Ben Jealous (NAACP) wants your stories on how the economic crisis has affected you/loved ones

[catrose]

2. It sounds high

But with a very leaky house and central air, one very hot or very cold day would send my electric bill over $500 for that month. It was a rent house, of course. The landlord didn't care. So I built an energy-efficient house out of SIPS and my bill never goes over $200, no matter what the weather--probably not an option for this lady.

When I worked the Red Cross Disaster Team in Massachusetts, one of the most frequent causes of fire was "creative heating methods" (like a wood-burning stove) in old, leaky buildings.

Since we believe in global warming here, I can say that many places experience abnormally hot, cold, wet, and dry weather, and the buildings were not built to handle constantly extreme conditions.