PERU — Veteran Roberts Tibbetts said that one of the best things about his new energy-efficient home is that he won’t have to cut down wood for heating anymore.

Tibbetts and his wife, Barbara, moved into their new home at the beginning of December.

Cutting wood “was becoming almost impossible with my back,” he said. 

The ranch-style home, which was built this year, is Community Concepts’ “near-zero” or “ultra-low” energy-efficient home. The Tibbetts’ prior home nearby was a 1950-era mobile home in poor condition, costing between $2,500 and $5,000 per year to heat.

“I’m loving it,” Tibbetts said. “You don’t even notice (the cold) — it’s beautiful in here. In the old place, the heat was going right out the walls, windows and roof. I think it should be a major savings.”

“This project is a little different for us,” said Community Concepts Director of Housing and Improvement Services Sandy Albert. “This is the first one that we’ve done like this. We do a lot of new construction with our self-help (building) program, but (this house) is a near-zero, energy-efficient program,” meaning that the building’s energy consumption will be far below average.

Albert estimates that the Tibbetts will pay less than $1,200 per year on all utilities, including heat, summer cooling, hot water and electricity. Community Concepts plans to track the home’s utility costs for a year, to see just how energy-efficient the home really is.

Mike Sampson, manager of Community Concepts’ Self-Help Housing, oversaw the building project and said that the Mitsubishi heat pump located inside the home will do the heating and cooling, as well as filter and remove moisture from the air.

“Actually, that’s the only heat source, with just some electric (heat) that’s backup for just the bedrooms, but they shouldn’t really have to use it,” he said.

The heat pump technology will cool in the summer and he won’t need to install air conditioning, he said.

The house is 1,232 square feet with one bathroom, two bedrooms, a kitchen and living room, as well as five closets.

“This is the exact same as our self-help homes,” Sampson said. “We just took it down a bedroom and made things bigger, and really tried to give him some storage because there’s no basement here.”

The main features that make the home so energy efficient are the energy-efficient windows and a double-wall construction with layers of insulation in between the walls and the heating pump, Sampson said.

LED lighting was used throughout the house.

“They are more expensive, but they should last years and years,” he said.

The stove and the refrigerator, also part of the package, are energy-efficient models.

Albert said that the Tibbetts family’s need for an energy-efficient home would not have been discovered if Community Concepts’ employees had not come to the Tibbetts’ mobile home to do some weatherization work for the family.

She encourages anyone with the need for low-income housing or repairs to their existing homes to call Community Concepts.

“They may have to wait a little while,” but they will eventually get help, she said.

Community Concepts is a nonprofit organization supporting residents in Androscoggin, Oxford and Franklin counties. This project was funded by the Maine State Housing Authority, the Department of Economic and Community Development, and NeighborWorks America.

You can call Community Concepts at 800-866-5588, find it on Facebook or visit its website at community-concepts.org.

mhutchinson@sunmediagroup.net

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