Hefty utility price hikes have many people fretting about paying the bills. But not Dan Cartier, of Richmond, whose fuel-saver home costs him as little as $8 a month for electricity.

01:37 AM EDT on Thursday, October 13, 2005

BY KAREN LEE ZINER
Journal Staff Writer

Dan Cartier is sitting pretty right now in his solar-powered, super-insulated, wood-heated home in Richmond.

He's not at all worried about his winter heating bills.

"My annual fossil fuel costs -- I buy about $200 worth of propane and $200 of electric," says Cartier, a 44-year-old mechanical engineer who specializes in energy use. For the past two months, his electric bills have been $8.

"I have solar electric panels, and solar hot water panels and a wood stove and a wood-pellet stove. My goal is to be fossil-fuel free.".

But Cartier is the exception. Most Americans heat their homes with oil or natural gas. Those costs are zooming: gas is expected to increase from 46 percent to 71 percent in some parts of the country, and oil at least 31 percent, according to recent Department of Energy estimates. That has people worried.

Karen Dubon, who lives in Providence, is one example.

Dubon has cancer, and as such, has endured four surgeries, numerous hospitalizations, and chemotherapy. She depends on SSI payments, and this past winter fell nearly $1,000 behind on her utility bills.

In August -- on the day she returned to her Providence apartment after her most recent hospital stay -- the utility companies threatened to shut her off.

Dubon, 48, is awaiting a decision from the Division of Public Utilities, after an informal hearing during which she presented a doctor's letter that said shutting off her hot water could imperil her health.

Journal photo / Connie Grosch

Dan Cartier, of Richmond, a mechanical engineer, uses solar hot water, solar electricity and a wood stove for heating. He uses propane for a clothes dryer, but his goal is to be fossill-fuel free.

But even with a favorable outcome, Dubon worries that with huge spikes in energy costs this winter, she simply won't make it.

"I can't survive. I have no family to turn to for help. It's a really bad situation," she says. "Half of the time, I can't afford to buy food or bathroom stuff. I can't even make the bills meet."

Dubon says she's reluctant to part with one of the few possessions of value in her apartment: a sizable TV. She says it's her only companion. "All I do is watch TV," she says.

"CERTAINLY GIVEN the numbers we're looking at, there are serious concerns, obviously, both in terms of regulated utilities [such as] natural gas and electric and nonregulated such as oil," says Thomas Kogut, spokesman for the state's Division of Public Utilities.

"There are some very difficult economic choices a lot of households are going to make," Kogut said.

Dubon is one of thousands of so-called "protected customers" who defaulted on their payment plan this summer, said James Lanni, associate administrator for operations and consumer affairs in the Division of Public Utilities.

Protected customers include low-income or unemployed people, recipients of LIHEAP (the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) and people with a disabled person in the household.

Since Rhode Island has a shutoff moratorium from Nov. 1 through April 15, "summer is the only time they can be shut off," Lanni said. The termination rules have been in existence since 1985.

A protected customer who falls behind "is subject to 25 percent of the balance and must make a payment agreement for the residual amount -- a 12-month payment plan. If they were standard customers, it would be 60 percent and a six-month payment plan," Lanni said.

In Dubon's case, "she defaulted on the payment plan, and so she's subject to shutoff. And since she hasn't been making payments, she's required to make a down payment and reestablish a new payment plan," Lanni said.

The guidelines allow for leniency "if we think there are special circumstances," Lanni said. Oftentimes, that is someone with a health issue. If people have been making partial payments, that is taken into consideration.

Lanni said the rules have been relaxed within the past four weeks in view of the current energy crisis. Both the electric and gas utilities have concurred "that they would take 20 percent down and a 24-month payment plan."

"We all have sympathy and empathy, particularly with people with children, but we are placed with statutory responsibilities. People do have to pay their utility bills. That's what we have before us," Lanni said.

In Cumberland, Robert and Kimberly Sholz are also worried that their heating bills might sink them.

Two years ago, Robert Sholz lost his $22-an-hour trucking job, which used to support the couple and their four children. He now earns half as much working at a furniture warehouse. Kimberly Sholz, previously a stay-at-home mom, has taken a part-time cashier job that brings home about $80 a week.

The couple are due in court today for nonpayment of rent. They are behind on their bills. Their credit rating is shot, and they are operating on a cash-only basis. They recently turned to a food pantry for help.

The Sholzes say their heating bills averaged $200 a month last winter in their Section 8 apartment. The wind whistles through the windows and doors, they say, and they are exploring options for getting assistance with winterizing their apartment, such as the use of weather stripping.

"I'm figuring if it was $200 last year, it will probably be $300 a month this year," Kimberly Sholz says. "We keep it between 65 and 68 [degrees]. We make sure the kids have on sweatshirts."

She adds, "There are a lot of families like us who are just barely making it. . . . We aren't living lavishly. We just can't do it."

Mindful of the soaring energy costs, Governor Carcieri has asked the General Assembly to appropriate $3.7 million of the electricity and natural gas gross-earnings tax to help elderly and disabled people with their heating bills. The Rhode Island State Council of Churches has endorsed his request.

"The governor's office has reached out to both the Senate president and the House speaker to try to set up a meeting" to discuss those proposals, Carcieri's spokesman, Jeff Neal, said. No date has yet been set.

Carcieri also recently testified before the Public Utilities Commission against Narragansett Electric's request for a 24-percent rate increase.

So what does it take to avoid high heating costs?

Cartier, the mechanical engineer from Richmond, who is director of buildings and grounds for the Chariho Regional School District, saw the writing on the wall.

In 1993, he took out a $143,000 mortgage, and built his two-story home. He did much of the work himself. The house (2,000 square feet of finished space, 1,000 of unfinished space) has more than doubled in value.

The construction took advantage of southern exposure for passive solar heat. The outside walls are 10 1/2-inches thick; the basement is fully insulated. ("I can go out and leave the heat off, and the pipes won't freeze.")

Cartier installed high-efficiency fluorescent lighting and the highest rated windows he could afford, and bought a "relatively efficient" refrigerator.

The wood-pellet stove "is really nice. It's automatic. You fill the hopper with pellets and forget about it for two days." He lives on a wooded lot, which provides "all the free wood I can consume."

Cartier says he's been preaching and practicing sustainability -- that is, the idea of making lifestyle choices that help sustain the environment -- for years, but not enough people have listened. Until now.

He believes this country "is basically 20 years behind the world in addressing our energy issues. Our current administration has no long-term plans in place -- they have no idea what they're doing."

Cartier advocates a diversified supply of energy. Wind power. Hydro-electric, where appropriate. Solar power for hot water and electricity.

"It didn't take much forward-thinking to see this coming. The fuel shortages we're seeing now is stuff that's been predicted since the '70s," Cartier says.

Energy use fluctuates, and the economy hits peaks and valleys, "but basically the planet is only so big. There's only so much oil in the ground, and we pull it out at a certain rate. When it's gone, it's gone."

Karen Lee Ziner can be reached at 277-7375, or kziner [at] projo.com

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