking into her claims about her contractor, and her heating system was expected to be reconnected within days. The outcome fits with another of the program's goals: keeping people connected to their communities and other sources of help.

"The goal of StayWarm NH is to plug the holes: plug the holes in the community fabric, and plug the holes in the energy bucket. We are doing that a little bit at a time," Richardson said. "A little bit of a little bit does start to add up."