HEAT

January 2009

Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The LIHEAP program helps low income families pay heating or cooling costs with a once-a-year benefit. The benefit can be used to help pay gas; electric; or bulk fuels, such as propane, firewood or wood pellet bills. This year’s average benefit per family is $309. A family of three earning up to $26,400 can qualify for this program. There are 65,960 families participating in this program. (From a New Mexico Human Services publication entitled "Human Services Department is Prepared to Help New Mexicans During Difficult Economic Times."

For about $2000 a homeowner can dramatically reduce their heating bills by installing a solar-powered heat collector on their roof or the south side of their dwelling. The annual savings would likely be more than a LIHEAP allocation (50-75% of fuel costs, more in sunny locations). This would be a great starting place to use solar power in your home if you live in a state where there are sunny days in winter. Obama’s Recovery program SHOULD get behind this.

My HOT PROPOSAL is that homeowners on fixed limited incomes, perhaps not quite a low as LIHEAP demands, should be allocated very low interest loans to install these charming recirculating air collectors on their homes. I have it on good authority that with these air collectors on your roof or a south-facing wall you won’t need other heat from 9 am til perhaps 7pm in a home that is properly insulated, and that the technology is simple and low to no maintenance. These collectors don’t even need power to help circulate the air, a small solar panel is all that is needed to run a fan. They even provide heat when there is a power outage as long as there is partial sun on the panel.

In New Mexico, where the percentage of "poor" folks who own their own homes is higher than many states (48% of "poor children" live in owner occupied housing in New Mexico, as opposed to 34% in Maryland) , this proposal is particularly relevant, especially since earned income figures are much lower in this state than the national average.

A contractor I interviewed recently to get quotes on a number of minor renovations for my home testified that his home, where the previous homeowner had spent substantial money on solar devices, has these “air-to-air” heat collectors. The other systems, water heating solar devices, have been abandoned because of leakage. But the air-to-air devices work like a charm. He says he pays $140 per year to heat a 2000+ square foot home. This really prompted my interest!

People on fixed incomes, as huge proportion of our population will be with the “retirement” of the baby boomers, need to utilize every option to reduce fixed expenses. If we were given encouragement, and tax rebates won’t do it because we have so little taxable income in the first place, we would be the pioneers in adopting solar power in our homes. A fundamental truth about technological innovation is that the MORE folks who get on board, the more bang for the buck. We have all watched the declining price of personal computers.

The benefits of moving away from everyday use of our scarce non-replenishable natural resources, and particularly petroleum and coal combustion with its nefarious impact on our environment (natural, social and political), are so vast as to be incalculable. This piece of the puzzle is virtually “shovel ready.” Let’s provide the means to implement it now!!!

Let’s also enact legislative changes to all federal, city and state subsidies towards the construction of new housing to ensure that effective and economical solar heat collectors are part of the development package. This proposal we might want to enforce a few years out from the loans I mention above. We need to allow time for the manufacturing segment to catch up, because to date there are only a handful of companies manufacturing these devices and the larger population doesn’t even have a clue that this alternative exists.

If you are among them, I urge you to visit this website. After much research it’s the most informative site I’ve found. http://home.att.net/~cleardomesolar/BISFAheatingpanels.html

I encourage my readers to forward this blog to their local and federal legislators. Let’s stop throwing good money after bad by our expenditures on LIHEAP. Let’s move on to a more rational use of our resources. And, let’s STAY WARM!