Winter’s Coming – Prepare to Have Lower Bills

Man, I am digging the mid-70's in  August.  It may not get all that hot again but one thing is for sure it will get colder because Winter is coming!  Kentucky has a special program that helps lower income families winterize their home and save money.Community Action Kentucky provides weatherization help to low-income families across the state. Wallace Rose, its weatherization director for five northeast Kentucky counties, said weatherizing your home can actually lower your utility bill year round.

"The main thing we're going to look for in weatherization is the home's insulation needs and also looking at air infiltration," he said. "It will make the home certainly warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer."

Rose said workers do a lot of things to weatherize a home, from caulking and sealing windows, walls and foundations to insulating attics, floors and sidewalls. It's all based on an energy audit of the home.

"Everything has to have a savings-to-investment ratio," he said. "In other words, it has to be able to pay for itself in a 15- to 20-year period of time in terms of energy savings."

Rose stressed that Community Action Kentucky's weatherization program is an energy-conservation program, not a home-repair program.

Rosetta Halsey, who had her home in Menifee County weatherized, said it made "all the difference in the world."

"Absolutely, and they caught things that I never dreamed were causing the problem," she said. "One thing was my furnace."

The weatherization team discovered that her heating element was not working, Halsey said, causing the furnace to kick on more than needed. She said her heating bill has dropped by at least 20 percent.

There's normally a six-month wait to get on the weatherization list, Rose said, but in his five-county Gateway region there's no wait right now.

If you know anyone in the applicable region, have them apply for the program by contacting Community Action Kentucky at 800-456-3452.

Portions of this article courtesy of Kentucky News Connection.