“I think that what they are doing is great because without them I couldn’t afford to get this stuff and have it put it up,” Chasity Cornett said of the work that was being done by a maintenance crew from LKLP last Thursday to make her home ready for the winter weather.

Cornett and her two sons have been without heat since last winter because their heat pump went out. She says she couldn’t afford to buy a new one, but the help LKLP Community Action provided in weatherizing her home has been priceless to her because it will make her home, a home she inherited from her parents, more energy efficient by keeping more heat in when she does get a new heat pump.

The weatherization process includes a pre-inspection were the heat system is addressed and the air leakages are discovered by setting up a blower door that shows all the locations where air is infiltrating the home. Then the crews come in and do the work.

They do everything from replacing floors, blowing insulation into the roof, and putting ground cover under the floor of the home to caulking, replacing windows, installing window kits, low flow shower heads, compact fluorescent bulbs, and smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors,  said Annie Thompson, Housing Weatherization Director with LKLP Community Action.

Cornett said she knew the heat pump was going out because her electric bill kept going up last year, so when the weather became warm she turned it off and didn’t attempt to turn the air conditioner on until the “90 degree heat spell” came in the summer, and all it would do was give off hot air.

“That’s when I first contacted LKLP because I knew they gave away air conditioners one year, but we made due with fans,” she said, and until they get a new heat pump they are using a portable heater in her bedroom.

Based on funding, an average of about 150 homes are weatherized during a fiscal year, which runs from July until June, Thompson said while adding that the funding they will receive from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, also known as LIHEAP, will be a great help.

“It will be a great help, especially if they will increase the amount we can spend on health and safety which is energy assistance,” she said.

The work LKLP was able to do to Cornett’s home was more than she ever thought about doing or could have ever afforded and she says that makes her thankful.

“I was very thankful that they would come out here and do all this. I couldn’t afford anything like that. The most I’ve ever done is put blankets over the window,” she said. “I’m blessed and fortunate and I don’t take anything like this for granted. I’m so thankful.”

To submit an application to have your home weatherized contact your local LKLP Community Action office.