When we study a building, as building scientists who specialize in reducing heat loss in buildings, we don’t notice messy rooms or even the decor around us. Buildings are complicated systems and to sort through myriad factors involved in such complicated systems, we need to stay focused and often work with “blinders” on our eyes.

The front page article in the Feb. 4 edition of The New York Times about the Hartfords in Peru, Maine, knocked those “blinders” clear off of our heads. The article was not just interesting, it was a heart-wrenching story about a desperate situation and impossible choices. And the source of the problem was something we could fix.

We had no choice but to offer our help.

We quickly learned that donations were flooding in to Home Town Energy (the Times article described how Ike Libby, co-owner of Home Town Energy, had repeatedly filled the Hartfords’ tank free of charge), but we also knew that our help could magnify the impact of those donations. Our help could literally prevent the need for future donations.

We tracked down the Hartfords and Ike Libby and started our work.

Complete Home Evaluation Services did an energy audit, which assessed all sources of heat loss and quantified the relative values of the potential solutions.

Upright Frameworks developed the action plan and (with the help of Dixfield Foam), corrected the thermal barriers in the attic and basement. The test-out inspection revealed that the heat loss due to air-leakage was reduced by more than 60 percent. When you combine that with the conductive strength of the new insulation in the building, the energy model projected that the heating load dropped by more than 50 percent.

And we did this all for the cost of a new heating system, which would have reduced their heating load by 10 percent.

Had we donated cash at the value of our services, we could have provided the Hartfords with heat for about two years. By properly buttoning up their home, we released them from oil poverty.

The story of the Hartfords has a happy ending. Their home is no longer drafty and cold. The building holds heat so well, that the thermostat rarely “calls” the heating system.

The donations received by Home Town Energy have made their way to a not-for-profit fund and will be used to help many others. Ike, the “oil man,” had his eyes opened by our efforts and is now convinced that the solution to Maine’s soaring heating costs lies in energy efficiency.

But the reality is that the Hartfords are one household of many.

The donations Ike Libby received are a drop in the bucket in the face of a massive problem. Thousands of Mainers cannot afford heat today and a crisis is looming.

Our population is aging. The elderly cannot chop and haul wood. As people age, they need more heat to feel comfortable. The cost of crude oil is high and history has proven that the cost of heating fuel will continue to climb.

Maine’s building stock is old and most of it leaks heat like a sieve. The problems we fixed at the Hartfords’ house (unintended air-leakage and inadequate insulation levels) are present in the vast majority of homes in our state.

Wasted residential heat drains more than $450 million from the economy every year. Imagine what Maine would be like if those dollars were percolating through our economy instead of being used to heat the great outdoors.

The governor recently submitted a bill to the Legislature that is supposed to give Mainers good options for reducing their rising heating costs. Unfortunately, his bill is simply a power grab that impairs the state’s efforts to promote energy efficiency.

It is not clear why the governor and his advisers are so opposed to buttoning up Maine’s homes and businesses, but their track record on this issue is pretty clear.

The Hartfords, on the other hand, were so moved by their experience that they personally invited the governor and the state lawmakers to their home yesterday (March 24) to hear their story and to advance a dialogue that is long overdue.

The governor declined their invitation because he’s on vacation.

Let us pray for the sake of Maine’s future that some real leadership on this issue emerges from the Legislature.

Joshua Wojcik of Perkins Township is the founder of Upright Frameworks. DeWitt Kimball lives in Brunswick.