Living without heat a chilly reminder
Published 10:43 am Wednesday, December 23, 2009
It’s been more than a week, and I’m still thawing out.
In these last days before Christmas, I need every spare minute for baking and gift-wrapping. Instead, I’ve been putting away sleeping bags and washing Polar fleece clothing.
I’ve had to do some unexpected banking, too. Money I hadn’t intended to touch this year is destined for a whopping credit card payment — more than $3,000. It’s worth it. We’re warm, thank goodness.
Remember that very cold weekend? On Dec. 12, our furnace died.
I had gone for a walk that afternoon. Coming home, I caught a strong whiff of natural gas, that rotten-eggy scent added to the fuel as a warning agent. It was outside, coming from the furnace vent.
Within a half-hour of my worried call, a man came from Puget Sound Energy, the utility that provides natural gas. He checked the furnace and told me bad news. A heat exchanger was shot. He wasn’t sure it could be fixed. Quickly, he shut off gas to the furnace, saying it wasn’t safe.
Outside, the temperature was about 30 degrees. A cold night was coming fast.
A smart mom would have skedaddled to a hotel. Believe me, I tried. I kept saying to my son and a buddy he had invited for the night: “Are you sure you guys don’t want to go to a hotel? It has a pool.”
Nope, they thought a wintry campout of sorts would be great fun. We still had hot water, lights and TV, and the gas oven and range.
We slept in our beds, inside down sleeping bags. Dozing in a snow hat, I must have looked like an illustration for “ ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.” By Sunday morning, I could see my breath in the kitchen. I kept the tea and cocoa coming, mostly so we could hold the cups.
Before a new furnace could be installed on Dec. 14, my boy and I spent one more freezing night in the house. That Sunday, though, we went Christmas shopping, saw a movie and went out for dinner.
Even with the means to leave home and pay for a new furnace the next day, it was all pretty miserable. I now appreciate the luxury of heat, and have new empathy for people without warm homes.
“Think about people who have no utilities,” said Bill Beuscher, Snohomish County’s program manager of energy and weatherization. The county’s Human Services Department administers the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides help with fuel costs.
Because of a delay in this year’s funding, Beuscher said, until recently the program was only helping families in crisis, those with utilities shut off or about to be shut off. Phone lines opened last week to make appointments for others needing help.
“We’re seeing an extremely large increase in people seeking help, in part because of funding delays and due to the economy,” Beuscher said.
Qualifying incomes for the program are a maximum of $1,128 monthly for a single person or $2,297 for a four-person household. Beuscher is glad there are additional utility settlement funds this year, about $500,000 worth. That money will help people with slightly higher incomes. “They should call, we’re happy to look at their situation,” Beuscher said.
Also, the Snohomish County PUD has Project Pride, an assistance program operated by the Red Cross. And Puget Sound Energy has an energy assistance program, plus its Warm Neighbor fund.
In 2008, Beuscher said, the county’s program helped provide heat to 4,554 households. Of those, 918 were senior households, 1,552 households included disabled people, “and there were lots of kids” — 902 children age 2 and younger, Beuscher said.
“Last year was the largest year in the history of the county,” Beuscher said. “This year I expect it to be as large or larger. It has a great positive effect on our community, with so many folks unemployed,” he said. “They could be your neighbors.”
After our chilled-to-the-bone weekend, my heart goes out to them.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Help paying energy bills
The Snohomish County Energy Assistance Program helps low-income people pay heating bills. For qualifying income and other information: 425-388-3880 or http://tinyurl.com/EnergyAssist.
The Snohomish County PUD offers electric bill discounts to qualified low-income customers. The PUD also accepts donations to Project Pride. For more information, go to
