PERU — Josh Wojcik believes the solution to Maine’s heating crisis is simple: Cut consumption of oil by buttoning up the housing stock.

As proof, Wojcik, owner of Upright Frameworks, a Wilton weatherization company, organized an open house Saturday at the home of Bob and Wilma Hartford of Peru.

The Hartfords, a disabled couple who worked their whole lives yet struggled to afford heating oil, were recently featured in a front-page news story in the New York Times. Oil at the time was averaging $3.80 a gallon.

Within a week of the story being published, more than $200,000 in donations poured into the Hartfords’ oil dealer, Hometown Energy, and its owner Ike Libby of Dixfield.

Wojcik and DeWitt Kimball, owner of Complete Home Evaluation Services of Brunswick, and Grady Littlehale of Dixfield Foam Insulation, learned of the Hartfords’ plight. They went to the house at 38 West Main St. and donated their assistance. Libby paid for the materials from donations.

“When it’s this heart-wrenching, when they’re in dire straits like they were, you just do it,” Wojcik said.

Following their energy audit, the house was buttoned up, cutting the Hartfords’ oil consumption in half permanently.

Wojcik said the energy audit probably would have cost about $400, and another $6,500 to button up the house.

“Their oil bill this last year would have been about $3,600, and we’ve cut that in half, which means the payback is three or four years, at most,” Wojcik said.

Hoping to leverage the project toward the redirection of money at state and federal levels to weatherize Maine’s aging housing stock, Wojcik invited legislators and Gov. Paul LePage to attend Saturday’s educational endeavor.

“If this benefits one other person, it’s worth it,” Bob Hartford said. “We want to see other people get help. That’s what it’s all about.”

LePage is vacationing in Jamaica and was unavailable, but state Reps. Sheryl Briggs, D-Mexico, Stacey Fitts, R-Pittsfield, Paul Gilbert, D-Jay, and Diane Russell, D-Portland, participated.

They toured the basement and living room as Kimball used a thermal-imaging camera to reveal efficiencies.

Briggs began by recapping everything since the New York Times article placed the Hartfords, Hometown Energy and Libby in the national spotlight.

“Today, we have the distinction of celebrating a very happy ending to a story that captured the heartstrings of America all across the country,” Briggs said.

She said the Hartfords’ monthly income of $1,350 couldn’t support the $500 needed for heating oil. Likewise, Libby struggled to keep his business going when customers couldn’t pay.

Libby said substantial cuts in the past few years to the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program “have really put a bind on homeowners’ budgets” and hurt small oil companies.

“Everybody thinks prices are high and oil companies are making all kinds of money,” he said. “All I can tell you on the delivery side is, that is not true.”

He emphasized the need for government and homeowners to make homes efficient.

“For a few thousand bucks, if you can cut that oil bill in half, the payback is three to four years, and as a stupid oil man, I never had really looked at it that way,” Libby said. “If we can cut consumption, we’re all going to win.”

Fitts, who chairs the Legislature’s Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee, shared his insight but didn’t offer a solution.

He said Maine has various programs to help, but they skirt the issue, unlike taking a laser approach and directly fixing the problem.

Fitts said his take on the New York Times article was, “Finally, somebody has heard us.”

“It expresses exactly what the problem is — that if we keep putting oil in tanks and don’t redirect some of those dollars that are right now being spent simply to put oil in the tanks, we’re missing huge opportunities in the long run,” he said.

Kimball said the key part is determining the real problem, and then generating an energy model to determine how best to fix it.

“If a house isn’t sealed up properly, they’re just heating the outside more efficiently,” he said. “Seagulls like it, because they’ll sit on your roof and warm their feet.”

After checking the newly weatherized Hartford house, Kimball said it was 60 percent tighter and still had adequate ventilation.

“So the money that would have gone into a boiler ended up going into the insulation,” he said. “So instead of just pumping out more heat, the heat’s contained.”

Money saved on houses made energy-efficient — about $5 million per year — goes directly into the local economy, Kimball said.

Drilling for more oil and pouring more into tanks isn’t the solution.

“Cut down what you need and that will cut down the prices, as well,” he said.

Rep. Briggs noted that the weather has been unseasonably warm, “but it is now that we must begin weatherizing homes in preparation for next winter.”

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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